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I’m sad to report I didn’t attend the West Coast Card Show or Fanatics Fest (or, for that matter, the Dallas Card Show), and won’t attend the upcoming National. If you were at any of the shows last weekend, let everyone know how they went for you.

Comment

I’m also reading (including one of the articles below) and hearing about how nutty the hobby is these days from a price perspective, so I’m curious if that was the case for people who attended the various shows.

As an example, I set up at a show this weekend and had the fascinating experience of a guy who wanted to sell me some cards quoting me prices at 2-4X comps and they weren’t even Shohei Ohtani cards, so I kindly rejected his offer and wondered if he was able to eventually find a willing buyer. I think I know the answer.

That said, I did have some nice pickups to help with my 1970s Topps baseball set run pursuits, including:

I’m admittedly not a stickler for condition. I just love getting closer to finishing the sets and, of course, the fun of the chase.

In this issue you'll find:

Auction highlights
News in the hobby
Randy White’s rookie card and player profile
Tracking 1950s baseball GOATs player-run prices
ICYMI

Let’s get into it.

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Auction Highlights

In order of closing date:

Elite Collectibles (ending on July 28)

Goldin Weekly Auction (ending on July 30)

Fanatics Weekly Auction (ending on August 2)

Other active auctions:

Sterling Sports Auctions (ends on August 6)

Love of the Game Summer Premier Auction (ends on August 8)

The Collector Connection Post War Sports Cards & Memorabilia (ends on August 9)

Hunt Auctions August Internet Auction (ends on August 12)

Heritage Auctions Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction (ends on August 21-23)

Wheatland Auction August 2026 Sports Cards & Memorabilia Auction (ends on August 23)

News Briefs

💰 eBay Sports Card Sales Cross $1 Billion in a First Half for the First Time

💰 Collectors Buying Best of the Best, Sending Card Prices and Values Soaring Heading Into the National

⚾ 1940s and 50s Cards Recall “Baseball’s Hard Luck Man”

🏛️ Why Some Sports Cards Become Pieces of History

⚾ How Rubber Bands, Bike Spokes and Clothespins Helped Shape Today’s Population Reports

⚾ Topps Still Synonymous With Baseball, National Pastime as Longtime Card Maker Celebrates 75th Anniversary

Vintage HOF Rookie Card: Randy White

Throughout his impressive career, he was teammates with six other longtime Dallas Cowboys who were also inducted into the Hall of Fame: Tony Dorsett, Cliff Harris, Drew Pearson, Mel Renfro, Roger Staubach and Rayfield Wright, along with being coached by fellow Hall-of-Famer Tom Landry.

Randy Whte - DT/LB/DE

HOF Induction in 1994

Standout Stats:

9-time Pro-Bowler, all consecutively
8-time All-Pro (seven first-team, one second-team)
Finished in the top five in voting for Defensive Player of the Year six times
111 career sacks (within the top 15 all-time at the time of his retirement)
Career AV (Approximate Value) - 150

1976 Topps #158

Grade	PSA Pop Count	SGC Pop Count	BVG Pop Count
10	39	2	0
9	301	17	12
8	740	51	46
7	425	74	46

As you can see, the sales prices are a bit all over the place, with the average price coming in at $47.69.

Hobby Thoughts: Tracking the Prices of 1950s GOAT Player Runs

Takeaway: While Mickey Mantle cards consistently show gains, Hank Aaron’s cards not only did pretty well, but also showed surprising strength in the number of sales.

I tend to focus on HOF rookie cards in this newsletter, since those are what a lot of people seek out, but I also know people like to do player runs, i.e., every card of a certain player. In fact, I’m currently at the tail-end of my Al Kaline playing-day pursuit.

Since a lot of people go after the GOATs, I wanted to see how some of those cards have done, price-wise, in the last couple of years. When it comes to baseball in the 1950s, three players came immediately to mind - Mantle, Mays and Aaron. Don’t worry, I didn’t forget other legends like Clemente and Koufax, but I also think it’s important to be efficient with the newsletter.

My assumption: Mantle would lead the pack, the current prices of Mays might suffer compared to two years ago (due to his passing a little over two years ago), and Aaron would do relatively well but nothing spectacular.

Methodology:

I used Card Ladder, with a date range from 7/24/24 to 7/24/26, and tracked collector grade cards (PSA 5 for the 1950s, PSA 6 for the 1960s) for the first ten of each of their base cards
With Mays and Aaron, I favored Topps cards over Bowman cards in the years each of them had cards in both sets
Percentages were determined from the difference between the earliest sale within the date range and the most recent sale

Some notes:

As expected, Mantle cards did well, with an average percentage gain of 94% (the difference between all first and most recent sales together added) or 80% (from the average of each card’s percentage gain)
What surprised me was that the smallest gain (20%) came from Mantle’s rookie card, which is especially jarring compared to the much more expensive 1952 Topps, which went up nearly 120% in value
Also as expected, Mays cards generally didn’t do as well (an average percentage gain of either 18% or 27%), as his cards’ prices likely enjoyed a bump following his passing
Regarding the glaring exception of the large gain for the 1957 Topps Mays, as happens with vintage cards, things such as eye appeal and PSA slab version can swing values somewhat wildly. For instance, the two PSA 5 sale prior to the most recent one came in at “only” 73% and 45% higher, respectively, than the initial sale in this two-year period, instead of the 174% that the most recent sale rose
The Aaron cards showed some nice gains as well, with either a 71% average percentage gain (largely driven by the large bump of his expensive rookie card) or a 35% gain
Aaron’s rookie card in a PSA 5 is gaining ground with the Mays rookie, going from 40% of the value to 65%, even with Aaron’s card having more than twice the pop count (743 to 316)
The biggest surprise came with the total number of sales across all ten cards for each player, as Aaron’s cards had 915 total sales, Mantle’s had 867 and Mays’ had 760

Here are the three players’ cards as compared to one another (and for those with vision like me, Mantle is in red, Mays in blue, and Aaron in purple).