News Briefs

💰️ October Was the Second-Biggest Month in Hobby History

⚾ Taking a Baseball Card Trip Through Joe Morgan’s Career

🏈 Vintage Cards for Minnesota’s “Purple People Eaters”

🏀 Some Notable 1957-58 Topps Basketball Set Collectors

⚾ Unique 1968 Topps 3-D Baseball Cards From a Former Topps Executive

Auction Highlights

Recently Sold:

🏈 A 1933 Sport Kings Jim Thorpe #6 PSA 1 sold for $3,173 (Collect Auctions), 38% higher than the most recent PSA 1 sale in early October, a Best Offer on eBay (per Card Ladder)

⚾ A 1909 T206 Ty Cobb Polar Bear (Bat Off Shoulder) #98 PSA 1 MK went for $2,196, down more than $1,300 from the previous PSA 1 sale (without the MK designation, per Vintage Card Prices)

🏀 The 1980-81 Topps Scoring Leader Bird/Erving/Magic Triple Auto PSA 6 (PSA/DNA 10) came in at $13,908 (last September, a triple auto PSA 9 sold for $173,389)

Vintage HOF Rookie Card: Gary Carter

Arguably the best catcher of the 1980s (at least my friend Ken and I thought so), “The Kid” took a surprisingly long time to get into the Hall of Fame, more than a decade after his final MLB game.

Gary Carter - C/RF

HOF Induction in 2003 - Named on 387 out of 496 ballots (78%)

Standout Stats:

• 11-time All-Star, including 10 consecutive

• Two-time All-Star MVP (one of five all-time to be named twice)

• 5-time Silver Slugger (fourth all-time for a catcher)

• 307 career home runs as a catcher (per StatMuse - seventh all-time)

• Career WAR - 70.1

Instead of listing prices for the highest grades, I thought collector grade (i.e., a 7 in the ‘70s, 6 in the ‘60s, etc.) would be more valuable information.

Interestingly, only one of the 10 purchases was via auction (the most recent one), with the rest being either Buy It Now or Best Offer, and the average price came out to be a smidge over $70.

Hobby Thoughts: Collector Grade Affordability

For certain cards I want to buy for my personal collection (read: expensive cards), I tend to buy “collector grade” cards. As mentioned above, collector grade is based on the decade - a 7 grade for the 1970s, a 6 for the 1960s, and so on.

That definition is based on what other collectors I’ve read/watched have said, and it’s by no means equivalent across all cards (see: 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle in a PSA 5).

This admittedly doesn’t address eye appeal, because by no means are all cards with the same grade equal, but that discussion can wait for a future article.

I personally seek out collector grade cards because, along with the lower cost, I think I’m still getting quality cards - and I do take eye appeal into account. But I’m forced to wonder: are collector grade cards really that affordable?

This is clearly a very personal question, as everyone has their own definition of “affordable,” based on how they collect and their hobby budget. For instance, some prefer raw cards instead of graded, so collector grade isn’t a consideration. And some prefer SGC or Beckett instead of PSA, which may provide some savings.

That said, since the majority of people who grade sports cards do so with PSA, and it’s a bit easier to get accurate prices for graded cards, I’ll look at PSA graded cards.

To start, I’ll focus on baseball Hall of Fame rookie cards from the 1970s. Because of the type of cards being considered and the decade, I’ll define “affordable” as $100 or less (with each price based on the average of the last three sales).

Before tabulating, my guess is that more than 50% of the cards fall into the “affordable” category.

And now we leap forward in time to the results (data via Vintage Card Prices):

Indeed, 11 fall below $100, while seven land above. Interestingly, though, the average for all 18 cards comes out to $132.03 each, pulled up by the Brett and Schmidt rookies.

Did the results surprise you?