Jerry Rice football cards from the 1980s came about as close to crossing into baseball-card-hype territory as any football issue ever has.
There’s a good reason for that, too … Rice is the greatest wide receiver to ever lace up a pair of cleats in The League.
A trio of Super Bowl rings and a bust in Canton don’t hurt Rice’s cardboard cause, either, and he remains a hobby giant today.
Like most modern players, though, Rice is featured on so many cards that it would be pretty much impossible to run through them all in one place.
Instead, let’s take a stroll through the early years with an up-close look at the first ten Jerry Rice football cards, all issued in 1986 and 1987.
1986 Mcdonalds 49ers Jerry Rice Rookie Card (#80)
Though Rice was a first-round pick in the 1985 NFL Draft, he didn’t hit the scene with a ton of hype.
And he spent most of his rookie season as a back-up, playing in all 16 games but starting just four. He still finished second on the team in receiving yards (927), though, to Roger Craig (who was truly a beast with 2000+ yards from scrimmage).
That was all good enough to land Rice a slot in the 1986 McDonald’s 49ers set, issued in San Francisco-area Golden Arches during a four-week period. Each card can be found with one of four colored “Play & Win” tabs along the bottom — black, orange, blue, green.
Given the timing of its release, this can rightly be considered a Jerry Rice rookie card.
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1986 Topps Jerry Rice Rookie Card (#161)
Of course, this is the Jerry Rice rookie card … the one that set the hobby on fire in the late 1980s and helped pull football cards into the limelight.
As Rice put up amazing season after amazing season and took early aim on the Hall of Fame, collectors flocked to his cards — especially this one.
While teammate Joe Montana had sparked hobby commotion with his 1981 Topps RC, Rice was the first football guy with a first card issued in the heart of the rookie card craze to really capture our imaginations.
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1987 49ers Ace Fact Pack Jerry Rice
The Ace Fact Pack was issued as a bubble-pack set of 33 cards celebrating 49ers players, lore, and stats.
With rounded borders and patterned backs, the issue resembles playing cards, and the Rice piece features the young superstar doing what he did best — catching and running.
These are tough cards to find, especially individually, but complete sets sometimes show up for a few hundred bucks.
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1987 Topps Jerry Rice All-Pro (#115)
In 1986, while his rookie cards were hitting collections across the land, Rice was busy putting together his first of ten All-Pro seasons.
He also led the NFL in catching yards (1570) and touchdowns (15) as he began building his claim to the title of “Greatest Receiver Ever.”
This 1987 Topps Rice card celebrates all that and is still popular with collectors today.
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1987 Topps Rice/Christensen Receiving Leaders (#228)
We don’t usually pay much attention to who leads each conference in various statistical categories, but Topps sure did.
That’s why we get this card of not only Rice, who paced the NFC with 86 catches, but Raiders tight end and fullback Todd Christensen, who led the AFC and the NFL with 95 grabs.
Christensen would go on to a career as a color analyst with ESPN, but it’s Rice who carries this card.
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1987 Topps 1000 Yard Club Jerry Rice (#2)
These glossy cards were issued one per wax pack as inserts in Topps’ 1987 base set. In all, there were 24 cards in this set, one for each of the 1000-yard men in the league — eight running backs and 16 receivers.
As the game’s top yard-gainer in the air, Rice landed at #2 in this set, behind Eric Dickerson of the Rams, who ran for 1821 yards
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