Flash Market Report — What Old Baseball Cards Sold Big this Week? (6/10/2018)

Even though baseball cards have seen a general drop in value over the decades since the boom of the 1980s and the 1990s and the subsequent bust, there are still plenty of pasteboards changing hands at big prices on a regular basis.

Each week in this space, I run down five eBay lots that sold for considerable sums, yes, but that more importantly are delectable collecitbles.

So, grab your cardboard dreams, sit back, and enjoy these tales from the vintage card market for June 10, 2018.

(Note that these listings contain affiliate links, which means if you click over to eBay and buy something, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra charge to you.)

1950s and 1960s Superstar Lot of 1000 Cards

Sometimes, you just want a big old pile of really good stuff. The kind of stuff that makes your old baseball card dreams tingle to life at the base of your brain and in your old-man soul.

You know … the kind of feeling you get when you stumble on a big pile of cards with a few Hall of Famers peeking out cornerwise from in between stacks of gray and white edges, with maybe a little fuzz on the corners.

These are the cards from the 1950s and 1960s that your dad collected, and maybe you did, too, if you were lucky.

And these are the cards — 1000 of them — that filled out this lot and brought more than $2300 on the strength of 30 bids.

This particular grouping included goodies like a 1967 Topps Roberto Clemente, a 1958 Topps Stan Musial All-Star, and a 1954 Topps Ernie Banks rookie card, but the seller tells us they’ve moved more than 300 similar lots in the past year or so.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr. Rookie Cards (21 of them!) Graded PSA 9

Nearly 30 years after 1989 Upper Deck baseball first hit store shelves and made the Ken Griffey, Jr., rookie card #1 in their inaugural set, there is little denying the impact that marriage has had on the hobby.

Upper Deck was the card we had all been waiting for — thick premium white stock, gorgeous color photos front and back, tamper-proof packaging and anti-counterfeit measures (holograms), and limited distribution.

And Junior was the player we had been waiting for — the next Willie Mays who actually came pretty close to that lofty status.

The two of them together were unstoppable, and the 1989 UD Griffey rookie has been a hobby phenomenon for three decades now.

You don’t often find big groups of the Junior rookies, let alone 21 of them graded at PSA 9, so it’s no wonder this lot went out the door for more than $1150.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

Lot of More than 140 T206 Baseball Cards

More than a hundred years ago now, the T206 baseball card issue established standards for the hobby that still look pretty good today — clear depections of the players involved, team and position designations, vibrant colors, and a wide player selection.

The T206 set is the stuff of dreams, but for most us, owning more than a card or two as part of a type collection is out of reach.

This eBay lot of 140+ cards in nice, clean condition included two Ty Cobbs and offered the chance to grab a huge chunk of this all-time classic in one fell swoop.

Of course, it cost nearly ten grand to get that done, but nothing worth having is free. Right?

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1961 Topps Unopened Wax Pack Graded PSA 9

Even if the 1961 Topps set wasn’t your favorite of all time, you have to admit that being able to rip a wax pack from the issue would be insanely cool.

But could you really bring yourself to open a pack that has a population of two in the PSA database?

Probably not if you paid the $5000+ that this pack brought last week on eBay.

This is an absolutely gorgeous pack in red and yellow with black and white accents, and it’s a vintage ad piece for Topps stamps, too. Information about those inserts is “stamped” all over the pack.

Oh … this beauty also grades out at PSA 9.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1954 Topps Baseball Complete Set

By 1954, Topps was working hard to outdo their chief rival, Bowman, in the battle for collector hearts. Little did the hobby know how big those efforts would pay off in less than two years when Topps bought, and then killed off, their foe.

Part of the reason Topps rose to the top were gorgeous cards like the ones in this 1954 complete set that includes rookie cards of Hank Aaron, Al Kaline, and Ernie Banks, as well as a couple of graded Ted Williams specimens.

While this colorful set is not pristine, it’s still in solid condition and brought nearly $3000.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

(Check out our other posts about card values here.)