It may be hard to imagine now if you weren’t involved with the hobby at the time, but 1989 Pro Set football cards were a historic issue.
Prior to that time, Topps had been the only gridiron game in town (unless you count the team-action Fleer issues) for nearly a quarter century, and football made up a tiny portion of overall hobby revenue.
Pro Set founder Lud Denny had big ideas, though, and he brought slick card production to bear along with even slicker marketing that helped catapult the FB card boom in the early 1990s.
And while none of the 1989 sets — Topps, Pro Set, fellow newcomer Score– are scarce, they all represent a unique moment in hobby history.
With that in mind, here are the most valuable 1989 Pro Set football cards, based on recent eBay sales for cards in PSA 10 condition.
1989 Pro Set Barry Sanders Rookie Card (#494)
Was Barry Sanders the greatest running back of all time?
The raw counting stats say that honor belongs to Emmitt Smith, and old-timers will tell you it’s Jim Brown, hands down.
But the 1988 Heisman Trophy winner played for some not-great Lions teams and still managed to win four rushing titles and pull within about a season’s worth of work behind Walter Payton‘s (then) yardage record before abruptly retiring at 30.
The “what if” surrounding Barry has intrigued collectors for two decades, and his Pro Set rookie card is the first-stringer here, pushing triple digits in perfect graded condition. It is undoubtedly the king of the 1989 Pro Set football cards.
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1989 Pro Set Marv Levy (#34)
Levy didn’t nab his first NFL head coaching gig, with the Chiefs, until he was 53 in 1978. He stuck around for five so-so seasons, guiding the team to just one winning season (9-7 in 1981) in no playoff appearances.
Then, he was gone from the NFL scene (though he did coach the Chicago Blitz for a season in the USFL).
But when Bills owner Ralph Wilson fired Hank Bullough midway through the 1986 season, he turned to Levy to turn things around.
And so he did.
With the help of superstars like Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, Pete Metzelaars, Andre Reed, and a strong supporting cast, Levy had the Bills in the playoffs by 1988.
Two years later, they were in the Super Bowl and they would return each of the three years after that.
It hardly seems to matter now that the Bills lost all four of those Big Games — this was a great team, and Levy is a Hall of Famer.
Today, his 1989 Pro Set card stretches well into double digits in PSA 10.
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1989 Pro Set Michael Irvin Rookie Card (#89)
After the Cowboys selected Irvin with their first pick in the 1988 NFL Draft, it took awhile for him to settle in as a featured receiver, and controversy followed him like yesterday’s bad burritos.
In 1991, though, Irvin played 16 games for the first time and led the NFL with 1523 yards receiving.
Dallas made the playoffs that season and would go on to run off three titles from 1992 through 1995.
Irvin had off-and-on problems outside the lines and retired at age 33, but he kept it all together well enough to catch 750 balls for nearly 12,000 yards, and he made the Hall of Fame cut in 2007.
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1989 Pro Set Deion Sanders Rookie Card (#486)
Neon Deion was that “other” two-sport athlete … the one who rode Bo Jackson‘s coattails in the “what’s possible” sweepstakes.
But, while Bo may have had more overall combined talent in baseball and football, Sanders avoided the devastating injuries that curtailed Bo’s promise and crafted a longer career.
And, by focusing on the NFL in the long run, Deion turned himself into a Hall of Fame cornerback.
Today, his RC is a popular buy in PSA 10.
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