From their beginnings in 1991, just as hobby choices were spiraling beyond the understanding of us mere mortal collectors, PSA has plugged away steadily, launching a complete shoulder industry of their own.

Sure, there are plenty of competitors in the slabbed-card market these days, including some very formidable ones like Beckett Grading Services (BGS), but PSA is still the leader. And the standardization and trust they’ve brought to the marketplace have given collectors and investors the confidence to pour big dollars into those hermetically sealed hunks of cardboard that they’ll never even touch.

And, as the graded-card market has escalated over the years, the options for buying and selling slabbed cards have multiplied right along with the supply and demand.

To wit, here are ten places where you can buy — or sell! — PSA-graded cards, many of them allowing you to conduct your transactions just about any time you want.

eBay

Big surprise, right? I mean, you can buy just about anything you want on eBay, and it’s been the de facto first stop for online card shoppers since the 1990s.

So why shouldn’t you expect to find graded cards on the gargantuan auction website, too? And, while you may think of eBay as the place you go to find the last few commons you need to build a set, or to get your junk wax fix, the truth is, the place is teeming with PSA-graded cards.

Not just the cheap stuff, either, but big-ticket singles in the 5- and 6-figure range, week after week after week.

But, also … the cheap stuff. Because, though it might seem like a waste of money to send in commons-bin fodder to be slabbed, some folks do, indeed, submit cards like 1988 Donruss commons and 1991 Bowman rookies and the like.

And, while you’d be hard-pressed to find those “beauties” at a major hobby auction house, they’re yours for the bidding on eBay.

PWCC

So, PWCC used to be one of the biggest card sellers on eBay … until they got the boot from The Bay in August of 2021.

PWCC protested, of course, but then just took their ball home to their own marketplace, which had already been perking along for years. Beefing up their fledgling auction functionality, PWCC just kept rolling.

Known as a sort of clearing house for collector and dealers to buy and sell from each other, PWCC is littered with just about any sort of PSA bauble you could want, or at least those roughly similar to what you’d find on eBay.

You might not discover a slabbed Babe Ruth rookie card very often in the PWCC Vault, in other words, but most cards are fair game — raw or graded.

COMC

Somewhat similar to PWCC, Check Out My Cards (COMC) generally trends a bit toward the lower end of the market.

Still, COMC is another place where collectors (and dealers and investors) can connect on neutral territory to buy and sell the cards they love, covet, have duplicates of, etc.

And, of course, the cards that have been graded.

As with PWCC — but even more so — you won’t find many record-breakers on the COMC roster, but you’ll find most of the PSA-graded cards you’re searching for.

Fanatics

Fanatics made huge hobby waves in 2021 when they bought Topps, so it’s probably no big surprise that you can find all sorts of cards on the sports apparel maker’s website … including PSA-graded cards (affiliate link). Like others on this list, Fanatics allows you to start your browsing from a search page and drill down from there. Here is that top-level page for PSA cards (affiliate link).

SportsMemorabilia.com

SportsMemorabilia.com is something of an Amazon for sports collectibles, where you can find aDallas Cowboys trash can, a Shaq sneaker, or even a Pete Rose rookie card.

And, as that last indicates, there are plenty of vintage baseball cards to be found on the site … and many of them are PSA-graded

Like Amazon and eBay, SportsMemorabilia.com allows you to narrow down your shopping, which means you can find all of the PSA certified and graded cards and memorabilia starting from a top-level page.

Dave & Adam’s Card World

Dave & Adam’s is one of the biggest and most active online sports card dealers in the world, and they also maintain a huge physical presence at their store in New York, as well as hosting live breaks online.

Dave & Adam’s are also voracious buyers of cards, so when you start thinking about questions like, “where can I sell my baseball cards?”, they should probably be one of your stops.

And, while you’ll find plenty of brand new and “hot” material for sale on their website, Dave & Adam’s also offers up an impressive stock of vintage PSA-graded cards, many of which you won’t find for sale too often.

So, if you’re in the market for a PSA 1 copy of the 1933 Goudey Ben Chapman baseball card, well, you’d better high-tail it over to D & A’s.

Dean’s Cards

Another major online card dealer, Dean’s joins Dave & Adam’s in offering up the latest product AND in maintaining a vigorous buying schedule.

Not surprisingly, thanks to that voracious purchasing habit, Dean’s site displays plenty of cards of all ilk for sale at any given time, including a wide selection of graded cards.

But Dean’s is a little different from many large dealers in a couple of ways …

For one thing, they skew vintage in both their buying habits and the cards they sell, maintaining separate sections of their website for eras ranging from pre-War to the 1950s, ’60s, and 70s to the modern era.

And for another, Dean’s builds out vintage sets to sell to their customers, and those sets aren’t all raw. Indeed, Dean’s offerings regularly include a pretty astounding selection of PSA-graded complete sets.

Amazon

Say what?

You can’t really buy PSA-graded cards on Amazon … can you?

Well, actually, you can. And not only that, but the giant online retailer maintains an entire category for nothing but the PSA goodies.

Now, you won’t find a huge variety of PSA-graded cards on Amazon, you *can* find some that are sold under the “Prime” banner.

So, next time you need a new pair of headphones … a copy of the new Stephen King novel … a box of Fiddle Faddle … a singing toilet paper roll holder … and a Ken Griffey, Jr., rookie card, all under the same wrap — there’s really only one choice.

—

So far, all of these avenues for finding PSA-graded cards have been accessible online. But what if you’re in the mood for a bit more personal touch when you go slab shopping? Well, read on …

Local Card Shops

Not all card shops will have PSA cards, or at least not many of them.

And hardly any local card shop will have a huge selection, or variety, of graded cards — or of any other particular category of card. An LCS generally tries has to cover a lot of bases, after all, from new product to card supplies, to set-fillers, so they usually don’t have the time, money, or space to build out full lines of everything they offer.

Heck, you may not even have much luck finding a shop that’s even remotely local (how’s that for an oxymoron?) to you.

But PSA-graded cards are a ubiquitous enough part of today’s hobby landscape that there’s a good bet at least a few of them show up in most shops from time to time. And there are some LCS owners who specialized in slabbed cards, so you can’t discount this avenue completely.

Local Card Shows

That goes double for local and regional card shows and, especially, the regional-type conventions that are a bit larger in terms of dealer tables and attendance.

When a dealer rolls out his wares for display and sale at a show, after all, he’s going to focus on stuff that a) he’s pretty sure will sell and/or b) is the cream of his crop.

Both of those categories tend to describe PSA-graded cards these days, and a table can really set itself apart at a small show with a case full of slabbed beauties. Indeed, I’d wager to say that there is at least one dealer at most shows these days whose primary focus is on graded cards.

You won’t be able to find every card you might want in these smaller venues, of course, but PSA is generally all over the place.

National Sports Collectors Convention

This is the Big Kahuna of the hobby in all sorts of ways, and it sits at the top of the live, in-person, see-it-before-you-buy-it PSA marketplace.

With hundreds of dealer tables and thousands of collectors streaming through the convention floor all during its yearly run, The National is an almost mythical beast, with each rendition taking on its own flavor and being remembered for distinct moments in hobby history.

Who could forget the monstrous 1991 National in Anaheim, for example, where tens of thousands turned the freebie bags that accompanied their admission into a full-blown “Promo Mania” that helped turn the 1990s hobby into the circus it would become.

Beyond the hype generated by things like promos and card breaks, though, The National has always been about showcasing unusual items and big, important cards that the average collector might never encounter out in the wild. You want to see a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle or a T206 Honus Wagner?

The National is your best shot.

For dealers, collectors, and investors hoping to make their most of their visit, The National is also about pulling out the best of their own best, and that increasingly means graded cards of all types, shapes, and sizes. Naturally, PSA-graded cards feature large into that landscape, and The National is probably your likeliest venue to find any particular slabbed card you’re looking for, especially if you want to get your hands on the thing (the holder-encased thing, that is) before handing over your hard-earned bitcoin.

Auction Houses

If you’re looking for that one perfect specimen, or if you just want to peruse how the other half (OK, one percent raised to some power) of collectors live, then you really have to frequent the various high-end auction houses that have become so prevalent in recent years.

These are the places where big-wig hobbyists turn when they’re ready to sell the high-rolling collections they’ve painstakingly put together over the years, and it’s also where they turn to find that special card that has eluded them.

And, it’s where you’re likely to get a glimpse of one-of-a-kind items and cards that sell for record-breaking numbers.

These days hobby auction houses are also big PR machines, so chances are, you’ll run into their ads and promotions whenever a major sale is in the offing. But if you’re out looking on your own, you can start your search with terms like “Heritage” and “Lelands” and “Robert Edward” and “Huggins and Scott” and their competitors.

—

If you’re in the market for slabbed cards, these ten venues will lead you to just about any specimen you might want. They can also be super fun places to just do some window shopping.

Truth is, though, PSA-graded cards are just about everywhere in the hobby these days, so keep your eyes open on Twitter, Facebook, and wherever else the cardboard arts are practiced and discussed.

You might have wondered about that from time to time before turning your attention back to your phone or laptop.

After all …

The online baseball card community is absolutely incredible … lots of great people sharing stories about the old days (or the new days) and helping each other find the cards they “need” to take that next step forward in their collections.

And, boy, you can find just about anything you want for sale online, often at prices you wouldn’t have dreamed of 30 years ago.

In many ways, the hobby is even better today than in its 1980s and 1990s heyday.

But sometimes, you just want to walk into a real store, talk to real people, and pick up real cards, right?

Yeah, me too.

Well … you’re in luck!

Whether you’re looking for baseball card shops in your city or planning a road trip and want to do some advance scouting, the resources below will help you ferret out any real-life cardboard in your path.

So … “are there any baseball card shops near me anymore?”

Let’s find out.

Google Search

It may seem odd and unexciting to see Google at the top of the list for finding local card shops, but we’re living in the information age.

I mean, you’re reading this very post online, right?

And 99 percent of the time, the card shops you’re looking for will have some online presence, even if that’s just a physical address that shows up in the Yellow Pages.

And that means that, also 99 percent of the time, you can find all the shops there are to be found just using Google. You don’t even have to try very hard, either.

Just go to Google and type in “baseball card shops.”

Most of the time, that will do the trick because Google already knows basically where you are thanks to your IP address. Creepy but useful.

So, if you’re near St. Louis, for example, your search will return a results page that looks something like this …

A nice map of card shops right at the top, with details below and the chance to see more details by clicking “More places.”

Underneath, you’ll find websites for some of the specific shops.

And, if you’re taking a trip out of town and want to locate shops there, all you have to do is add the city or state name to your search term: “baseball card shops st. louis.”

What could be simpler or more powerful than that?

Beckett Store Locator

Beckett, of course, is the long-time leader in baseball card price guides, and those guides are often offered for sale at various baseball card shops.

So it makes sense that Beckett would maintain a database of those stores.

Hence, their Store Locator, which you can access here.

Once there, pick your location and decide what kind of Beckett seller you want to find: newsstands only, card shops only, or both together. Here is what the St. Louis results for card shops only look like:

Yellow Pages

Yep, the Yellow Pages is still around after all these years, and at least the basic functionality of their website is free to use.

If you go to YellowPages.com and type “baseball cards” in the search box and “St. Louis” in the location box, you’ll get some results:

Like Google, Yellow Pages can pick up on your location if you tell it to, and you can also filter the results by things like BBB ratings and available coupons.

Yelp

Yelp is sort of like the Yellow Pages for a new age (except, of course, we still have the old Yellow Pages…kinda).

But Yelp excels at giving us merchant ratings and review from real people — in the case of baseball card shops, that means collectors like you and me.

Yep, Yelp lists card shops!

Just go to Yelp.com, enter your search, and reap your rewards:

Topps

What?? Topps is a card manufacturer (at least for a little while, and then for a good while longer, though under the Fanatics umbrella).

How in the heck can they help find sports card shops near me?

Well, it just so happens that Topps maintains a big list of physical card shops in the United States and Canada, and they’ve posted that list as a PDF on their website right here.

And, while it’s not clear how often that document is updated (if ever), a spot check of a few stores listed there shows they are still active and open for business as of late May 2022.

Curiously, while there are several Missouri entries in this doc, none specifically call out St. Louis in their address, so there is some question as to how complete this “Hobby Store List” really is. Still, it definitely give us a wide swath of potential stores to visit, and it’s definitely a handy travel companion for any collector when they’re on the road.

Card Shop Lists

In addition to the resources listed above, several websites maintain lists of card shops, each with a slightly different focus. Check these out to see if they meet your needs …

Beckett’s The List: Vintage Dealers to Know – what it says … dealers of vintage cards

Blowout Cards Forum’s Hobby Shop Locator – This is actually a forum thread where people list shops across the nation. Not sure how updated it is.

BaseballCardPedia’s Card Shop Locator – a static list of shops (not many) with longitude and latitude included (!)

Sports Collectors Digest Industry Resources Page – static links to a bunch of cool sites, including some high-profile dealers and retail stores

—

There you go…all sorts of resources to help you find out where your next card buy might come from, especially when you just have to make the purchase in person. Nothing really stands up to the experience of a visit to the local card shop, after all.

So …

Are there any sports card shops near me?

Maybe. Probably. And now, you can find out for sure!

(Check out our other posts about baseball cards for sale here.)

Click image for eBay listing (affiliate link)

1989 Donruss Rack Pack Case

I know what you’re thinking … Junk Wax!

Well, sort of …

I mean, sure, 1989 Donruss is about as Junk Wax as things get, and there were millions and billions and trillions of them produced.

Still and all, this is 31-year-old issue with rookie cards of big names like Ken Griffey (Jr.), Randy Johnson, Craig Biggion … Sherman Corbett.

And, with 72 “bags,” each of which contains 45 cards (and 9 puzzle pieces!), you’re looking at 3240 cards, or about five of each of the 660 cards in the set (and 648 puzzle pieces!).

That’s a lot of gradeable cardboard … rookie cardboard of some Hall of Famers. And it would be great fun to rip this stuff, too, don’t you think?

And besides … it’s not wax at all.

Behold …

Junk Cellophane!

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1989-DONRUSS-RACK-PACK-CASE-FACTORY-SEALED-72-UNOPENED-PACKS-OF-45-CARDS-EACH/353196165655?hash=item523c21ca17%3Ag%3AuFYAAOSw1NJfSUVW&LH_Auction=1

Is there anything better than sitting down with a box of fresh wax packs with dreams of uncovering your next big baseball card find? It’s the stuff from which collections and lifetime cardboard connections are made!

If you grew up in the 1970s or 1980s (and probably the 1990s) as a baseball card collector, you know the feeling well. You’d wait all week or all month for a chance to pick up a few packs at the grocery store or local card shop and then rush home to dig into your new treasures.

You scoured the pages of Baseball Cards and Sports Collectors Digest waiting for word of any new releases, and then you planned your life around getting your hands on some.

They were golden days full of anticipation and hope, joy and (yes) disappointment when you pulled Tom Brookens instead of Alan Trammell.

As the decades have passed, the value of our baseball cards have ebbed and flowed, but something else has happened … something amazing.

Thanks to the Internet and thanks especially to shopping websites like eBay and Amazon, we can find most of the cards we dreamed about as kids just about any time we want. Just a few keystrokes, and we’re there.

This page is dedicated to reliving those thrills of youth by bringing to light one incredible (in some way) unopened lot of baseball cards each day. Sit back and enjoy the ride, and be sure to check back regularly to see what new goodies we’ve discovered.

(Check out our previous Wow! Wax listings here.)

(Over the next little while, I’m going to be unfurling a set of experimental types of posts to see if they strike any cardboard chords. Let me know what you think, and I’ll adjust as we go. Also, note that these listings contain affiliate links, which means if you click over to eBay or Amazon and buy something, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra charge to you.)

See the full listing on eBay (affiliate link)

Topps 1980 Burger King: 4 Unopened Packs — Jerry Koosman, Tom Seaver, Bruce Sutter, Ron Guidry

Burger King cards have caused confusion in the hobby for 40 years or more because, generally speaking, they look just like base Topps cards from the same year … but with subtle differences.

Different card numbers, sometimes a different photo.

Always the same design, basically, at least.

The 1980 Burger King cards in this lot (affiliate link) shouldn’t cause quite as much confusion, though. That’s because they’re part of the “Pitch, Hit, & Run” series that features a Burger King logo on card fronts.

Won’t find that on the base set!

Still, how cool is it to see these unopened cello packs that have somehow remained sealed since they came off the grill four decades ago?

Very is the correct answer here.

This lot also includes a bunch of “loose” BK cards, like some fries that fell out of the box, but that the server plopped in your bag, anyway.

Bonus! Yum!

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

Four (4) Unopeed Boxes of 1987 Kraft Macaroni & Cheese w/Baseball cards

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So, sometimes you’ll hear card geeks like me waxing (haha) poetic about how you can (or can’t) chow down on that good old vintage gum that comes in old wax packs of (Topps) baseball cards.

I mean, is it actually safe to chew gum from, say, 1987? Was it even save back then?

Tough calls.

But this lot ratchets up the intensity of this argument a couple of notches. I mean … actual unopened boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese from that same summer — 1987!

Wow! Indeed … wow!

Makes me feel like a kid again, especially when you see that all four boxes feature Don Mattingly (and, yes Steve Garvey), who was still right at the top of the hobby mountain even as the home runs began to flow all across the game.

The only question here is … would you eat this stuff?

It’s a moot point for me, because how could I ever even dream of opening those beautiful, perfect boxes??

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

Twelve (12) 1984 Topps Rack Packs — Sugarless Bubble Gum!

Click image for eBay listing (affiliate link)

The next time you’re lamenting how today’s safety-first regulations and advertising are robbing us of everything fun, come back to this eBay listing (affiliate link) and remind yourself the joy-robbing started no later than the mid-1980s.

I mean, just look at those gorgeous Topps rack packs, with Tom Seaver showing … and Rick Sutcliffe showing … and Fergie Jenkins showing … and

… and …

*gasp*

SUGARLESS bubble gum?!?

Why not just give us powerless video games? Or popcornless movies? Or recessless schooldays?

Bleh.

But, hey, at least these beauties still deliver 36 cards per pack, which means you’d score a cool 432 Topps cards for you $175

That’s fun stuff, at least.

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1984 Fun Food Baseball Buttons Wax Box

Click image for eBay listing (affiliate link)

OK, so this is not really *wax* in the strict sense, but “wax” is really a state of mind … right?

What we do have here, though, are 36 paper pouches, each containing three baseball buttons, and they’re spectacular!

Round, enameled, bright colored “borders,” full color photos, baseball’s biggest stars … these babies are great!

In all, there were 133 pins/buttons issued, so you’d need to buy at least two boxes to get the full set (which you could also buy all at once from dealers, then and now).

Either way, this is a sweet blast from the past, and an unusual issue that won’t break the bank.

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1984 Topps Super Unopened Wax Box

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Another oddball set from 1984, Topps Supers were exact replicas of the base card for each of the 30 players included in the set … except huge.

Unfortunately, nobody really knew who Don Mattingly was when the 1984 season began, so he’s not here … but the Darryl Strawberry rookie is.

With just one card per pack but 36 packs in a box, you *should* stand a good chance of getting one of everything with this lot.

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1984 Topps Unopened Wax Box

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Now THIS box is almost certain to contain either the Darryl Strawberry rookie or the Don Mattingly rookie, or both (though you can never be sure thanks to funky 1980s card collation).

Either was, the 1984 Topps set is chock full of classic cards, and you know it would be a blast to tear through this puppy.

Unless, of course, you have the willpower to keep it intact.

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1984 Fleer Baseball Unopened Wax Box (33 packs)

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The 1984 Fleer set has basically the same lineup as the Topps set from that year, except with fewer cards overall (less “special” subsets, mostly).

The Fleer cards also seem to be a bit more scarce, though the demand may also not be quite as strong.

In any case, this lot falls three packs short of a full box, but you do get the display box.

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1984 Donruss Baseball Unopened Wax Box

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This is the holy grail of 1984 baseball boxes, of course, as it possibly contains the fabled 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly rookie card that changed the hobby forever.

Not to mention the first round of Rated Rookies and the Darryl Strawberry rookie card.

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1985 Donruss Baseball Unopened Wax Box

Click image for eBay listing (affiliate link)

While the 1985 Donruss set may not have one signature card that defined a whole hobby era, like the 84D Mattingly above, this set is loaded with big-name rookies …

Dwight Gooden, Roger Clemens, Eric Davis, Bret Saberhagen, Alvin Davis, Danny Tartabull, Jose Rijo.

Granted, most of those dudes fell short of Hall of Fame standards, but they’re still standards among 1980s rookie cards.

And, for only $200 or so, you could relive the thrill of searching for them under wax wraps.

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1981 Topps Baseball Scratch-Off Wax Pack

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You’re not going to find any break-the-bank rookie cards or breathtaking beauty in this wax pack.

But, man …

If you grew up collecting cards in the 1970s or 1980s, this thing will take you back like that! (snaps cyber fingers)

These scratch-offs came in three-player panels, and you could play a baseball game by scratching off the dots … like a lottery ticket for Little Leaguers.

When you went to the store with your mom and tried to score some baseball cards but ended up with these instead, it was muy disappointing.

Today, though, how can you not get all warm and giddy at the prospect of nine American League cards and nine National League cards and a stick of gum inside a four-decade-old wrapper???

You can’t, Skippy.

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

And, some older entries that may be sold by now, but that are still fun to pick through …

1978 Topps Baseball Holiday Rack Back with Bert Blyleven on Top … and Upside Down!

Click image for eBay listing (affiliate link)

Imagine … it’s Christmas morning in 1978, and the living room is littered with wrapping paper and baubles and toys that will be forgotten about before you head back to school in January.

But there’s one package left — a smallish rectangular one that could be a watch or maybe … maybe something better?

The good news is, it’s got your name on it.

As soon as you pick it up, the contents inside slide shift, just a little, and you know what’s inside … a folded up rack pack of baseball cards!

You excitedly tear open the wrapping paper and unfurl your treasure, a 1978 Topps Baseball Holiday Rack Pack.

There in the first panel is Don Money. Not too bad, but not spectacular.

In the third panel is Buddy Schultz. Who?

And in between is Bert Blyleven, who you know as a sort of good pitcher for the faraway Texas Rangers. He’s upside down, too.

So, cool, baseball cards.

Nothing compelling enough to pull you away from your Godzilla action figure, though, so you toss the cards in the pile of Christmas Crap (TM).

Fast forward 40+ years, and someone has uncovered your forgotten treasure and thrown it up on eBay for sale. 

Here in 2019, of course, Bert Blyleven is a  Hall of Famer and these cards are 41 years old. 

Who wouldn’t want them?

Check out the full eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1963 Topps Baseball 1-Cent Unopened Wax Pack

Click image for eBay listing (affiliate link)

Do you remember the first “old” rookie card to explode in popularity based on what was happening on the field?

I sure do …

It was the 1963 Topps Pete Rose rookie that he shares with Al Weis, Pedro Gonzalez, and Ken McMullen.

That card was already popular among collectors when Pete headed back to the Cincinnati Reds in August 1984 as player-manager, but it was then we all realized he’d be taking aim at Ty Cobb’s all-time hits record on the Riverfront.

Couple that happy occurrence with the general hobby explosion and the nascent rookie card craze, and you had a phenomenon that couldn’t be stopped.

Even now, 35 years later and after enough scandal and strife to choke a horse, Pete’s RC is a hobby staple.

Will you find the Rose rookie here in this one-cent wax pack up for auction on eBay right now? Or maybe the Willie Stargell rookie? Or a mid-career card of a Hall of Famer?

The odds are against you on all those fronts considering there’s just one card in the pack, but it sure is fun to wonder, isn’t it?

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1975 Topps Baseball Cello Pack with Keith Hernandez on Front and Mike Schmidt on Back (PSA 9)

Click image for eBay listing (affiliate link)

Would you rather have Keith Hernandez or Mike Schmidt on your team?

Looking back at their careers, it’s pretty easy to say that Schmidt will give you more peak value and more long-term value than Mex.

But Hernandez has a stronger Hall of Fame case than you might remember, so you really couldn’t go wrong with either guy.

And what if you could have both?

That would be the bee’s knees, right?

Right.

And that’s why this eBay lot is so jaw-dropping.

In one 1975 Topps cello pack, graded PSA 9, you get both Hernandez and Schmidt.

In particular, the Hernandez rookie card, which he shares with Phil Garner, Bob Sheldon, and Tom Veryzer is on the front of the pack.

And that’s Schmitty there on the back, but facing out.

Gorgeous!

And, sure, the Buy-It-Now price is set at $1100, but when was the last time you saw one of these?

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

=========================

Older entries — below are some awesome unopened lots from years gone by. These auctions are over, but the listings are still fun to peruse.

Let me know if you enjoy this sort of post so I know whether I should continue with new updates.

1979 Topps Baseball Rack Pack with Ralph the Doorman on Top

Click image for eBay listing (affiliate link)

The headline for this 1979 Topps baseball rack pack says, “GO 4 OZZIE SMITH RC.”

To which I say … poopoo.

To be sure, the 1979 Topps set does indeed does hold the Ozzie Smith rookie card, but this pack is perfect as it is.

On the front, you have Dave Goltz, who was a pretty good pitcher for awhile and also played Ralph the Doorman on The Jeffersons.

Then you have Gorman Thomas, whose whole demeanor screamed “beer league” but who slugged like Dave Kingman for the Milwaukee Brewers, including the 1982 Harvey’s Wallbangers team.

And then, there’s Wayne Gross, who hit a lot of home runs for the post-Dynasty Oakland A’s and always looked very 70s-y.

On the back, you have the small-man All-Stars.

Freddie Patek was the size of an average Dachsund but was an All-Star shortstop for the Kansas City Royals and somehow hit 41 homers in the Major Leagues.

Jose Cruz was actually six feet tall but felt Patek-ish because he crouched like a tiger. Also, a better Hall of Fame candidate than Jack Morris.

And, finally, Rob Picciolo wasn’t small at all, but his name is really close to “piccolo,” which is like a small flute. And he hit like he was using a piccolo for a bat.

So there’s that.

And all that argues that this pack should be kept intact, just the way it is, forever.

Ozzie be darned.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1981 Fleer Baseball Wax Boxes (2)

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When Fleer finally won the right to produce baseball cards in 1980 after decades of struggle, they wanted to make sure collectors knew they were here to stay.

So, not only did they issue a 1981 base set that was fairly OK plus showcased one of the greatest error cards of all time (C. Nettles), they also blessed us with their first Star Stickers set.

Measuring standard card size and packaged with gum for 25 cents, Star Stickers were like another whole parallel (125 cards) … but one that you could stick on stuff.

This eBay lot gives you 72 chances — two full wax boxes — for you to let 1981 Fleer Star Stickers get stuck on you.

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1987 Donruss Baseball Wax Boxes (4)

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There were three kinds of collectors in the early spring of 1987 — those who had access to 1987 Fleer baseball cards, those who had access to 1987 Donruss baseball cards, and (mostly) those who had access to neither 1987 Fleer nor 1987 Donruss baseball cards.

Somehow, my little corner of the world was blessed with a goodly supply of 1987 Donruss, and my keen 15-year-old wax-sniffing nose sussed them out at every turn.

Even more luckily, I convinced my parents to float me a loan for all the burnt orange packs I could find. The math is still burned into my brain, too — 36 packs per box at 40 cents a pack is $14.40 per box.

It was a bargain when you consider that most of the country couldn’t even glimpse Donruss and that boxes were going for $20 or more by Spring Training.

So, yeah, lots like this one — four unopened boxes of 1987 Donruss wax packs — make my old man heart go pitter-patter and leaves me with drool pooled at my feet.

I know that we all know now that 1987 Donruss is not rare, but it’s still awesome to me.

And, can you believe the opening bid is only $10 a box. Why, that’s not anywhere close to $14.40!

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1987 Fleer Baseball Cello Packs (8) — Barry Bonds on Top (2)

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Finding a lot like this in 1987 — especially early in the year — would have made you feel like you uncovered a hidden gold mine in your back yard.

I mean, the 1987 Topps woodies were everywhere … 1987 Donruss was scarce but seemed to exist in pockets.

But 1987 Fleer baseball was about as plentiful as summer days in Pittsburgh without a Barry Bonds scowl.

Speaking of Bonds, his rookie card appears on two of these eight cello packs.

And so does the Will Clark rookie card, one of the iconic images of the decade.

Kevin Mitchell makes one appearance, as do Nolan Ryan, John Kruk, and Jose Canseco.

As a side note, 1987 was the year of Mitchell’s mini-breakout, two seasons before his monster MVP campaign in 1989.

Another funny thing … in 1987, not everyone was sure Ryan would make the Hall of Fame despite all the strikeouts. Too one-dimensional and completely over the hill.

We were pretty sure, though, that all these young hitters would end up in Cooperstown.

See how smart we were?

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1984 Fun Foods Baseball Buttons Unopened Box

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You’ve heard of wearing your heart on your sleeve, right? That can be good or bad, depending on the blackness or redness of said organ, and on the context.

But what about wearing your favorite baseball player on your chest? That has to be good … right?

That’s what Fun Foods was counting on when they issued their set of 133 Major League buttons in 1984. These really are more pins than buttons, but that’s OK because it’s the “pin” bit that allows you to stick the enameled, round hunks of metal to — or through — things.

There were several hobby retailers who sold complete sets, but you could also buy them in individual paper packages containing three buttons each.

And that’s where this eBay lot comes in — a 36-count box of those three-packs.

The box and packs are nice display pieces in themselves, and they showcase three of the set’s All-Star/Hall of Fame denizens in Jim Rice, George Brett, and Fernando Valenzuela.

Of course, you could only answer the big question by opening the packs — is there a Bob Dernier pin lurking within?

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1980 Topps Baseball Mrs. Butterworth’s Unopened Pack

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You ever had a batch of dry, hard pancakes and thought to yourself, “Self, these pancakes taste like cardboard!”?

Maybe the folks at Topps had the same experience sometime around 1980. Or maybe it was the folks at Mrs. Butterworth’s.

Whichever … something inspired someone to marry the two — Topps and Mrs. Butterworth’s, that is.

Because that year, if you bought specially marked containers of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup, you also got three 1980 Topps baseball cards “PLUS ALL TIME RECORDS” all packed in a handy cellophane package.

This eBay lot brings you two of those three-card packs, one with Dave LaRoche on top,  one with Scott McGregor on top.

So, in one fell swoop, you get moisture for your cakes, vintage cardboard, and coverage for the front of your rotation and the back of your bullpen.

Yum! Score!

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1984 Topps Rack Pack with Don Mattingly Rookie Card on Top

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You can tick off the movers and shakers of this hobby in your sleep — T206 Honus Wagner, 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan, 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly, 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr.

But there is a second tier of cards that helped drive the hobby to new heights, even if in a more supporting role.

The 1984 Topps Don Mattingly rookie card fits that bill perfectly — it wasn’t the main attraction when Donnie Baseball was making his name during that fabled summer of 1984, but it became a hobby favorite in a flash and has maintained that status for nearly 35 years.

So, while this 1984 Topps rack pack with a Mattingly rookie on top doesn’t hold quite the hobby sway that a Donruss version would, it’s still an awesome artifact from one of the great runs in hobby history.

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1984 Donruss Rack Pack with Yaz & Bench on Front

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Collecting baseball cards in 1984 was a pretty heady experience.

We were just coming off a year (1983) in which Topps issued one of their all-time classic sets and when Donruss, and especially Fleer, started to get their acts together after two years of misfires.

We expected more and better in 1984, and, for the most part, the major manufacturers delivered.

Topps tried out another version of their picture-in-picture design — not on par with 1983 but not terrible.

Fleer cleaned things up even more and put out a really nice, solid set.

And Donruss … whew!

Donruss went to the Topps archives and basically dusted off the 1957 design, updated it with some wavy lines for the 1980s, added a Don Mattingly rookie card that would blow up the hobby as we knew it, reduced print runs, and called it a day.

Oh … not before they also issued a combo career tribute card for Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Bench (and one for Gaylord Perry and Rollie Fingers).

It’s a humdinger of a card that was popular right off the bat and still rings collector bells today.

That Yaz/Bench beauty is also the centerpiece of this eBay lot, an unopened 1984 Donruss Rack Pack with the Living Legends right there on top, in the middle.

And if it’s been awhile since your last Benny Ayala fix, this one has you covered there, too.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1981 Topps Baseball Scratch-Off Wax Box

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If you’ve been around the hobby for awhile, you’ve undoubtedly run across 1981 Topps Scratch-Offs.

They’re those funky looking red and green cards, laid out horizontally and featuring a player headshot on one end with the rest of the front covered in scratch-off dots that allow you to play a game.

Oh, and they have fuzzy perforated edges.

And they usually turn up one or two or ten at a time, often in terrible shape and frequently separated from their brethren. You can buy them for pennies or less under circumstances like this.

They don’t fit well with other cards from a size perspective, they’re not beautiful, and you hardly ever hear anyone clamoring for them.

Still, it’s pretty cool to see an unopened box of these things, like this lot offers up — 37 years old and as fresh as the day they drove off the showroom floor.

Yep, pretty cool.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

Nearly 100 Unopened Packs from the 1970s through 2013

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If you’re reading this, chances are pretty good you spent at least part of your childhood — as I did — ripping open (or carefully unflapping) wax packs of baseball cards.

And if that’s true, I’ll bet dollars to Dave Dravecky cards your collecting career overlapped with the period of 1976-1993, at least to some extent.

All of which is to say that this eBay lot will take you back to those rollicking wax-ripping days of your childhood, thusly broadly defined.

Herein, you’ll find 94 unopened packs in total, ranging from four 1976 Fleer Football Action Team Sticker wax packs to six 1993 Bowman Football Jumbo packs, with a few 2013 football packs tacked onto the end.

But these cards aren’t all football, and they don’t tilt toward the later Junk Wax years of the run, at least not by much.

In the in-between are goodies like six 1985 Topps baseball wax packs, three 1982 Donruss wax packs, two 1981 Topps baseball cello packs, and three 1989 Upper Deck baseball packs.

If you’re doing the math, that leaves about 75 other packs, and they all fall sorta in the same general vicinity of cardboard space-time as those I’ve already mentioned.

Someone is gonna have a lot of fun, in other words, and maybe feel just a little younger in the process.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1974 Topps Deckle Edge Test Issue Unopened Pack

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Man, is there anything better than a Topps test issue? Especially one from the 1970s?

Especially especially when the PSA Population Report shows ups that fewer than 50 of any particular card from said test issue has ever been submitted for grading?

Like, say, some 1974 Topps Deckle Edge cards.

Have you seen these things, Daddio?

I mean, they’re black-and-white, sure, but big. And, well, deckled.

It’s the new scene, cat. It’s where it’s at!

And this eBay lot? A completely far-out unopened pack of these sweet squares (rectangles)!

In a word … groovy.

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1985 Donruss Rack Packs with Pete Rose (Montreal Expos) on Top (2)

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Look … I’ve already told you how I feel about Pete Rose in a Montreal Expos uniform.

And in case you’ve forgotten or don’t want to read my original post on the subject, let me clarify: it’s an unholy sight to which no Cincinnati Reds fan — hell, no Philadelphia Phillies fan — should have ever been subjected.

And the baseball cards that commemorated the occasion … pure and utter cardboard blasphemy.

But …

Even I, as jaded and homerish as I am, can admit the 1985 Donruss Pete Rose Expos card doesn’t look all that bad from an aesthetic point of view. The photo is colorful and sharp, and the Montreal colors look good inside the love-it-or-hate-it black border.

Plus, this card is 33 years old now and automatically better than new stuff just because it’s old and I’m old.

Plus plus, the Expos are gone now and Pete is banished, so it’s sorta like the whole thing never happened. It’s all fiction. The card is nothing but a comic.

And besides, this eBay lot offers up two of the Pete Rose cards on the front of 1985 Donruss rack packs. Super cool, right?

That’s a great bonus, too, because you can take two of these abominations out of circulation at once. And they look great.

Ugh. I’m so conflicted.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1978 Topps Football Unopened Wax Box

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So … seasons change.

We’re deep into the NFL preseason schedule, the first Indiana high school football games went down Friday, and the gridiron is starting to tug at the heartstrings once again.

Even though baseball is entering the stretch run, then, there’s no way I can ignore tantalizing football product when it pops up … right?

And, at this moment, what could be more tantalizing than and unopened wax pack box of 1978 Topps football cards?

You know, with its Tony Dorsett rookie card and its lineup of Hall of Famers like Walter Payton, John Riggins, Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw, and all the rest.

That’s what this lot gives you.

And if it’s a bit rich for your blood, with its Buy-It-Now of nearly $700, you could opt for the companion lot offering four unopened wax packs from the same set (affiliate link).

Hut! Hut!

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1986 Topps Mini League Leaders Unopened Wax Box

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The Cloud is all the rage these days, and anybody who’s anybody has at least one something running there, or aspires to.

Back in 1986, though, clouds had much more limited applicability …

Providing shade in the summer.

Warning us of ensuing storms.

Maybe inspiring the imagination with their funky shapes.

And, of course, providing a nice, pillowy picture frame for the 1986 Topps Minis League Leaders set.

If you like your baseball cards dreamy, man, this is the issue for you!

Why, every superstar is encased in his own little bit of cloud on premium white cardstock with a “Super Glossy” finish.

Miniaturized, no less!

And, among the 66 luminous luminaries who were Major League Leaders, you’ll find high-luminosity guys like Mike Smithson, Walt Terrell (Hoosier!), Danny Cox, and Gary Pettis.

(Not sure why I didn’t make the set because I once tied for the Major League lead among all fans for fewest games attended in person.)

Anyway, this eBay lot gives you a pretty good shot at all these guys and plenty more — it’s a complete unopened box.

Prime-time Tom Browning awaits!

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1982 Fleer Baseball Cello Box

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You know how, when you see a stack of 1982 Fleer baseball cards, they look all dingy and old?

They have dark photos, an elementary-school-kid design, and plenty of errors.

They often have fuzzy corners and creases, and, somehow, about a third of the 1982 Fleers I’ve ever encountered have marker marks on them.

Like someone fought them with his Sharpie light saber or tried to force them into being Topps or Donruss cards through creative will.

Overall, though — dark and dingy.

That’s not really the case with this eBay lot — a cello box full of (wouldn’t you know it?) unopened 1982 Fleer cello packs.

Sure, the cards inside are the same old cardboard you’ve always spruced up with your markers (you’re the one!), but they look somehow brighter sitting there under plastic, all new and stuff.

And the box itself is a great display piece.

And and, you can see Jim Rice and Dale Murphy right there on top of two of the top packs, ready to flash some slugging 1980s lumber.

Can Dave Kingman be far behind?

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Junk Wax Cornucopia

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The late 1980s and early 1990s were fun but times in the hobby.

We still hadn’t come to grips with the idea that baseball cards didn’t always go up in value or that there actually could be too many baseball cards — too many sets, too many cards/sets/boxes in a print run, too many choices, too many everything.

Sure, we had a sneaking suspicion when the 1991 Anaheim National Convention became nothing but a promo fest and when we could still buy truckloads of 1989 Bowman for pennies a pack by 1993.

All we really cared about was the more.

And that’s what this eBay lot is about … more Junk Wax product than just about any other listing out there.

How much is more in this case?

Try 104 packs across 52 different products, spanning baseball, basketball, and football from 1988-99, with all but one falling before 1996.

It’s a great cross-section of a spiraling hobby that could have lost its soul but looks pretty good all these years later.

And, you know, busting all these packs would make you feel like a Kardboard King even if the cards aren’t worth the (thick) paper they’re printed on.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

Oddball Heaven

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If you love oddball baseball cards, the 1980s were the decade for you. And, like with just about everything else surrounding the hobby, Topps was the king of 1980s oddball issues.

From big heads to real 3-D cards to just plain old big cards, Topps had it all.

And this lot offers up a bunch of that all in one convenient package.

In particular, what you’d be bidding on — if you bade — (or BINned):

1980 Topps Baseball Superstars – 1 box, 36 cards, all opened
1984 Topps Super Baseball – 1 box, 20 unopened packs, 16 opened packs + wrappers
1985 Topps 3-D Baseball – 1 box, 22 unopened packs, 4 opened packs
1990 Topps Doubleheaders – 1 box, 36 unopened packs
1990 Topps Heads Up Baseball – 2 boxes (1 box with 24 unopened packs, 1 box with 21 unopened packs)

Drink it all in.

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1981 Topps Baseball Stickers Unopened Box

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If you made it through the lean hobby years of the Topps monopoly, man, were you rewarded in 1981!

Not only did you get a new Fleer set and a new Donruss set, both with enough errors to keep your English teacher in haughty bliss all the way through high school, but you got extras.

Fleer Star Stickers.

Topps Traded.

Topps scratch-off thingies.

And, yes, Topps stickers.

For just 15 cents a pop, you could buy paper packets of these babies all day long. Then, if you manged to tear open the pack without ripping the stickers themselves, you could affix them to the appropriate page in the accompanying sticker album.

Or to your locker.

Or your TV, if you were feeling lucky in dealing with your dad.

It was great.

And this eBay lot lets you relive all that with an unopened box of 100 packs of 1981 Topps stickers.

Lots of chances to perfect your no-tears tearing.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1986 Topps Baseball Cello Packs with Pete Rose on Front (2)

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The 1986 Topps baseball card set was not the greatest in the company’s history.

The design was just so-so, for one thing. The rookie card class was pretty weak, for another (thought Cecil Fielder beefed it up when he came back from Japan in 1990).

But one thing 1986 Topps did have going for it was Pete Rose — like, all over the place.

Rose slashed his way past Ty Cobb and his 4191 hits on September 11, 1985, and the hobby loved him for it — before, at that moment, and afterward.

In his run-up to the record, all of Rose’s cards jumped up in demand and value, and he was arguably the hottest of all non-rookie players all across the land.

Topps capitalized on that popularity the next year by issuing a whopping nine Rose cards in their base set — the normal Rose at #1, a Record Breaker at #206, a manager/Cincinnati Reds team card at #741, and six retrospective cards (#2-7) that showed miniature versions of Pete’s previous 24 base Topps cards.

It’s those latter multi-card cars that make a cameo in this eBay lot (affiliate link) and its sister lot (affiliate link) — four Rose cards showing sixteen Rose cards on the top of four 1986 Topps cello packs.

Very meta, and very cool, even if not extremely valuable.

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1983 Topps Baseball Cello Pack with Don Sutton on Front

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The early 1980s were a pretty dismal time for baseball cards or, more precisely, baseball card designs.

Because, even though Fleer managed to finally break the Topps monopoly and pulled Donruss into the market with them, the onslaught of new cards did little to excite the senses or capture the poetry of the game.

Dark and dingy photos, half-hearted designs, lousy cardstock, errors all over the place — things were pretty messy in 1981 and 1982.

In 1983, though Donruss and Fleer started to figure things out and issued their best sets to date.

Too bad for them Topps stepped on the gas an issued one of the greatest, sunniest sets of all time.

You can relive the thrill of discovering those gorgeous cards all those many springs ago with this pristine cello pack featuring Hall of Famer on the front and Pedro Guerrero — always in the discussion about best players in the game back in those days — on the back.

Could the in-between hold a Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, or Ryne Sandberg rookie card? Only the gum stick knows for sure.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1984 Topps Super Unopened Boxes (3)

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You ever create something that’s just so good, so unbelievably groundbreaking that all you want to do is find a way to broadcast it to the world? Blow it up to the size of a skyscraper and shine a light on it for all the world to see?

Apparently, that’s how Topps felt in 1984.

On the heels of their gorgeous 1983 set, Topps decided that the best thing to do was tweak the thing a bit. You know, make the inset headshot square instead of round, fill it in with a garish color, add big block letters down the left-hand side.

Fuzzy up the photos just a bit because the sharpness of the 1983s was too much for the human eye to withstand.

You know, that sort of thing.

And when they were all done, Topps darn near fell into the pond and drowned while looking at their own reflection in the neighborhood cardboard pond. Their creation was almost too beautiful for words!

But not quite, and they wanted to spread that word.

So they took 30 of their favorite 1984 cards, blew them up to 5″ x 7″, plopped them into plastic “wax” packs and called them super.

And, really, what else could you call a near life-size rendering of the great Al Holland?

This eBay lot lets you capture all that Super kitsch with three unopened boxes of 1984 Topps Supers, minus one pack.

And, if you don’t like the cards, at least the listing gives you a new euphemism for … well … something.

As in, that lot is one pack shy of three boxes.

It’s going to be big.

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1987 Topps Vending Case

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For the first several years I collected, I harbored this dream about world domination … and it all hinged on Topps vending cases.

See, a single vending case contained 24 vending boxes, each with 500 brand new, perfect cards (probably not perfect, but that’s how it seemed).

12,000 cards all in one shot.

Depending on the year, that would have like quadrupled, tripled, or at least double my collection.

And it would have yielded 15.15 repeating copies of every card in whichever set was involved.

That’s where the magic would happen.

I’d get a vending case, pull all the Mark McGwire rookies or Vince Coleman rookies or Bill Doran rookies or first Padres Steve Garvey cards, and then sell the excess for beaucoup bucks.

Then I’d reinvest, maybe in another full vending case if I made enough the first time around, and do the whole thing again.

And again and again and again until I had retired at age 15.

It was going to be great.

Except … I always got distracted by Donruss and Fleer and Topps Stickers and Action All-Stars and Fun Foods. It’s hard to be happy with 15.15 repeating of a bunch of things when you have to have one of everything.

It would have been great, though.

Those memories are part of what draws me to lots like this one, a full 1987 Topps vending case. It’s sad, because the Buy-It-Now price is only $79 and these cards were supposed to be gold by now.

It’s also sad because the case itself is so beat up. It’s probably seen a hard life, or it’s just aged, like I have.

But it’s happy because the blue boxes themselves are shining through a crack in the case cardboard, and they look pretty gorgeous still.

Mostly, though, it’s happy because there are 12,000 Topps baseball cards inside. Can you feel those old dreams stirring?

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Milk Chocolate Bar

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It used to be that you had to do something pretty special, like hit three home runs in one World Series game, before you could have your own baseball-themed candy bar.

And then along came the 1980s, with its baseball card boom and the incessant hyping of every rookie from Paul Assenmacher to Paul Zuvella.

So, when the Seattle Mariners Ken Griffey Jr. with the first pick of the 1987 draft, the results were predictable …

Comparisons to his father …

Comparisons to Willie Mays …

Predictions of greatness …

The first-ever Upper Deck baseball card (Non-Salesman Sample Division) …

And his own candy bar.

Yep, before The Kid ever took the Kingdome field, Mike Cramer and the Pacific Trading Card Company treated the hobby to the *drumroll* Ken Griffey Jr. Milk Chocolate Bar.

It was Junior.

It was Milk Chocolate.

It looked like a baseball card.

It came in a Griffey-laden wrapper.

It was spectacular.

You can buy one — right now — on eBay. Better grab your Tums.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1983 Fleer Baseball Rack Packs (3)

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After an underwhelming debut in 1981 and a maybe even more underwhelming sophomore effort in 1982, Fleer needed to do something big in 1983 if they wanted to keep up with Donruss (ha!) and Topps.

Mission accomplished. Almost.

If it weren’t for an all-time great Topps issue that spring, the 1983 Fleer set would have been at the top of the heap — upgraded brown-gray borders, Super Star Specials, copious stats on card backs, and oooooooooo photos on card backs.

Throw in big-time rookie cards of Ryne Sandberg, Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, Ron Kittle, Frank Viola, and, um, George Wright, and you had a combination that was hard to beat (even though Topps did).

This eBay lot of three 1983 Fleer rack packs gives you all of that awesomeness right in your face, and it doesn’t even make you guess too much about what you’ll get.

I mean, right there on the front panels are sparkling cards of Lee Lacy, Gary Lavelle, and Randy Moffitt. Oh, and Reggie Jackson, Robin Yount, Gwynn, and Boggs.

And if you can resist any Champ Summers baseball card, you’re a stronger man than I.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1984 Ralston Purina Baseball Cards Unopened Packs (4)

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How much would you pay to complete your baseball card collection?

I mean, sure you’d give up hard-earned money for your cardboard fix … but would you chuck down box after box of gut-churning, cavity-inducing powdered, compressed, malted, generally blech wheat products?

Let me tell you … you would if you were 12 years old in 1984 and had the chance to add another set to your burgeoning collection via several thousand calories worth of Cookie Crisp.

That is, if you were serious about this thing.

I didn’t matter that the cereal tasted like Yoda’s refrigerator or that it coated your insides like blown-in insulation or that it caked in your teeth like Dog Chow in a German shepherd.

It didn’t even matter that the cards weren’t all that great.

Or that you could buy them on the cheap more than 30 years later.

Like in this eBay lot (affiliate link), which features four packs of the 1984 Ralston-Purina baseball cards, or this companion lot (affiliate link) that offers another four packs.

And these packs won’t even send you to the dentist.

Sorry, Doc.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1986 Fleer Baseball Unopened Cello Packs (15)

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By 1986, the hobby was fully engulfed in the flames of rookie card mania thanks to the exploits of young phenoms like Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Eric Davis, Don Mattingly, and that summer of ’86, Jose Canseco and Wally Joyner.

At the same time, Fleer and Donruss had overcome their early growing pains to leapfrog over Topps in terms of card quality and values. The perception, at least, was that Fleer and Donruss cards were printed on superior cardstock and existed in much fewer quantities than their Topps counterparts.

In 1986, Donruss was the hottest brand going thanks to the presence of a Jose Canseco Rated Rookie card, but Fleer wasn’t far behind thanks to rookie cards of Canseco, Cory Snyder, Lenny Dykstra, Benito Santiago, Cecil Fielder, and many others.

Add in the Future Hall of Famers and All-Stars inserts, and you had a solid set that verged on scorching at various times.

The 1986 Fleer issue may not be en fuego more than 30 years later, but it sure would be fun to crack open the 15 cello packs in this eBay lot to see if you can find your own Joe Orsulak RC prize.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1990 Topps Heads Up! Baseball Stars Unopened Box (24 Packs)

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It may be time to head back to school, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it.

And what better way to have some fun than busting open a box of one of those funky Topps test issues risen from the nadir of the Junk Wax Era.

In this case (no, just a box, actually), we a box — 24 full packs — of 1990 Topps! Heads Up Baseball Stars.

Cowabunga!  (That’s a very early-1990s thing to say — look it up.)

Anyway, how cool would it be to have a big ol’ cutout of Ken Griffey Jr.’s head suction-cupped inside your locker? Very cool, that’s how cool, and this could be your lucky day.

Heck, you might get really lucky and pull a Craig Worthington noggin. And there is nobody — NOBODY — starrier than Craig Worthington and his .230 lifetime batting average.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1984 Donruss Unopened Wax Box

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This is the one that changed everything … the one that made Donruss a real baseball card company … the one that cemented our forever fascination with rookie cards.

In the summer of 1984, Don Mattingly came out of nowhere to win the American League batting title, snatching it away from New York Yankees teammate Dave Winfield.

At the same time, collectors were having trouble filling their one-of-everything desires because 1984 Donruss was downright scarce — and it was a really nice looking set for a change.

And, as luck would have it, Mattingly had a rookie card in that Donruss issue.

Uh-oh.

Mattingly+rookie+can’t-find-these-cards-anywhere+New York Hype = explosion

The hobby was never the same, for better or for worse.

This eBay lot gives you all that history in a box — a 1984 Donruss wax box full of thirty-six 1984 Donruss wax packs.

Yum! Even if there is no gum.

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

1985 Topps Rack Packs (20) … with Stars!

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There’s not much to say about today’s Wow! Wax entry other than …

• 1985 Topps Rack Packs are not, technically speaking, wax.
• This lot offers up twenty (20) 1985 Rack Packs with stars on front (Mike Schmidt, Eddie Murray, Robin Yount(2), Reggie Jackson,  …).
• 1985 Topps is loaded with rookie cards Dwight Gooden, Eric Davis, Roger Clemens, Kirby Puckett, Buddy Biancalana to name a few.

This good, take-you-to-your-roots, old-school cardboard right here, even if the Buy-It-Now price ($229.95) may sting a bit — you always have the option to “Make Offer.”

And, oh yeah — if you don’t like the stars showing on this lot, the seller has two other 1985 Topps Rack Pack lots to choose from … here and here  (affiliate links).

Can’t you just hear the crinkles?

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1983 Donruss Baseball Unopened Rack Pack

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It’s an age-old problem in this hobby — you find a pile of unopened baseball card packs and you want to buy one and tear into it in the hopes that you’ll find something great like a Greg Gross rookie or Glenn Hubbard’s snake.

But …

What if someone came before you and searched through the packs to get the good stuff?

Easy enough to cherrypick rack and cello packs, and even wax packs had their problems — ever hear of resealing?

Now, of course, Upper Deck “solved” this conundrum in 1989 by encasing their cards in MRE Wrap, but did you know that Donruss actually beat them to it?

I mean, look at this 1983 Donruss rack pack up for sale right now on eBay …

Three wax packs inside of a cellophane rack pack.

It’s gorgeous! It’s amazing! It’s freaking genius!

So don’t worry about having lost out to some jerk from 35 years ago. If Donruss put Manny Trillo inside one of these sections, you can bet your sweet bippy Manny is still there waiting for you.

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1982 Donruss Baseball Wax Pack

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It must have been a relief — or at least a surprise — when collectors found these beautiful (yes they are!) red and yellow Donruss wax packs on store shelves in the spring of 1982.

After all, 1981 had been a rough year for the first-time cardmaker, from losing their right to sell gum with their cards to, well, the cards themselves. Thin cardstock, terrible photography, more errors than a Dick Stuart highlight reel, slightly self-indulgent card backs.

The hobby had no guarantee there would even be a 1982 Donruss baseball card set.

But there the packs were, with a god-awful Babe Ruth drawing but tremendous waxy promise.

Inside the packs were goodies like the Cal Ripken Jr. rookie card, the Steve Sax rookie card, the Shooty Babitt rookie card.

Quite a rally from the brink of obscurity!

So it’s always fun and nostalgic when a 1982 Donruss wax pack makes an appearance, as in this eBay lot.

I mean, who knows how close we came to never having the chance to pull the San Diego Chicken card that might lie inside?

Check out the full eBay listing (affiliate link).

(Check out our previous Wow! Wax listings here.)

Point is, you need some ideas about what to buy a baseball card collector who has everything but wants more, and you don’t want to break the bank.

Well … you’ve come to the right place, Skippy!

Welcome to this list of ten great 1980s collectibles that any hobbyist will love … and they all check in under $50 most of the time. Usually a way under. And that’s for complete sets.

Oh, and there’s one entry for each year of the decade, because we do stuff like that around here.

Let’s dig in …

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1980 TCMA Baseball Immortals

In case you’re not of a certain age, you should know some context for this one …

See, before 1981, the new-card landscape was pretty barren.

That is, before Fleer and Donruss hit the scene, you had … Topps, pretty much.

And then a few oddball sets here and there, mostly also produced by Topps.

But there were also some minor league sets produced by, often, TCMA. And every once in awhile, that company would branch out a bit.

In 1980, that meant firing up their 1975 Topps Machine to produce this colorful set of “Baseball Immortals” that included every Hall of Famer there was — 173 at the time.

Thing is, this set didn’t stop there, as TCMA added to the role every year (starting in 1984) when a new Cooperstown class was minted.

By 1987, the count stood at 199, and that’s where it still stands today, with Billy Williams, Catfish Hunter, and Ray Dandridge putting a cap on the set forever.

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1981 Kellogg’s 3D Baseball Cards

If you were a collector in the 1970s and early 1980s, chances are pretty good you downed a lot of Kellogg’s cereal during the baseball season in your chase for more cards.

Who could resist these plastic, ridgy, 3-D beauties, anyway?

Not anyone I know of, no matter how much they cracked!

A lot of those cards, especially early on, are fairly scarce and kind of expensive these days.

By comparison, though, the 1981 set is plenty plentiful, maybe owing to the overall proliferation of cards as manufacturers not named “Topps” burst onto the scene.

These babies are super colorful, too, and just may have inspired Fleer’s “awesome” 1991 set … like a scratch-and-sniff banana sticker, that one was!

Regardless of that dubious legacy, the 1981 Kellogg’s pasteboards look good, and they’re loaded with Hall of Famers like Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Johnny Bench, Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Pete Rose, and Bob Horner.

Right, I know. But he’s there, and he looks pretty good, too. Not even all that fat yet.

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1982 Topps Kmart 20th Anniversary

I have an unnatural, maybe unhealthy love of this set, as you might know if you’ve read any of my stuff on the matter, either here or on Twitter or YouTube (watched, in that case, not read).

So for now, in this space, I’ll just say that the 1982 Topps Kmart 20th Anniversary set was a wealth of historical information for a newly-minted baseball fan in 1983 (when I first got my mitts on some).

It was also a great source of information and card-recognition practice for a new collector … and good for confusion, too.

What do I mean by that?

Go ahead and try to find a 1962 Topps Maury Wills rookie card, or a single 1975 Topps Fred Lynn rookie card.

I’ll wait right here for you to report back.

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1983 Topps Foldouts

And speaking of learning the game through cardboard, nothing ramped me up on the then-current greats faster than this set did.

There were five foldouts in this issue, each sold in its own cellophane package, and each showing Ben Oglivie on the front — which of course led me to believe that B.O. must have been the greatest player ever since he was in the top tier all across the board.

But he wasn’t.

Anyway, each foldout folded out (duh) to reveal 17 leaders in each of five categories … career wins, home runs, batting average (“batting leaders”), saves (“Relief Aces”), and stolen bases.

And I was thus introduced to the likes of Mike Schmidt and Tommy John and Al Oliver, but also Ron Cey and Rick Monday and Jerry Reuss.

Priceless.

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1984 Topps Super Baseball Cards

By 1984, I already knew who the big names in the game were, and that included youngsters like Darryl Strawberry and Ron Kittle, in addition to more obscure semi-stars like Al Holland and Bill Buckner.

All of those dudes made the cut for the 1984 Topps Super Baseball checklist.

These cards looked identical to the base issue from that year, except they were gargantuan, at 5″ x 7″.

And let me tell you, when you combine the awesomeness of that magical Strawberry rookie card with Brobdingnagian proportions — well, it was almost more than a poor mortal child could handle.

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1985 Topps 3D Baseball Cards

The hobby was booming hard by the mid-1980s, though you might argue the absolute peak was still a few years in front of us.

But the companies were slugging it out for sure, and, while Topps seemed reluctant to let go of their mushy old card stock in their base sets, they were plenty willing to test out new stuff.

One of those “stuff” was a set that stands as maybe the most “1980s” issue of the entire 1980s — the 1985 Topps 3D humdinger.

Now, these cards weren’t 3D through some trick of photography or space-age overlay. Nope, these guys got real the old-fashioned way … namely, they were actually three-dimensional.

As in, they weren’t flat at all. Rather, they popped and billowed out of their plane like a relief globe, allowing collectors to feel what each player looked like.

Of course, storage is a bear, but these things rock.

They’re also huge and plastic, both pluses and minuses.

And, like the 1984 Topps Supers, the 30-card checklist is a mixture of Hall of Famers (Eddie Murray, Rich Gossage) and merely All-Stars (Don Mattingly, Fernando Valenzuela).

If you were bored by the glut of 2-1/2″ x 3-1/2″ flat baseball cards, though, this set was quite a *ahem* relief.

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1986 Fleer Mini Baseball Cards

In the mid-1980s, there weren’t many (mini?) “old” sets hotter than 1975 Topps Minis.

Not only was the set loaded with big-name rookies like Fred Lynn, Gary Carter, George Brett, Robin Yount, and others, but the cards were unusual.

I mean, who wouldn’t want a complete shrunken parallel to the “normal” Topps set, a full 660 cards of tiny grandeur?

They were scarce, too, at least when compared to the full-sized things, and at least by perception.

So, if you were a competitor looking to take down Big Gum, wouldn’t it make sense to copy their successful formulas from the past and make it your own?

That’s what Fleer thought, so they cut down a bunch (120) of their 1986 cards gave them brand new pictures, and jammed them in a custom box.

Voila!

The world can forever revel in the glory of the 1986 Fleer Mini set, with its Dave Parker and Ryne Sandberg and Alvin Davis and Scott Garrelts cards.

Yay, blue.

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1987 Donruss Opening Day

Donruss couldn’t be outdone by Topps and Fleer when it came to innovation and parallel sets (or sorta parallel sets).

So, in 1985, they rolled out Donruss Highlights.

Then, in 1986, it was Donruss The Rookies, complete with Jose Canseco and Barry Bonds and Wally Joyner and … wait for it … Bob Kipper.

In 1987, Donruss decided to strike early by issuing a mid-season set that featured guys who had made the starting lineup for their teams in 1987.

Cards looked just like those in the base issue, except they had burgundy borders instead of black ones, and they featured different pictures.

So different, in fact, that Bonds’ card actually featured Johnny Ray the first time around. That card was corrected pretty quickly, creating a highly desirable error/correction pair in the midst of the rookie card craze.

In all, the Opening Day set contained 273 cards and were sold all together in a long box, stacked up in bricks.

Oh … a word of caution — if you go looking for the Ray version of the Bonds, beware counterfeits, as the high prices have attracted some unwanted attention over the years.

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1988 Negro League Stars

So many great players missed out on the spotlight of the Major Leagues due to segregation in the first half of the 20th century that it’s always great to get a chance to read about them and actually see what they looked like.

Of course, the players in question here are the standouts from the old Negro Leagues, which fielded star-studded teams in parallel with MLB for several decades before Jackie Robinson and others began to blaze trails in the Majors.

In 1988, the Pittsburgh Pirates treated fans to a 20-card set of the greatest players from the city’s two Negro League teams, the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords.

Seems the cards were issued in sheet form on September 10, 1988, but you’ll most often find the perforated beauties separated from each other these days.

Mixed in with familiar names like Rube Foster and Buck Leonard, you’ll uncover lesser-known players such as Harold Tinker and Lefty Mellix, along with team cards and other goodies.

If you love baseball history and especially history you may not know all that well, you’ll adore these cards.

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1989 Topps Senior League

A lot of the guys that visitors to this site once idolized, at least in a baseball way, were getting long in the tooth by the late 1980s.

So long, in fact, that a big heap of them were done in the Majors.

But there was enough interest in seeing them play and in hanging onto our (and our fathers’) youth that the Senior Professional Baseball Association was born.

Of course, that’s a lot of words for old guys, so everyone just called it the “Senior League.”

In order to play in the Senior League, you didn’t really have to be that old — 35 in general, or 32 for catchers. For reference, Carlton Fisk turned 42 during the Senior League’s first season (1989-1990) and would play another four years as a catcher in the real Big Leagues.

But we can’t all be Pudge.

We can’t all be Rollie Fingers or Fergie Jenkins or George Foster or Ed Rakow, either.

But all those guys appeared in Senior League action.

Most of them appeared in the 1989 Topps Senior League set, too.

Surprised? Nah, me, either.

Topps makes baseball cards and makes money from baseball cards, so where there are players and fans, you can be pretty sure there will be Topps cards.

And these ones look pretty good, too, with wood-grained borders and baseball-y elements that — to me — make them a combination of 1987 Topps and Starting Lineup cards.

In typical Topps fashion, the set features 132 cards — you know, to fit neatly on one of those printing sheets of theirs.

So, we can’t all play in the Senior League — no one can now — but we can all own Senior League baseball cards.

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Back in the 1970s or 1980s, you could go to one of the hobby papers in July or so to make sure your orders got to your doorstep before the Fat Man’s big day, but today …

Today, we can find pretty much anything we want online.

And, if what you want are 1970s baseball cards — with an oddball twist and at a reasonable price — these ten just might be up your alley.

There’s one for each year of the psychedelic decade, and none of them will set you back more than a C-note.

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1970 Milton Bradley Complete Set

In 1969, Milton Bradley issued a baseball board game, complete with 296 black-and-white player cards that measure 2″ x 3″. You rolled the dice and then collected the outcome corresponding to that number on the back of your card.

Roll a five with Hank Aaron, for instance, and the home run king added to his dinger total.

The game was back in 1970, but pared down to 28 player cards to go along with 32 generic playing cards.

While the player choice is (obviously) much reduced, the good news is that you get Hall of Famers like Aaron, Willie Mays, Rod Carew, and Ernie Banks, along with other legends such as Tom Haller, Denis Menke, and Don Mincher, all for a reasonable sum.

And if you’re looking for a heftier burden, MB was back with a 402-card game in 1972.

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1971 Fleer World Series Set

Fleer had already had their hands slapped a couple of times by 1971 for trying to go after current players and compete head-to-head with Topps.

So, while they prepared their antitrust lawsuit against the cardboard giant, Fleer went about its business of tackling retired and dead players. In this case, they brought back their cartoon-based World Series issue, following their own lead from 1970.

The 1971 set features 68 cards, each one detailing one Fall Classic from 1903 through 1970, plus a card for the missing 1904 Series.

Though much of the subject matter repeated from the year before, Fleer rolled out new cartoons and replaced blue ink on the back with black fare.

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1972 Kellogg’s All-Time Baseball Greats Set

Collectors spent a lot of time in the summer of 1972 eating cereal in an attempt to track down the flashy, 3-D baseball cards that Kellogg’s included in specially marked boxes.

That task was compounded by the possibility of not just one set to collect, but two. Because, in addition to the current-player issue of 54 cards, Kellogg’s also offered up a 15-card set of All-Time Greats.

The checklist is everything you’d think it might be with a name like that and at that point in history:

• Walter Johnson (#1)
• Rogers Hornsby (#2)
• John McGraw (#3)
• Mickey Cochrane (#4)
• George Sisler (#5)
• Babe Ruth – Greatest Ever (#6)
• Robert “Lefty” Grove (#7)
• Harold “Pie Traynor (#8)
• Honus Wagner (#9)
• Eddie Collins (#10)
• Tris Speaker (#11)
• Cy Young (#12)
• Lou Gehrig (#13)
• Babe Ruth – Greatest Right Fielder (#14)
• Ty Cobb (#15)

So, yeah, it’s loaded. And with extra, um, weight attached to the Babe.

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1973 O-Pee-Chee Team Checklist Set

OK, so these are technically not a standalone issue, but rather an insert set seeded “randomly” in late-series packs in 1973.

Still, they’re a pretty cool concept, with each card showcasing facsimile autographs of a team’s players on the front, along with a checklist of those players’ individual 1973 OPC cards on the back.

This oddball exists in a Topps version, too, but why not go bilingual when you can?

The whole shebang got a sequel in 1974, when blue borders were replaced by red.

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1974 Topps Traded Set

Now, this set is a trailblazer, but in an amalgamated sort of way.

Topps had been adding “now with” lines on cards at various times over the previous ten years or so and went so far as to stamp “TRADED” on a few late-series 1972 cards (looking at you Little Joe Morgan).

But this was the first time the Old Gum Company dedicated an entire set to traded players, rolling out 43 dudes in full airbrush glory, plus a checklist.

These cards were distributed as part of the company’s first-ever factory set and also seeded in late-run wax packs.

Which, you know, sort of negates that whole idea of 1974 Topps being the first issue dumped on the market all at once, as opposed to in series.

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1975 Shakey’s Pizza West Coast Greats Set

To be honest, this set is not all that great from a quality standpoint.

The images are in black and white, the design elements are like literal cut-and-paste artifacts from a kindergarten class, and there is more white space than you’d find on a polar bear’s face.

Overall, they make you wonder if Shakey’s meant for them to be used as coasters rather than saved as actual collectible baseball cards.

But they were issued by Shakey’s, an iconic franchise that for many of us evokes childhood memories like other institutions from the 70s — Love American Style, Ayr-Way department stores, wait-til-your-father-gets-home spankings.

Sweet, terrible memories, all.

And the Shakey’s set does feature some awesome players and managers, like Ted Williams, Arky Vaughan, Fred Hutchinson, and Casey Stengel.

And George Burns, though probably not that one.

Fun stuff, even if the quality is a little, uh, Shakey.

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1976 Linnett Superstars

I wrote about the Luis Tiant card from the Linnett set awhile back, but we can go bigger with this entry … it’s Christmas, for gosh sake!

Depending on your tastes, the Linnetts let you celebrate the 1976 World Series, with 12-card issues for the Cincinnati Reds (my homer is showing again) or the Boston Red Sox.

Or, you could go with the Los Angeles Dodgers — good choice if you wanted a Doug Rau lollipop-head card.

These days, you can probably still find these things in complete sheet format, or in stacks of hand-separated cards.

Either way, you’re in for some nifty black-and-white art work, and some groovy 70s colors and fonts.

Right on!

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1977 Burger Chef Fun Meal Discs Tray

Burger Chef may or may not be the greatest burger joint of all-time … I tend toward “yes” on this one, but then, I also like Rick Reuschel better than Catfish Hunter as a Hall of Famer.

Go figure.

What there is no debate about, though, is that Burger Chef Fun Meals were -F-U-N, with a capital hellyeah!

And that was especially true when those Fun Meal trays featured punch-out discs of baseball players, as they did in 1977.

Sporting a 1976 MSA copyright, the Fun Meal cards covered 24 of 26 teams, skipping just the expansion Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays.

And, at nine discs per team, this set gave us guys who never appeared on an MSA issue anywhere else … even though the opportunities were seemingly endless.

So, give me a Fun Meal tray with Cesar Cedeno or Dave Winfield or even Sixto Lezcano, and we just might be friends for a good, long while.

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1978 Burger King Tigers Set

I wrote about this set awhile back when talking about the Hall of Fame cases of Jack Morris, Alan Trammell, and Lou Whitaker. But it’s worth a return visit for a few reasons …

• Burger King sets are cool.
• Burger King sets (sometimes) gave us new photos.
• You get single-player rookie cards of Morris, Trammell, and Whitaker.
• You can still get them pretty cheap.

And, even if you’re not a Tigers fan, every old-time baseball fan knows just how amazing and important that 1984 juggernaut of a team was.

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1979 Topps Comics Set

Have you ever sat down and chomped through an entire box of Bazooka bubble gum?

If not, then you probably aren’t a man/boy who grew up in the 1980s or before, or you haven’t read “Henry and the Paper Route” by Beverly Cleary.

‘Cause if you check both those boxes, you gotta have some Bazooka pedigree.

And a huge hunk of the Bazooka Joy was pulling those campy Bazooka Joe comics that wrapped each little pink slab of sugary heaven. They were waxy, hard to read, and drawn with a shaky hand, but they rocked.

Same thing with these baseball comics that Topps issued as a “test” set in 1979, except the drawings were better and the writing, easier to read.

And, while this set probably conformed to some degree to the limited-distribution mantra of test issues, there are plenty of them available on eBay and elsewhere today.

The 33-comic set is loaded, too, with big names like Pete Rose, Dave Parker, Johnny Bench, George Brett, Nolan Ryan, and … um … Craig Swan lining up to aggravate your TMJ.

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This is the last Flash Market Report of August, which means that this is the last Sunday in August. This time next week, the waiver trade deadline will be gone and the baseball season will be in its final month.

But while our grip on summer may be slipping, the good news is that the hobby marches on.

As evidence, check out these five incredible lots of vintage baseball (or football) cards that changed hands in the last week.

Enjoy the vicarious pleasures of the big-ticket items and, for goodness’ sake, enjoy the fleeting moments of our 2018 baseball season.

(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.)

T206 Sweet Caporal Cigarettes Baseball Series Cards (9)

In this crazy, fast-paced and glitzy modern world of ours, it’s easy to forget that the simple pleasures of baseball cards have thrilled boys — and all other types 0f collectors — for well over 100 years.

That’s why lots like this one are so great, since they give us a chance to see bits of that history through the cardboard of the times.

No one could ever accuse the T206 set of being underrated, but I’m always struck by just how colorful and bold these cards are.

This particular lot offered up nine of the cards, with Sweet Caporal backs, in what the seller described as “good” condition.

The whole kit and kaboodle — which included Hall of Famers Walter Johnson, John McGraw, Clark Griffith, and Tris Speaker — brought $1175 thanks to a vigorous 48 bids.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1967 Topps Baseball Complete Set (VG/EX+)

If you had to choose the most beautiful set from the first 40 years or so of the modern hobby, which would you pick?

Certainly, 1953 Topps, 1953 Bowman (color), and 1957 Topps would be among the strong contenders for many collectors. If you roll into the 1960s, you’d have to throw 1967 Topps in the mix, don’t you think?

The most prominent design elements for 1967 Topps were the awesome and huge player photos on card fronts — they’re right there with the 1957s in terms of being Topps’ most “pure” cards.

Doesn’t hurt that the Rod Carew and Tom Seaver rookie cards pop here, either, right?

This eBay lot featured a complete 1967 Topps set, with an average condition of VG/EX+ and with Seaver actually graded at PSA 9.

The asking price was $5480, but it’s unclear if it actually changed hands since the listing shows it simply as “no longer available.”

Still, a great perusal through a scenic piece of hobby history.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1973 Topps Mike Schmidt Rookie Card (PSA 9)

Do collectors even care about guys whose legends are immutable, long since written in the stars? Heroes who last took the playing field 30 years ago or so?

Depends on the circumstances, I suppose, but when the player is the greatest third baseman ever and the card is a high-grade version of his rookie … heck yeah, we care!

In this case, a 1973 Topps Mike Schmidt rookie card graded at PSA 9 (MINT) pulled in 33 bids and sold for a final price of a nice, round $1852.27.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1970 Topps Baseball Unopened 6th Series Wax Packs (3)

Man, remember how great it was to collect baseball cards in 1970? You know, back when you could get 10 cards in a 10-cent wax pack?

And those great red, yellow, and white wax packs were really something!

You say you don’t remember all of that?

Well, this lot of three unopened 1970 Topps baseball wax packs from the sixth series, could have helped you relive those moments, even if you never lived them in the first place.

Of course, the allure of pulling a Pete Rose or Willie Mays card might have made it hard to resist opening those puppies. Good thing you still have the listing to get your juices flowing, without the temptation, huh?

This three-pack brought in $1499.95.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1986 Topps Steve Young Rookie Card (PSA 10)

Who was the greatest quarterback of all time?

Plenty of the current crown of NFL fans will tell you it’s Tom Brady, with Peyton Manning support still strong in the heartland.

If you’d asked fans in the 1980s or 1990s, though, a majority probably would have said Joe Montana took top billing.

That just goes to show you how good Steve Young was — it should have been easy to forget about the man who replaced Montana with the San Francisco 49ers.

Instead, Young won his own Super Bowl and became one of the greatest scrambling quarterbacks ever, which only complemented his strong traditional skills.

Even years after his retirement, no one has forgotten about Young, as evidenced by this eBay lot.

A PSA 10 copy of Young’s 1986 Topps rookie card — with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — hammered down at $10,999 on the strength of 28 bids.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

(Check out our other Flash Market Reports here and our other posts about card values here.)

As sad as that is, and even though we have the denouement of the pennant races and postseason in front of us, this is also the time of year when other sports start to creep into our consciousness.

The allure of football and — soon, basketball and hockey — is not limited to the field of play, either.

Nope, there is plenty of droolworthy cardboard to be found among the non-baseball sports, and this week, those goodies start creeping into our Friday listings.

So, sit back, enjoy, and don’t be surprised if a little variety strikes your fancy.

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1969 Topps Willie Mays (PSA 10)

By 1969, Willie Mays was squarely in the define phase of his career, but he still had a few seasons left to produce at All-Star levels, albeit with reduced playing tome from his heyday.

More importantly, Mays was a legend, an all-time great who had an outside shot at topping Babe Ruth’s career home run record.

That didn’t happen, of course — Hank Aaron was the one who ultimately took the homer crown — but Willie was and is one of the most popular players who ever lived.

And his 1969 Topps issue features the smiling superstar adorned in his San Francisco Giants home white jersey. It’s a great card, and this eBay lot presents it in perfect PSA 10 condition, one of only six to have ever received that grade.

The Buy-It-Now (BIN) sits at a similarly wowing $11,999.99.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1969 Topps Baseball Unopened Wax Pack

Hailing from the same set as the Mays card above is this 1969 Topps unopened 5-cent wax pack.

It’s a great period display piece with vibrant colors — red, yellow, blue, white, black — and graded in PSA 7

The wrapper shows a few crinkles but is in great shape overall (obviously) and features advertising for the rub-offs insert.

A very nice vintage pack listed at $2499.99

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1969-70 Topps Basketball Uncut Sheet with Lew Alcindor Rookie Card

The NBA season is still a ways off, but as baseball enters the final stretch and LeBron James heads for the Los Angeles Lakers, the sports world is starting to get that hardwood itch.

Evidence of that can be seen in the basketball lots that are starting to make their way to the market.

Take this 1969-70 Topps Basketball uncut sheet, for example.

How many times do you find the rookie card of two Hall of Famers on one sheet that’s nearly 50 years old? Along with a handful of other Hall of Famers?

Hardly ever, in my experience, but that’s what you get here …

A John Havlicek rookie card …

A Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) rookie card …

… and …

… Jerry Lucas, Connie Hawkins, Jerry West, Bill Bradley, Len Wilkins.

Obviously, this thing is loaded, and it’s hard to argue with the seller’s $9999.99 BIN.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1981 Topps Baseball Unopened Wax Case

In 1981, Fleer and Donruss broke Topps’ 25-year monopoly on the baseball card market to produce their first-ever sets of current players (although Fleer also tried the same in 1963).

None of the three 1981 sets are great, but Topps issue is almost universally accepted as the most solid among the trio.

Sporting a decent baseball-cap design that suffers from the usual dingy photography and mushy brown cardstock of the era, 1981 Topps baseball is nevertheless basically error-free, a far cry from the mess Fleer and Donruss issues.

And, while the rookie class isn’t the best ever, you can still find first-year cards of Kirk Gibson, Fernando Valenzuela (and Mike Scioscia), Tim Raines, and Harold Baines.

Given all that, this unopened wax case (20 boxes) of 1981 Topps baseball is a bona fide piece of hobby history that the seller is offering up at a $6200 BIN

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1984 Topps Football John Elway Rookie Card (PSA 10)

Though the world may not quite be ready for the NBA season, it seems everyone is ready for some football.

Friday Night Lights are firing up across the nation.

The college rumor mill is churning.

The NFL preseason is in full swing.

And some stellar cards are surfacing on eBay.

What could be a better accompaniment for your fall fun than this PSA 10 copy of the 1984 Topps John Elway rookie card?

The man is Denver Broncos through and through, a legendary Hall of Fame quarterback who led the team to two Super Bowl victories and then helped them to another as the lead front office man.

Hard to beat that legacy, and impossible to beat the quality of this card, listed at $3750.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

Check out our other posts detailing baseball cards for sale here.

The dog days of summer.

The start of school.

The end of summer.

It’s bull, if you ask me. I mean, boys and girls — of all ages — should be free to watch baseball all season long, unfettered by the constraints of school and work, teachers and bosses.

But since we all have to live, and learn, we’ll just have to take our solace where we can get it.

Like in the warm arms of a cardboard embrace … or the soft glow of an eBay listing.

So let’s combine the two and check out this week’s droolworthy lots — five baseball card listings for sale right now that will make you downright giddy and maybe green with envy.

August or not.

(Note that this post contains 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.)

1954 Topps Ted Williams (#1) – PSA 5

Topps spent the first three years of their existence fighting the wolves of the baseball card world without Ted Williams in their corner.

So, when they finally inked the Splendid Splinter to a contract in 1954, they tried to make up for lost time by giving him two cards — #1 and #250 — bookends!

Those bookends also helped create one of the hobby’s toughies in the form of the 1954 Bowman Williams, which Topps’ competitor had to pull from circulation.

This eBay lot, though, offers up that Topps #1 cards, a PSA 5 specimen with a Buy-It-Now (BIN) of $6999.

That’s a big number, but this card is also the tough gray back variety, and the PSA Population Report shows just 16 have been graded. This is the only 5, and there has been only one 6.

They just don’t come much better.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1963 Topps Pete Rose Rookie Card (#537) – BVG 9

Think Pete Rose doesn’t carry much weight in the hobby these days?

Listings like this one — and they aren’t all that rare, though this one is exceptional — might change your mind.

Here we have the legendary 1963 Topps Pete Rose rookie card, graded at BVG 9.

According to the seller, only five Rose rookies have achieved that grade, and none have rated higher.

You’d expect nothing less for a BIN of $11,999, right?

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1959 Bazooka Mickey Mantle (SGC 55 / 4.5 VG/EX+)

One of the cards I always considered untouchable, and almost mythical, as a kid was the 1959 Hank Aaron Bazooka card.

I first laid eyes on this beauty in an old, stripped-down price guide that was probably some Beckett knock-off but that provided a few black-and-white pictures.

And something about that Henry Aaron card just clicked with me …

The wistful follow-through …

The long card dimensions …

The colors I imagined I could see …

The thought of pulling a great card from a whole box of bubble gum.

It was great.

I never did get that card, but this eBay listing brings back most of those old feelings.

You can’t go wrong with Mickey Mantle, after all. And, even though the condition of this one is not great and it’s not graded by PSA, the PSA Pop Report shows that the grading giant has handled just a few of these over the years.

The Mick + scarcity = big bucks ($7499, in this case).

I’d still rather have the Hank, though.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1957 Topps Baseball Uncut Sheet

Man, when it comes to baseball cards, t’s tough to beat the sheer beauty of 1957 Topps.

Yes, that sounds cheesy, but these things are just stunning, even more than 60 years after their issue.

I mean if the Jim Gilliam card or the Frank Robinson rookie don’t stir something deep in your diamond soul, something’s just not right.

Anyway, this lot ratchets things up a notch with a 55-card uncut sheet of these beauties, including Mickey Mantle, Warren Spahn, Ted Kluszewski, Bob Lemon, and Red Schoendienst.

Not surprisingly, this thing is a little beat up, but $2750 doesn’t seem all that out of line for those big names and all that beauty and all that uncuttedness.

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

1986 Topps Traded Set Case (100)

In the fall of 1986, I figured out a foolproof scheme for making big money — I’d invest in Kurt Stillwell rookie cards.

He was, after all, going to be the shortstop for the Cincinnati Reds when they reeled off a few World Series victories in a row.

Barry Larkin wasn’t even on my radar.

So I bought 100 of Stillwell’s 1986 Topps Traded cards for $25 and waited.

I came across those babies a year of so back, at the bottom of my closet. The good news is, they’re still pristine.

The bad news is, they’re still Kurt Stillwell.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because this eBay lot could help you recreate my Stillwell thrills, courtesy of a full case — 100 sets — of 1986 Topps Traded.

So, not only would you get 100 Stillwells, you’d get 100 Barry Bonds and Bo Jackson rookies, too.

Oh, and Bill Wegman.

All for a BIN of $1050.

Rejoice, times 100!

Here is the eBay listing (affiliate link).

Check out our other posts detailing baseball cards for sale here.

For anyone who thinks that the hobby will never be what it once was, well … you’re probably right.

But that doesn’t mean there’s not plenty of fun to be had in the cards, and it doesn’t mean there’s no market for old cards.

In some ways, in fact, the good old stuff has never been stronger.

As evidence, here are five amazing lots that changed hands during the week ending August 12, 2018.

Enjoy!

(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.)

1951 Bowman Robin Roberts (PSA 9)

When you think of 1951 Bowman baseball cards, a few things probably pop into your mind: gorgeous paintings, weird card size, last year before Topps made a “real” set, and the true rookie cards of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays.

Robin Roberts probably doesn’t make your first-blush list of 1951 Bowman memories.

But that might change once you take a look at this eBay lot, which offered up a PSA 9 copy of Roberts, card #3 in that long-ago set.

It’s a great looking pasteboard featuring Robers in his red, white, and blue Philadelphia Phillies togs the year after he helped the Whiz Kids make it all the way to the World Series (where they were swept by Mantle and his New York Yankees).

The PSA Population report shows only eight Roberts cards have been graded at 9 and none have made a perfect 10.

So, you know, good luck finding a better copy.

This particular card sold for $6000, a big price for a big, scarce card.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1974 Topps Nolan Ryan (SGC 98 GEM 10)

If you think nothing issued after the 1950s or 1960s ever brings really big money, this card just might change your mind.

This 1974 Topps Nolan Ryan card has a lot to offer …

• Nolan Ryan getting ready to unleash a fastball at your head as you stand in the batter’s box
• Nolan Ryan at his physical peak, when he was regularly hammering out 300+ strikeouts per season
• Nolan Ryan
• The less confusing “California” Angels.
• A Topps card from the first year they issued all their cards at one time (except for that “Washington Nat’l League” thing)
• A grade of SGC 98 GEM 10

What would you pay for all that?

If you were the winner of this lot, you would pay $8500.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1986 Topps Traded Tiffany Bo Jackson Rookie Cards (40)

Man, nobody was more exciting to watch — or collect — in 1986 than Bo Jackson.

Every year brought its share of hyped players, but Bo seemed like the guy who might actually be able to do it all.

Hit the ball … hit the ball with power … catch the ball … throw the ball … steal bases … flatten linebackers … score touchdowns … return kicks and punts for touchdowns.

Dude pretty much wore a cape on NFL fields and MLB diamonds all year round.

So, as you can imagine, there was a lot of speculation around his cards, and there for awhile, he gave Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire and Randy Velarde a run for their cardboard money.

Of course, after Bo’s hip injury ended his football career and curtailed his diamond dreams, his cards softened.

But even after all these years, Bo is still fascinating.

So when a huge lot of his rookie cards comes up for sale, you can bet there is going to be a lot of interest — it’s a chance to relive Bo’s greatness and the excitement of the 1980s hobby all at once.

But are the cards still worth anything.

Depends on your definition of “anything,” but these forty 1986 Topps Traded Jackson rookie cards gaveled down for $3383 on the strength of 55 bids.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

1957 Topps Baseball Cards Complete Set

What’s the most beautiful baseball card set of the 1950s?

There are quite a few candidates, right? I mean 1951 Bowman, 1953 Bowman, and 1953 Topps all come to mind as strong contenders.

But if you’re more into clean card designs and gorgeous photography, then it’s hard to beat the 1957 Topps set.

And, since the set was issued after Topps took down Bowman and before Fleer starting messing around with baseball cards, you get everyone all in one shot: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron, the Frank Robinson rookie card.

You could try to put this thing together piece by piece, or you could buy a complete set already done up for you.

Neither one is all that easy to find, but this eBay lot offered up the latter — a complete 1957 Topps set with many of the biggies in EX or better condition.

This hunk of hobby bistory brought in $5500.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

Lifetime Collection of 15,000+ Vintage Cards

After more than 35 years of collecting, I continue to be intrigued by big, honking hodgepodge lots that look like they might contain anything.

I suspect I’m not alone in that, and this eBay lot bears that out.

Offering 15,000+ cards, this listing was billed as a lifetime collection and included goodies like a 1954 Topps Ernie Banks rookie card and 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan rookie card among thousands of other vintage baseball and football cards.

This heap of fun pulled in 65 bids and finally sold for $2755.55.

Worth checking out for all the mouthwatering photos alone.

See the original eBay listing here (affiliate link).

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