Don’t believe me? Check out the hefty sum commanded by an artist-signed copy of the Black Lotus card back in 2021!

Now, granted, not all MTG cards are that valuable, and they tend to lag behind their cardboard brethren from the Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon series, pricewise. But there’s no denying that Magic The Gathering cards stand tall in the hobby among collectible card games.

What follows, then, is a list of the top 100 most expensive Magic The Gathering cards sold on eBay over the last 30 days. This list is updated regularly, so come back often to see a rolling tally of mind-blowing Planeswalker-lore cards as they blow through the market and set new records.

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100 Most expensive mtg cards sold on eBay from 04/22/2026 through 05/21/2026

Don’t believe me? Check out the prices thrown around for the legendary Black Luster Soldier card!

Indeed, while Pokemon cards rule the collectible card games (CCG) market, YuGiOh cards stand up well to their more ballyhooed older brethren.

What follows, then, is a list of the top 100 most expensive YuGiOh cards (or Yu-Gi-Oh cards) sold on eBay over the last 30 days. This list is updated regularly, so come back often to see a rolling tally of mind-blowing pocket monsters cards as they blow through the market and set new records.

(Note: The listings below contain affiliate links to the sold eBay lots. You might also enjoy our rundown of the most expensive Magic The Gathering cards.)

100 Most expensive yugioh cards sold on eBay from 04/22/2026 through 05/21/2026

Don’t believe me? Check out the card that Logan Paul dropped more than $5 million to own in 2021.

Indeed, Pokemon cards rule the collectible card games (CCG) market in much the way that baseball ruled sports cards through the 20th century and for a good hunk of the 21st.

And the top of the Pokemon market makes other TCGs (trading card games) green with envy — like some sort of Sprigatito wannabes.

What follows, then, is a list of the top 100 most expensive Pokemon cards sold on eBay over the last 30 days. This list is updated regularly, so come back often to see a rolling tally of mind-blowing pocket monsters cards as they blow through the market and set new records.

(Note: The listings below contain affiliate links to the sold eBay lots. You might also enjoy our rundown of the most expensive YuGiOh cards.)

100 Most expensive pokemon cards sold on eBay from 04/22/2026 through 05/21/2026

See …

Back when Shaq debuted with the Orlando Magic in 1992, basketball cards were really starting to heat up, thanks to the heroics of Michael Jordan and other 1980s and early 1990s legends. And also thanks to the explosion of the sports card hobby at large — as baseball prices and production levels continued to climb, they pulled football along with them, and then basketball (and later, hockey).

But the hallmark of just about every aspect of the hobby in those days was excess.

Too many brands, too many sets of each brand, too many permutations of each card, too many copies of each permutation to even keep track of!

And, so, when you undertake an endeavor like, say, tracking down the specifics of Shaq rookie cards, you run into the same problem — too much of everything!

Heck, by count of PSA’s Shaq master set checklist, there were something like 75 different O’Neal cards issued during his rookie season in 1992-93.

Spoiler alert — we’re not going to run through 75 different Shaq cards below. But, really, we don’t have to in order to cover the bases (sorry for the mixed-sports metaphor).

Instead, we’ll take a look at every base Shaq card issued in 1992 and featuring him as a member of the Magic, his first NBA team. In other words, these are Shaq’s true rookie cards — no inserts, no parallels, no box-set cards, no Draft Pick cards that show him in his college (LSU) uniform.

Just full-blown, first-year Shaq-in-the-NBA basketball cards.

Here, then is the full scoop on the seven true Shaquille O’Neal rookie cards, with values shown culled from recent (as of October 2022) sales for copies in PSA 9 condition.

Note: The following sections contain affiliate links to eBay and Amazon listings for the cards being discussed.

1992 Fleer Shaquille O’Neal Rookie Card (#401)

Fleer cracked the seal on the basketball card market with their landmark set in 1986 that famously featured *the* Michael Jordan rookie card as well as RCs of other 1980s and 1990s luminaries like Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, and others.

Fast forward six years, and Fleer was still at it, helping to forge the Junk Wax market by dumping metric tons of product on the hobby each year. Among their large-charge output for 1992 was this rookie card of the large charge himself, Shaquille O’Neal.

This base card was joined by a Slam Dunk number later in the set – neither one sets the world on fire in terms of value these days, but they’re still early Shaq cards with plenty of fans.

Value: $15-20

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1992 Hoops Shaquille O’Neal Rookie Card (#442)

It was pretty much the same story for Hoops as it was for Fleer, except Hoops didn’t debut until 1989 and they never really produced any cards that number among the super valuable today. The David Robinson rookie card from that first (1989) Hoops set did become sort of an icon, though, appearing in ads all through the early 1990s.

In 1992, it was Shaq’s turn to carry the torch as Hoops’ big (pun intended) rookie, and the card delivers with an in-your-face shot of Shaq getting ready to plow through a defender on his way to the rim.

Value: $10-20

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1992 Skybox Shaquille O’Neal Rookie Card (#382)

After a debut set in 1990 that was as gaudy as the era it represented, SkyBox cleaned things up just a tad for their 1992 issue – whereas SkyBox gave us art-deco-on-acid backgrounds in 1990, they toned it down to some gaudy graphics and fonts, along with a big swath of color, the next time around.

Here we see Shaq on his borderless rookie card doing what he did best in those days – hanging off the rim while a bunch of defenders looked on.

Value: $15-20

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1992 Stadium Club Shaquille O’Neal Rookie Card (#247)

If you liked the 1992 Stadium Club design that Topps rolled out for their baseball set that summer, then you were in luck when it came time for them to fire up the gridiron and hardwood machines that fall.

The ice machine, too, for that matter.

Taking a page from Upper Deck’s recipe for success, Topps standardized across all four sports, settling on a full-bleed photo with some understated (by the standards of the day, at least) design elements at the bottom of the card.

On his own SC rookie card, Shaq seems to be struggling with the rock as he elevates to the basket, but you know this play probably ended up like all the rest – with a distressed backboard.

Value: $15-25

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1992 Topps Shaquille O’Neal Rookie Card (#362)

Same deal for the base Topps sets in 1992 – if you liked the design, you were treated to four doses of it, across baseball, football, basketball, and hockey.

If you didn’t like the design? Well, there were plenty of other options on the market, and there was always another batch of new cards just around the corner.

O’Neal’s Topps rookie card gives us a different look at the young center, waiting in the post and letting his teammates know he’s open and ready to unleash another slam dunk. This is one of the few early Shaq cards that shows him without the ball.

Value: $30-40

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1992 Ultra Shaquille O’Neal Rookie Card (#328)

Ultra was Fleer’s entry into the super-premium card sweepstakes, and it showcased the same sorts of traits as all the others in that class – thick cardstock, glossy finish, full-bleed vibrant photos, foil accents, colorful card backs.

The set would have been a revelation had it been the only one of its kind. As things stood, it sort of got lost in the crowd and its own avalanche of overproduction.

Even so, Shaq’s Ultra rookie card features a classic shot of big man taking HIS one-handed shot over a defender.

Value: $15-20

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1992 Upper Deck Shaquille O’Neal Rookie Card (#1)

If there’s one standout among base Shaquille O’Neal rookie cards, one that’s captured the imagination of collectors and the market over the years, it’s this triple-exposure Upper Deck number.

Showcasing Shaq’s power move to the basket from eyes-up dribble to home-run stuff, this striking card sets the young phenom against a night-black background. It was a dramatic tableau in which to present one of the game’s most exciting talents.

Value: $45-50

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Maybe even less.

Don’t believe me? Well, I don’t have much in the way of proof other than this story from a card show I attended in about 1984 …

Back in those days, Horner was still young and still basking in the glory of his early home run barrages, and the hobby was really starting to cook.

Well, the baseball end of the hobby was, at any rate. Football, basketball, and hockey, not so much.

So, anyway, at this particular show at our local big-city convention center, there were plenty of Horner rookie cards up for sale, all of them in thick plastic holders and all of them under the glass of dealer showcases.

The going rate started at $3 and ranged upward to $5 and maybe even a bit beyond.

Meanwhile, over in a corner of the showroom, one hapless dealer had decided to devote about half of his space to *gasp* football cards.

They were all pretty dirt-cheap when compared to their baseball brethren, but one hunk of gridiron cardboard really stood out to me: a complete set of 1976 Topps football cards, complete with a Walter Payton rookie card in a semirigid holder, the only card afforded such royal treatment.

The asking price for the set? Ten bucks.

For the whole thing.

And, at least in my memory, the Payton was in really nice shape.

And, that was the asking price. If there’s one thing I learned from a decade of wandering card shows like a lost puppy, it’s that $5 of real, live cash in the sweaty little palm of a rabid young collector is usually enough to buy a “ten dollar” card.

But …

I didn’t buy that Payton and his set-mates. Luckily, I didn’t buy a Horner RC, either. More than likely, I plunked down my pennies to add another Pete Rose or Mike Schmidt to my collection.

Totally worth it, of course, but I really do wish I had the Sweetness card now.

Because now, well, a Walter Payton rookie card is something that commands the sort of price you might expect from the greatest running back to ever don the shoulder pads (right, Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Curtis Dickey … but I’m a 1980s Bears homer and always will be).

And you know what’s really great about that 1976 Topps Walter Payton card that you covet (or that I covet, at least)?

It’s not the only Walter Payton rookie card out there!

Say what?

It’s true.

Once again, I sense your disbelief, so let’s get into the meat of this thing, finally.

What follows, then, is the complete rundown of Walter Payton rookie cards, along with approximate values, per actual recent sales as of September 2022.

(Note: The following sections contain affiliate links to eBay and Amazon listings for the cards being discussed.)

1976 Coke Bears Discs Walter Payton Rookie Card

In the mid-1970s, the still-fledgling hobby suddenly became awash in little paper-cardboard “discs” featuring baseball players and, to a lesser extent, players from other sports.

Isaly discs, Crane discs, Burger Chef discs, Carousel (snack bar) discs … it seemed like every food product was fair game.

And all of these little circles of sports-card fun looked pretty much the same — black-and-white player image fading into a white background at the margins, colorful enclosing circular border around the edge of the disc, player information in typeface around the player’s head, company name up top, and additional company advertising on the back of the disc.

The more of these discs you saw, the more apparent it became, too, that the players weren’t sporting any team logos on their hats or helmets (if they were wearing any).

So, what gave?

Well, what gave was that a company called Michael Schechter Associates, or MSA, landed contracts with a slew of food companies of all ilk to produce baseball cards (or discs, as the case may have been) to be included as premiums with and/or advertising for the various foodstuffs being offered up.

In order to include player likenesses, MSA also had to land contracts with each sport’s players’ union, and you’ll see those union logos on the disc fronts, too.

What you generally won’t see, though, is the actual league logo, meaning MSA likely did not have permission to use team logos — hence the hatless heads and airbrushed caps.

So … what does all of this have to do with Walter Payton rookie cards?

Well, as luck would have it, MSA produced a 22-disc set featuring members of the Chicago Bears for Coca-Cola in 1976, just in time to sweep in a certain young running back.

In this case, each disc was attached to a small ring made of the same thin carboard, which would hang from the neck of a 16-ounce glass Coke bottle in the old eight-pack cartons that used to swallow an entire grocery-store aisle.

The disc could be separated from the tab by tearing them apart along a perforated arc.

One curious bit here, at least as it relates to MSA issues, is that these Chicago discs do flash the Bears logo. So, either MSA ponied up for an NFL license in this case, made some side deal with the Bears somehow, or just flouted the rules and asked for forgiveness (or not) later.

Whatever the case, you don’t see a lot of these Walter Payton “rookie discs” on the market these days, and the version with the tab is somewhat more scarce than the disc alone.

The ones that do come up for sale, though, tend to be in pretty good condition: expect to pay $700 or more for a “tabbed” version in PSA 9 and closer to $900 for a “perfect 10.”

Without the tabs, the prices drop a bit: most recent sales have been for PSA 10 copies in the $600-700 range.

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1976 Crane Discs Walter Payton Rookie Card

So, if this Crane disc looks somewhat familiar, maybe it’s because you washed your potato chips down with a bottle of Coke back in 1976.

And maybe you snagged a Walter Payton rookie disc from both product purchases.

And, also maybe … maybe you noticed that the two discs featured the same exact photo of the Sprouting Sweetness.

Or, the other option is that you just read that section about the Coke Payton disc there in the section up above this one and were able to maintain the mental image for more than a few seconds.

Either way, you’re right — these discs are exactly the same, modulo the color band, the company name, the rightly missing Bears logo on the Crane version, and the with-tab option the Coke version offers.

And then there’s this — these Cranes were pretty much everywhere. So you can expect lower prices: somewhere from $50-150 for a PSA 9 and more like $250-300 for a PSA 10.

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1976 Saga Discs Walter Payton Rookie Card

The Saga discs, on the other hand, were not everywhere. In fact, they were hardly anywhere … or at least they’re hardly anywhere today.

In fact, the backs of these things say “Saga Philadelphia School District,” so you can pretty much narrow down where you might have found them back in the Bicentennial year.

Like the other discs, the Sagas pretty much only come on the market in top shape, with all four sold from 2018 through the fall of 2021 showing up in PSA 10. That last disc sold for a heavy $1500.

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1976 Topps Walter Payton Rookie Card (#148)

Now, with all those appetizers under our belts, we arrive at the main course of Walter Payton rookie cards, the one you came here expecting to read about in the first place.

Payton himself was a big name in the sport before his first pro touch. After all, he was a high-profile first-round pick (4th overall) in the 1975 NFL Draft, and he managed a respectable 679 yards and seven touchdowns for the Chicago Bears in his first season.

All that was reflected on that back of his RC the next year …

Then, while that 1976 Topps rookie card was still fresh, still popping out of live wax packs, Payton popped his first 1000-yard season. That fall, he rushed for 1390 ticks and scored 13 TDs before really going off in 1977 — an NFL-leading 1852 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns, which landed him the NFL MVP award.

Unbelievably, it would be the only time Sweetness led the league in rushing yardage, though he did pace the NFL in total yards in both 1977 and 1978.

Statistical league leader or not, Payton was a bona fide superstar by the end of his third season, and it didn’t take long for folks to start talking about him as an all-time great.

The man more than held up his end of the bargain, clicking off All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors like seconds on a game clock leading up to the two-minute warning. The only thing really holding back Payton’s legacy was a generally moribund Bears team that made the playoffs just twice in his first nine seasons.

But, just months after Payton broke Jim Brown’s all-time record for career rushing yards the Bears were finally clicking, making it all the way to the NFC Championship game before falling to the San Francisco 49ers. The next year, of course, the Bears put together one of the most dominant seasons in NFL history.

By the, Payton’s legacy in the game had long been cemented, though 1551 yards rushing and a second-place MVP finish didn’t hurt any.

For as great as Payton was in the 1970s and 1980s, though, and for as much as the football world (rightly) idolized him, none of that did a whole lot for the profile of Sweetness football cards.

It wasn’t just Payton, either — the gridiron hobby lagged far, far behind baseball for decades in terms of overall popularity and card prices, and even a general collecting boom couldn’t fix that overnight.

What did start to move the needle for football, though, was the high-profile budding of Joe Montana’s legend with the San Francisco 49ers and then the amazing rookie class of 1983, which led to the amazing rookie-card class of 1984: Dan Marino, John Elway, Eric Dickerson.

Payton was the pre-eminent active NFL legend as the hobby began to percolate, and we all scrambled to bring his “old” cards into the limelight. His 1976 Topps RC became a familiar and iconic sight as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s, and prices began to creep upwards.

You’d have been hard-pressed to buy a 1976 Topps football set in nice condition for ten bucks by 1990, in other words.

But out of the limelight after his retirement following the 1987 season, Payton’s cards didn’t receive any direct boosts from his play on the field (there was none) and only a mild perturbation with his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton in 1993.

Mostly, the continued value increases for Payton’s RC have ridden the overall rising tide of the football card market in the ensuing decades.

You can clearly see this trend by looking at actual sales prices for this classic card over the last few years: heading into the pandemic, PSA 8 copies of the Payton RC were selling for around $400 a pop. By the time the Super Bowl was played in February of 2021, it was topping $2000.

By September of 2022, the card had settled into the $1000-1500 range.

If you bump up the condition to PSA 9, you’ll be staring at price tags north of $5000.

And if you’re aiming for a perfect “10”? Better have a cool hundred grand or more stashed away to support your Sweetness tooth.

No matter how you look at it, that Walter Payton rookie card has come a long way from its days lurking in the dark corners of a baseball card show, just hoping for a little daylight, a hole to bust through. And, though we may have missed the stutter-step-and-stiff-arm explosion, Payton did, indeed break through, and now streaks eternally across the hobby firmament.

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Horizontal (landscape) instead of the traditional vertical (portrait) photo orientation.

Lots of very closeup player photos, many without helmets, and some with solid screens behind them — studio photos, basically.

And, probably most striking of all, those beautiful, shiny black borders that were more than just borders and more like the canvas on which the card masterpiece was created.

All in all, the design added up to one of the most iconic gridiron issues of all time, yielding plenty of popular individual cards despite a fairly weak rookie card class.

If you’re ready for a walk down this asphalt-paved memory lane, then, check out the 16 most valuable 1985 Topps football cards below, as culled from actual selling prices for copies in PSA 9 condition.

Hut! Hut!

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1985 Topps Mike Munchak Rookie Card (#253)

Guards don’t tend to get much limelight, and their football cards hardly ever make hobby hot lists.

But Mike Munchak was one of the best ever, garnering nine Pro Bowl and two All-Pro selections while providing protection for the 1980s Houston Oilers teams that featured the quarterback wizardry of Warren Moon.

It took awhile for Munchak’s rookie card to make any hay, but his election to Canton in 2001 helped land him on lists like this one.

Value: $30-50

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1985 Topps Jack Lambert (#357)

Much as Lawrence Taylor did for outside linebackers in the 1980s, Jack Lambert spent the 1970s helping to set expectations for what a great middle linebacker could mean to a championship team.

At the heart of the Steel Curtain defense that helped the Pittsburgh Steelers win four Super Bowls from 1974 through 1979, Lambert was already retired by the time this card made its way into collector hands.

As such, it’s a rare career-capper that gave us all one final look at an NFL legend.

Value: $40-45

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1985 Topps Steve Largent (#389)

Entering the 1985 season, Steve Largent already had seven 1000-yard receiving seasons under his belt, but that fall, he racked up an NFL-leading 1287 yards.

That performance not only established a new Seattle Seahawks record but also set Largent on a path toward the all-time NFL record for career receiving yards. Indeed, when Largent retired after the 1989 season he stood #1 in receiving yards (eclipsing Charlie Joiner in 1987), total receptions, and receiving touchdowns.

Though all those records have since tumbled at the hands of others (Jerry Rice, mostly), Largent’s cards still take their rightful place as hunks of hobby – and NFL – history.

Value: $45-50

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1985 Topps Walter Payton – Bears Team Leaders (#22)

This card is like a dream for Bears fans, bringing to life a scenario that has driven their (our) gridiron fantasies for decades – Walter Payton has the ball, and he sees daylight.

Ostensibly a “team leaders” card, this one is all about Sweetness – which actually hits Topps’ target square on the head considering there’s never really been a Bears team leader like Number 34.

Value: $40-65

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1985 Topps Lawrence Taylor (#124)

Who is the greatest linebacker of all time?

Like almost any GOAT discussion, there is no one correct answer to that question that all fans will agree on. But just about everyone who witnessed the man play will tell you that Lawrence Taylor was a game-changer and one of the greatest at *any* position to ever take to the gridiron.

L.T.’s 1982 Topps rookie card helped football cards claim their own territory in the crazy 1990s hobby explosion, but his other cards – like this nifty 1985 – have more than held their own over the years.

Value: $50-70

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1985 Topps Eric Dickerson (#79)

What Dan Marino did for quarterback cards, Eric Dickerson did for running back cards.

The second overall pick in the 1983 NFL Draft, Dickerson burst out of the gates like few RBs ever, streaking to 1808 yards and 18 touchdowns in his rookie season for the Los Angeles Rams.

That had collectors clamoring for his 1984 Topps rookie card as soon as we could get our hands on them, and Dickerson poured gas on the fire – a record 2105 yards and NFL-leading 14 TDs in 1984 set up Dickerson’s cards to be hobby staples for decades to come.

That bust in Canton only sealed the deal, keeping those cards – and this card – among hobby favorites today.

Value: $95-105

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1985 Topps Passing Leaders – Dan Marino and Joe Montana (#192)

There was no real Montana-Marino rivalry to get fans tied up in frothy arguments, not like the Brady-Manning wars to come.

But any time you could get two all-time great quarterbacks together on the same card, you were sure to have a conversation piece on your hand … even if said card was “just” a commemoration of league leaders.

All these years later, the “why” doesn’t matter so much to collectors as the the fact that we get Dan and Joe together on one sweet swath of cardboard.

Value: $100-105

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1985 Topps Dan Marino (#314)

After falling to the Miami Dolphins at the 27th pick of the 1983 NFL Draft, Dan Marino managed to wrest the starting quarterback job from David Woodley (and Don Strock) by the end of the season.

In 1984, legendary Dolphins coach Don Shula installed Marinon in the pocket from the beginning of the campaign, and the young signal-caller shredded defenses to the tune of 5084 yards and 48 touchdowns. Both were new records, which came at the cost of just 17 interceptions.

Not surprisingly, Marino’s 1984 Topps rookie card rocketed to the top of hobby hot lists, and his 1985 follow-up was nearly as vaunted.

Today, today, though Marino’s records have mostly been surpassed and his cards don’t drive the market, they’re a beloved – and still pricey – piece of hobby history.

Value: $100-110

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1985 Topps Joe Montana (#157)

In 1984, Joe Montana led the San Francisco 49ers to their second Super Bowl title in four seasons, catapulting himself into the conversation about the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

The timing couldn’t have been better from a hobby perspective, either, as Montana’s 1981 Topps rookie card became the first real football-card star of the 1980s boom years. And, any Joe Cool card instantly became one of the biggest draws of any set it appeared in.

This 1985 Topps beauty was no exception, and it’s still a collector favorite after all these years.

Value: $100-130

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1985 Topps Mike Singletary (#34)

Like Walter Payton, Mike Singletary spent the first several years of his NFL career toiling for a Bears team that struggled to get both wins and attention.

Singletary himself started to get some notice in 1983, though, as the third-year pro nabbed his first Pro Bowl nod, then added first-team All-Pro honors in 1984.

By the time Chicago unleashed their 1985 juggernaut, Iron Mike was a star and the acknowledged leader of a defensive unit that ranks as one of the game’s all-time greats. This smiling Singletary card was the visage that greeted fans across the country as they go better acquainted with a key architect of the Super Bowl Shuffle.

Value: $125-175

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1985 Topps John Elway (#238)

John Elway was still pretty much a gunslinger through his first two NFL seasons, having tossed more interceptions than touchdowns in 1983 and 1984 combined.

But he had helped the Broncos into the playoffs both years, after a three-year drought.

That was enough to get his 1984 Topps rookie card bubbling a bit, and collectors were happy to pull this card the next fall.

Today, it’s a must-have early-career issue of an absolute NFL legend.

Value: $150-225

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1985 Topps Warren Moon Rookie Card (#251)

Coming out of the University of Washington in 1978, Moon signed with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League rather than enter the NFL Draft. The consensus had been that he would have been a late-round pick, and the young signal-caller wanted a more sure thing.

Mission accomplished.

In six CFL seasons, Moon helped the Eskimos to five Grey Cup championships and set the all-time single-season record for passing yards in 1983 (5648).

That all led to a place in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, but not before Moon decided to make the jump to the NFL, where teams were eager to bid for his services entering the 1984 season.

The Houston Oilers won that sweepstakes, and Moon embarked on the American leg of his journey at age 28, playing for four teams through age 44 and amassing nearly 50,000 yards passing to go along with his 291 touchdown tosses.

Moon’s 1985 Topps rookie card (NFL version) was a popular pull from the very beginning, and it only gained in popularity – and value – as Moon steamrolled toward Canton.

Value: $150-250

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1985 Topps Walter Payton Record Breaker (#6)

Walter Payton set so many records, graced us with so many highlights, over the course of his NFL career that he could have featured on multiple of these “special” cards every year.

As the 1985 season dawned, though, Payton had the big one under his belt.

On October 7, 1984, Payton raced past Jim Brown’s record of 12,312, one of the most revered marks in all of sports.

This 1985 Topps card commemorated that moment in stunning action and stands as a heavyweight in the set.

Value: $175-250

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1985 Topps Richard Dent Rookie Card (#24)

Mike Singletary may have won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award as the 1985 Bears established themselves as one of the great defenses of all-time, but it was Richard Dent who led the league in both sacks (17) and forced fumbles (7).

Heck, the young defensive end even picked off two balls, returning one for his first of two career touchdowns.

It took awhile for Dent to start getting his due in the football card market, but this black-bordered rookie card (he was a part-timer in 1982 and 1983, with no RCs to show) is a Hall of Famer in its own right today.

Value: $200-250

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1985 Topps Walter Payton (#33)

It was almost as if Topps anticipated the Chicago Bears’ magical romp through the 1985 season, capped by a title in Super Bowl XX over the New England Patriots in January of 1986

After all, those intimidating black borders were a perfect complement to the Bears’ black uniforms and dominant presence on the field and in popular culture (“Super Bowl Shuffle,” anyone?).

And, for all the hype around Jim McMahon and William “Refrigerator” Perry, for all the shutdown moments from the vaunted Bears defense, for all the tough-guy swagger from coach Mike Ditka, there was no doubt that Walter Payton was still the heart and soul of the Bears, just as he had been for a decade.

This card shows a closeup of an intense looking Sweetness in his Bears helmet, perhaps considering all that has been and all that may still lie ahead.

It’s a hobby classic.

Condition: https://www.psacard.com/auctionprices/football-cards/1985-topps/49769#g=9

Value: $650-700

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Honorable Mention

1985 Topps Mark Clayton Record Breaker (#1)

Teaming with quarterback Dan Marino, second-year receiver Mark Clayton set the record for most receiving touchdowns in a season in 1984, converting on 18 scores.

Jerry Rice and Randy Moss have since passed that mark, and two others (Sterling Sharpe and Davante Adams) have also reached 18, but Clayton was the first.

And, while this card is notable for celebrating that feat, it’s also card #1 in a set notorious for condition sensitivity, thanks to those black borders. First cards always tended to take more beatings than others thanks to frequently being placed on top or bottom of card stacks.

So, consider this Clayton special to be both a cool card in its own right, and an exemplar for the difficulties in finding top-condition 1985 Topps football cards, in general.

Value: $60-75

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On the one hand, professional grading offers a level of standardization and assurance (in the form of authentication and third-party vetting that comes along for the ride) that has helped infuse the hobby with money and new collectors (OK, and investors).

On the other hand, all that new money and focus on graded cards has helped drive up card prices pretty much across the board, making it harder for the average collector to afford the cards they want.

And, besides — old-time hobbyists will tell you the real joy of this game is in tracking down the cards you want, regardless of condition, and loving them for their innate beauty.

Both sides of the coin are true to a large extent, of course, and graded cards are here to stay, like it or not.

Much more than that, though, every collector needs to have at least a basic understanding of how baseball card grading works, and how to grade cards themselves.

The Importance of Baseball Card Grading

Why do you need to understand grading, you may ask?

Well, no matter what you think about graded, or slabbed, cards, there’s no escaping the fact that the price of just about every card you buy or sell throughout your collecting life will be influenced by that card’s condition.

The better the condition a card is in, the more you’ll have to pay for it … or the more you can sell if for.

But if you don’t know how to differentiate between a mint card and a mere excellent-to-mint (EX-MT) card, for example, you’ll be susceptible to making bad deals at both ends of those transactions — you’ll end up paying more than you should and/or selling for less than you could get.

And, with so many cards on your want list (right?), who can afford to leave money on the table? No matter what your hobby interests or motivations, there’s never as much moolah for the cards you want to own as you would like.

So it really is vital that you understand the two main types of grading baseball cards: grading them yourself and professional grading.

In fact, even if you think you’re going to submit your cards for grading, you’d be well-served to first learn …

How to Grade Baseball Cards

Before you even consider sending a card in for professional grading, or dropping big coin (whatever that is for you) — or selling your cards, for that matter — you really need to practice your own grading skills.

Why?

Well, for all the reasons above, namely, to protect yourself from bum deals and also to help you decide which cards to submit, or whether to have your cards graded at all.

Now, you’re not likely to start slabbing cards and slapping grading labels on them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t “grade” cards anyway — that is, determine their condition.

There’s a lot that goes into that endeavor, especially if you’ve never done it before, but the basic idea is that you need to judge each card based on:

• Corner sharpness
• Edge wear
• Physical damage — creases, tears, missing pieces
• Surface gloss
• Surface stains, front and back
• Centering, front and back
• Overall visual appeal

If you want to get into the nuts and bolts of determining card condition — and you should want to — check out our full post on how to grade baseball cards.

And, just as you need to develop your skills in figuring out card condition for yourself, you should also have a basic understanding of how professional grading works.

Professional Grading

Professional grading companies emerged in the early 1990s as the hobby was accelerating out of the 1980s boom and into the downright mania that followed.

The idea was simple — collectors, dealers, and investors could send their cards in to a trusted third party, who would apply a set of objective grading standards through a rigorous and repeatable process to come up with a definitive ruling on card condition.

To ensure the continued integrity of a card after it had been graded, the grading company would also enclose the card in a sealed case and mark it with a serial-numbered label that displayed basic card information — set, player, card #, etc. — as well as the adjudicated grade.

And that’s pretty much how the process has played out over the years, with a host of authentication and card grading companies (like HGA grading) joining industry pioneer PSA on the playing field.

Today, even though everyone involved, and technologies involved, are more sophisticated thanks to decades of collective experience behind us, the basic process of professional card grading remains largely unchanged:

• The collector decides whether their cards are worth grading. If yes …
• The collector packs up the cards and sends them to the card grading company of their choice, with payment for the service level they choose.
• The collector waits … and waits … and waits … and waits (OK, it’s not always that bad).
• The grading company grades the collector’s cards and sends them back.
• The collector receives the graded cards in the mail and immediately disagrees with the ruling of the card company, while also wishing they themselves had spent more time self-grading the cards before dropping so much money on the service.

Yes, that last one is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it’s a scenario that definitely plays out on a regular basis, and that drives home the main point here…

You need to make sure you have a decent understanding of what all is involved in grading baseball cards, whether you like it or not. And, even better than that, you really owe it to yourself to figure out how to grade baseball cards on your own if you plan to be in this hobby for the long haul.

Consider …

These pasteboards were there as collectors rolled out of the 1980s boom and into the cardboard mayhem that would explode in the 1990s.

They were there before anyone knew who Tom Brady or even Payton Manning was.

They were there when Barry Sanders was just getting started looking like he might be the next Jim Brown.

They were there when the Cleveland Browns were still the Cleveland Browns, before they became the Baltimore Ravens, and before they were resurrected as…the Cleveland Browns.

And the first Emmitt Smith cards were also there when Walter Payton was just a few seasons removed from his record-setting run with the Chicago Bears. When he was still a young man, nearly a decade before his untimely death.

Almost from the beginning, Smith and his cards were collector and fan favorites, owing to his amazing rookie season that produced 937 yards rushing and 11 touchdowns for a Dallas Cowboys club that looked they just might be climbing out of their own abyss, maybe on the road to being America’s Team once again.

All these years later, after the Super Bowl rings and the rushing records and the Hall of Fame bust in Canton, Emmitt and his cardboard are still favorites

So, let’s let them favor us with their historical grandeur once again, as we run down the full list of Emmitt Smith rookie cards below, with values listed for PSA 9 copies as reflected by actual sales cataloged in the PSA Auction Prices Realized tool as of May 2022.

(Note: The sections below contain affiliate links to eBay and Amazon listings for the Emmitt Smith rookie cards being discussed.)

1990 Action Packed Rookie Update Emmitt Smith Rookie Card (#34)

The base design for 1990 Action Packed was almost understated compared to their All-Madden counterparts, but they felt super special at the time – thick, thick card stock coupled with gold borders, 3D embossed effects, and a super-premium price tag.

The 84-card “Rookie Update” set was issued in both set and pack form and featured rookies (#1-64) and veterans who had been traded or who were left out of the Action Packed base set.

As for Emmitt, he appears to be about ready to lower the boom on a defender … if his sidestep doesn’t pay dividends.

Value: $55-65

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1990 Action Packed All-Madden Emmitt Smith Rookie Card (#9)

Part of a 58-card box set, this early Smith card lives up to its name – it’s packed with action and shows Smith as the hard-nosed, Madden-worthy player he would prove to be throughout his career.

Though technically not a rookie card since it wasn’t Emmitt’s first Action Packed card widely available through packs in retail outlets, this one is too close to the start of it all to leave out.

Value: $45-50

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1990 Fleer Update Emmitt Smith Rookie Card (#U-40)

After missing out on Emmitt in their inaugural football base set, Fleer caught him in mid-handoff as part of their 120-card year-end Update set.

This Smith rookie is the prize of the box set, though Cortez Kennedy and Junior Seau RCs also bolster the issue.

Value: $30-35

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1990 Pro Set Emmitt Smith Rookie Card (#685)

Pro Set looked the part of an NFL-sanctioned football card, with strong photography and the league logo prominent wherever you looked.

But, even by the time the Emmitt Smith rookie card showed up in Series 2, collectors pretty much knew that Pro Set was common as mosquito-bite whelps in July … and printing quality control left something to be desired, too – smudges, streaks, damaged cards were common sights coming out of packs.

Still, the Emmitt RC has nice eye appeal and won’t break the bank.

Value: $20-25

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1990 Pro Set Emmitt Smith Offensive Rookie of the Year (#800)

Pro Set didn’t stop at the 700 (or so) cards encompassed by their Series 1 and Series 2 issued earlier in 1990 – how could they when there were still printing presses to run into the ground?!?

So, the Official Card of the NFL went back to work at the end of the season, cranking out a Final Update that took the checklist to #800, where Emmitt Smith appeared again, as the 1990 NFL Pro Set Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Also on card #800, though a different card #800? Mark Carrier, the 1990 NFL Pro Set Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Value: $30-50

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1990 Score Supplemental Emmitt Smith Rookie Card (#101T)

Of all 1990 Emmitt Smith rookie cards, this one is probably the one that comes closest to being “scarce,” though you have to consider that’s relative to the rest of the production numbers in the Junk Wax Era.

Still, this is Smith’s first Score card, it looks great, and it is available in fewer quantities than most of its counterparts.

Hard not to call that a winner.

Value: $120-140

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1990 Topps Traded Emmitt Smith Rookie Card (#27T)

Like most of its counterparts, Topps skipped Smith in its base 1990 football set, only to pick him up with Traded season came along.

The result is a kneeling, helmetless rookie card that might be slightly less plentiful than the competition proffered by Fleer and Pro Set.

Value: $35-45

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That question is right up there with, “Are we there yet?” and “How long until the weekend?” as among the most compelling queries in the typical card collector’s life.

And, while we can’t do much to reassure your kids that the wait is almost over or help you get to Friday sooner, we can start to pick away at the issue of card values.

The bad news is that your old cards may not be worth what you once thought they would be.

The good news is that there is still plenty of valuable cardboard floating around out there.

So how do you figure out what your baseball cards are worth?

Luckily, the Internet gives us a ton of tools to help with that task.

Let’s take a look at six of the best.

(NOTE: This post contains affiliate links to eBay listings for the baseball cards discussed.)

eBay “Sold” Listings

When I started collecting cards in the 1980s, it didn’t take long before I was spouting off the value of my cards to my dad, based on what I was seeing the yearly Beckett price guide (affiliate link).

Suffice to say, Dad wasn’t impressed.

“It’s only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it,” was Dad’s motto when it came to assessing the monetary value of anything, and it was good advice.

That’s why eBay is my go-to method for finding card prices. Not only can you find just about any card you might want for sale, you can also see much those same issues actually sold for in recent listings.

So let’s say you’ve heard that the 1990 Fleer Jose Uribe is a rare and valuable card (it’s not) and want to check on just how valuable it is.

Go to eBay and type in “1990 Fleer Jose Uribe” and you’ll see the usual ridiculous claims and asking prices for this dirt-common hunk of cardboard:

But remember, those are just the asking prices. To find out what the Jose card is selling for — what it’s “worth” — on eBay, you can check the “Sold listings” box:

And there you can see what folks are actually paying for the 1990 Fleer Jose Uribe baseball card:

Still too much for this card if you ask me, but it’s what the market bears at this point in time.

Vintage Card Prices

Vintage Card Prices takes the idea of searching eBay for graded card prices to the next level by aggregating sale prices from several online auction sites (eBay, Huggins & Scott, etc.) into a single database. The result is a sort of one-stop shop that gives an overview of recent card sales and lets you compare your buying and selling options.

Here is what the listing for our 1990 Fleer Jose Uribe dreamboat looks like:

As you might expect, this added functionality comes with a cost, and you need to subscribe in order to see historical pricing information. The free membership is still valuable, though, as you can track your want list against the thousands of cards that Vintage Card Prices tracks.

Beckett Online

Of course, “Beckett” has been the big name in sports cards price guides for more than 40 years, stretching all the way back to those yearly tomes that my dad didn’t really trust. Not surprisingly, the pricing giant has kept up with the times and offers an online subscription to their pricing information.

However, they also offer The Beckett Marketplace, where collectors can buy and sell cards. Here, you can browse categories or perform targeted searches to find current listings of cards available for purchase. Here is what I found going on with our old friend, the 1990 Fleer Jose Uribe baseball card:

Not as extensive as the eBay listings, maybe, but the prices look more realistic to me in this case. And you can click “COMPARE SELLERS” to see what others have available.

At the very least, Beckett provides another data point (or several) in determining the value of your baseball cards.

PSA Sports Market Report Price Guide

Over the last couple of decades, PSA has grown into the premier grading and certification company in the hobby. As a result of the millions of card submissions they’ve handled over that time, they have grown a huge database of card-condition populations (see their Population Report).

In itself, the pop report is a valuable resource for trying to figure out which cards might hold some value based on relative availability, but PSA has also been tracking the sales prices of the cards they grade. Using those data, they have built a rich set of pricing information that they present through their Sports Market Report (SMR) Price Guide.

There, you can drill down into individual sets and then pick out the specific cards you’re interested in.

Note that you won’t find every set and every card in the SMR listing — only cards with a certain amount of collector interest and buying activity make the cut.

As a result, we can’t add another 1990 Fleer Jose Uribe data point to our arsenal, but we can check out some of the big cards from the proximal 1990 Topps set:

PriceRealized

If you’re into really esoteric cards or really high-end stuff, eBay is going to be hit-or-miss at best.

The truly top-of-the-line memorabilia and cards nearly always make their way to one of the big, prestigious hobby or antiques auction houses when someone is looking to cash out. So, to find out how much your 1954 Bowman Ted Williams card is worth, you could wait for one to show up at auction and then check back on the auction house website to see how much the treasure sold for.

Or …

You could just got to PriceRealized and do some searching.

PriceRealized does the auction-combing for you, watching out for awesome cards and other goodies that come up for bid, and then recording those prices in their ever-growing database.

For instance, when I search for that Splendid Splinter card, I see that PriceRealized has recorded 15 sales:

The caveat here is that there may be a decent gap between the last sales result and the time you perform your search, so the market might be quite different.

Still, PriceRealized is an awesome resource for getting a handle on the hobby’s top end.

(As an added caveat, you may get sucked into the site for hours if you visit — it’s addictive!)

Check Out My Cards

Finally, we come to Check Out My Cards, or COMC.com.

Like the Beckett Marketplace or current eBay listings, COMC is intended to be a place to buy and sell cards rather than a pricing tool, per se.

Still, COMC draws buyers and sellers from all walks of life, and that diversity helps to normalize the market. All of that makes it a great place to go if you want to know what folks are asking for their cards.

And since COMC is an active, competitive market, you can bet that asking prices are adjusted all the time to make sure that cards are actually selling.

Here is what’s offered today on the 1990 Fleer Jose Uribe front:

Probably a lot closer to what folks will actually pay for the card than what we saw in the eBay listings, right?

And as a wise man once told me …

A baseball card is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

Thanks, Dad.

Only problem was … the thing didn’t really exist.

Back then, golf was still pretty much an afterthought when it came to big-time sporting events and especially among collectors. But, as Tiger went about rewriting the record books and marching inexorably toward Jack Nicklaus record of 18 majors victories, the tide turned quickly in favor of the links.

Alas, Tiger ran into some much-reported trouble — mostly of his own making — and the wheels sort of fell off his legendary career.

Over the last decade or so, though, he has managed to rebuild much of his image and even added another major (the 2019 Masters) to his belt notches.

All of that has left Tiger as a stone-cold golf legend and with a strong enough hobby profile to keep collectors coming back, especially to his RCs, year after year.

For proof of that, you need look no further than the list below, showing the most watched Tiger Woods rookie card(s) on eBay right now (and check back often, as this list is updated continually).

(NOTE: The section below contains affiliate links to eBay listings for the card shown.)

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