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In the parlance of whatever generation uses/used such terminology … It’s complicated.

Not terribly, but a bit, at least.

First, there really is no such thing as the Ozzie Smith rookie card.

I know, I know, the only image that comes to mind with that turn of phrase — “Ozzie Smith rookie card” — is that classic 1979 Topps issue that’s become a hobby icon.

That one plays a big role in our discussion, no doubt, but it’s not the whole story.

And even if it were …

Second, there are nuances laced throughout any discussion of the Wizard’s rookie that you need to understand in order to get the full picture.

So, without further hoopla — aside from maybe a few backflips — here is everything you need to know about (the) Ozzie Smith rookie card(s), starting where you’d expect …

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1979 Topps Ozzie Smith Rookie Card (#116)

Yeah, this is the standard-bearer when it comes to Ozzie Smith rookie cards.

It’s also the only game in town as far as most collectors know, remember, or care to acknowledge.

There’s good reason for that, too, as this 1979 Topps Ozzie RC has developed into something of a hobby legend.

It wasn’t always that way, though.

No, in the early days of the 1980s cardboard boom, it was 1979 National League Rookie of the Year Bob Horner who held the honor of “most valuable 1979 Topps baseball card,” and it wasn’t even close.

Indeed, Horner was still just 25 years old in 1983 when I entered the hobby for real, and he already had three seasons of 30-plus home runs under his (expansive) belt. Most saw him as possessing enough untapped potential and having an early enough start on the big counting stats that an eventual Cooperstown plaque was a distinct possibility.

Some even still clung to the “Next Babe Ruth” nonsense.

All of it added up to a $3 rookie card at a time when even the one-dollar club was reserved for the game’s legends.

As Horner faded through the rest of the 1980s, his RC more or less treaded water — folks held out hopes that he’d rebound AND card prices in general exploded, keeping him in that $1-3 range.

In the meantime, Willie Wilson became a star for the Kansas City Royals, who always seemed to win *something*, and his rookie card grabbed the 1979 Topps crown, at least for a while.

Then, of course, there were the dalliances with the Bump Wills Rangers/Blue Jays error/variation, and the hot-and-cold love affair with the first Paul Molitor solo card as the Brewers infielder taped his various body parts back onto his person at the end of each season.

Gradually, though, as Ozzie continued his acrobatics and Gold Glove streak, and as he ramped up his offensive game to something resembling league average, and as the Cardinals just kept on winning, his 1979 Topps rookie card, picturing him with the San Diego Padres, ascended to the throne.

Quietly. Without much fanfare. We just woke up one day, and Ozzie was the most expensive card in the set.

And as the eighties gave way to the nineties and we realized that a) Ozzie wouldn’t play forever and b) he was headed for the Hall of Fame, that RC became all the more popular … and scrutinized.

Under the glare of increased demand and ever-rising prices, we became collectively more discerning about which Ozzies warranted the biggest bucks. By the time grading companies sprang to life in the early-to-mid-1990s, we all pretty much knew the story …

It wasn’t THAT tough to find an Ozzie rookie with sharp corners and edges, but good luck finding one where the picture wasn’t sliding off the front of the thing, stage left, like the toppings on your school-lunch pizza.

You can see this situation in action, courtesy of the PSA Population Report. As of late November 2022, the grading giant had processed a shade over 9200 Ozzie rookies. Of those, only 387 have graded a PSA 9, and only 5 (!) have scored a perfect “10.”

By comparison, the Nolan Ryan base card from the set, one number down (at #115) has been graded just under 5000 times. Despite the lower overall population, The Express just about doubles Ozzie’s counts when it comes to high grades: 768 PSA 9s, and 13 PSA 10s.

And, if you check out the Ozzie sales in the PSA Auction Prices Realized tool for PSA 9s, you’ll see a litany of “OC” qualifiers, denoting cards that are off-center. Those sell for about one-tenth the price of a well-centered PSA 9 (value below).

You say you want a PSA 10? Well, the last two sales came in February and May of 2021, hammering down at $222K and $144K, respectively.

Makes the on-kilter 9s look like a bargain by comparison, huh?

Value: $2500-3000

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1979 O-Pee-Chee Ozzie Smith Rookie Card (#52)

As they had every year since 1965, Topps and O-Pee-Chee teamed up in 1979 to issue a scaled-down version of the base Topps set for the Canadian market.

At 374 cards, it was the largest OPC set up to that point, though it was still 352 cards shy of the Topps checklist. That meant a lot of guys ended up on the cutting room floor, and it was something of a crapshoot as to which ones would face the knife, beyond NOT most of the established stars.

Young Ozzie somehow made the cut, and so we have this second mainstream Wizard rookie card. It’s identical to the Topps version with the exception of the company logo on the card front (O-Pee-Chee instead of Topps), bilingual (French and English) text on the card back, and the card number (#52 instead of #116).

The OPC Ozzie rookie card also shares something else with its Topps counterpart – condition scarcity.

Of 559 Ozzie’s that PSA has graded through November of 2022, only 38 have received a “9” and only two checked in at a “10.”

Not as popular as the U.S. version (judging by sales numbers), the O-Pee-Chee Ozzie Smith rookie card is still plenty pricey – the most recent PSA 10 to change hands sold for $81K in April of 2021.

PSA 9s are a bit more reasonable, though still solidly in four-figure territory when you find one without the OC qualifier.

Value: $1500-2000

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1978 Family Fun Centers San Diego Padres Ozzie Smith Rookie Card (#3)

Ozzie debuted for the Padres in 1978 after a mere 68-game dash of minor-league seasoning in 1977, at low-A Walla Walla, no less.

He had hit .303 with 30 stolen bases at that far-away outpost, but if a tree falls in the forest and smacks a few baseballs on the way down, and there’s no national media to cover it … is the tree really a prospect?

It’s the age-old question.

Indeed …

As Ozzie took up the starting shortstop role for a Padres team who had gone 69-93 in 1977, hardly anyone noticed … or cared.

But then, a funny thing happened – armed by contributions from offseason acquisitions like Gaylord Perry, Mickey Lolich, and Oscar Gamble, along with primetime performances from Gene Tenace, Dave Winfield, and Gene Richards, the Padres won.

Not a division title, or anything, but at an 84-78 clip, good enough for fourth place in the old National League West.

Ozzie did his part, too, hitting .258 with 40 steals and 69 runs scored over 159 games as a rookie. He also walked more than he struck out and displayed the beginnings of the shortstop wizardry that would define his career.

That was all good enough for 3.3 WAR (according to Baseball Reference) and a second-place finish behind Braves slugger Bob Horner in N.L. Rookie of the Year balloting that fall.

Before the final tally marks and phantom hardware were on the dugout walls, though, the improved Pads caught the eye of California’s own Family Fun Centers. The local laughs purveyor issued a set of drab, blank-backed, black-and-white Angels cards, but they had something more ambitious in mind for the Padres.

Something shinier.

Something with more *ahem* backing.

Something, uh, woodier.

Indeed, this was a big set (41 cards) of big cards (5” X 7”) featuring full-color photography on the fronts, along with team logos (along with the company logo) and player-name plaques, all presented on a formica faux-wood plank that still smells like shag carpet all these years later.

Card backs were pretty nifty, too, leading off with the player’s vital stats, followed by a line of statistics, cascading into a prosaic bio block, and then topped off (well, sided and bottomed off) by a facsimile autograph and – get this – a black and white headshot.

These babies were years ahead of their time, predating Fleer’s lame attempt at card-back photos by half a decade and trouncing them in execution (though, of course, lagging behind 1971 Topps and O-Pee-Chee by seven years).

And, wouldn’t you know it, young Ozzie Smith made the Family Fun Centers lineup.

Yeah, a full year before Topps and OPC made the leap. So, if you’re looking for Ozzie’s very FIRST major league card, this one is it.

As you might suspect, this card is not all that easy to come by, either, with PSA having graded a total of 79 copies through November of 2022. And, as you probably also suspect, that means that pretty much all bets, pricewise, are off whenever one of these beauties.

To wit, a PSA 10 copy sold for $1722 in April of 2021, then a PSA 9 copy sold for nearly $1300 four months later. We’ll use these as our markers for the value listings below, but you’ll have to pay whatever the market bears if and when you ever get the chance to own Ozzie’s first.

(Read more about this Fun card in our dedicated article right here.)

Value: $500-1500

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Because, while many consider Rice to be the greatest all-around football player who ever lived, and while he eventually appeared on plenty of football cards, the truth is, his debut came while the gridiron hobby was still mired in something of a Dark Ages.

Indeed, even though five years had passed — an eternity in modern hobby terms — since Joe Montana rookie cards went live in 1981, not much had changed by the time the fellow 49ers legends and future Hall of Famers connected in cardboard for the very first time.

But, even with limited options (or maybe because of them), Jerry Rice rookie cards remain some of the most popular football collectibles of all time.

Here is the complete rundown of Flash 80’s very first football cards.

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1986 McDonald’s 49ers Jerry Rice – Black Tab (#80)

Even though Fleer and Donruss had crashed the baseball card party back in 1981 (the same year those Super Joe rookies came out), Topps was still the only game in football cards by the middle of the decade.

But then, as the Chicago Bears were cruising toward Super Bowl XX in the late fall of 1985 and into early 1986, McDonald’s joined the Shuffle party with a Kickoff Payoff promotion in the Windy City.

Specifically, the Golden Arches released a set of 32 cards featuring Bears players and coaches, each with a tab that afforded customers the chance to earn prizes based on how the team performed in a given playoff round — or in the Big Game itself.

The promotion was popular enough that McDonald’s expanded to include all 28 NFL teams in their follow-up promotion in the fall of 1986, with each team’s cards available in restaurants in areas surrounding the club’s home turf.

Each team was represented by 24 different cards (25 for the Dallas Cowboys), along with a 30-card McDonald’s All-Star issue that was available nationwide, outside of the established NFL markets.

That made for a huge 703-card set made even huger by four tab variations.

Specifically, there was one color of game tab used for each of the four weeks of the Mickey D’s NFL promotion — black, blue, green, and orange.

So that’s a lot of explanation before we ever even get to Rice, but as you might have guessed, the budding young receiver was part of the San Francisco 49ers McDonald’s set released in the Bay Area that fall. Since the cards themselves were unnumbered, they’re usually listed by the player’s uniform number, which appears on card fronts.

That means we get Jerry Rice at #80, just like we’d see streaking down NFL fields for 20 full seasons.

This black-tab version is the most common, according to the PSA Population Report, but not by much — as of November 2022, the grading company had processed 89 copies of this card, with a plurality (33) of them checking in at PSA 8 condition.

These cards don’t come up for sale all that often, and the most recent selling prices have been sort of all over the place. But looking at auction prices realized for other grades and considering the booming collectibles market of 2020-22, you can probably expect price tags in the $300-350 range for a PSA 8 copy of this Jerry Rice rookie card.

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1986 McDonald’s 49ers Jerry Rice – Blue Tab (#80)

This blue-tab version of the McDonald’s Rice rookie is a bit less populous — PSA has graded 63 through November 2022 — but is otherwise identical to the black-tab version above.

As such, you should expect much the same when it comes to value — $300-350 for a copy in PSA 8 … if you can find one.

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1986 McDonald’s 49ers Jerry Rice – Green Tab (#80)

Different tab, same basic story.

The PSA population for this green variety hovers around 81 as 2022 heads into the home stretch, providing little reason to expect anything other than a similar $300-350 price tag.

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1986 McDonald’s 49ers Jerry Rice – Orange Tab (#80)

This final McDonald’s version of the Jerry Rice rookie card shows the same sunshine-y image of the guy who would eventually rewrite the NFL receiving record book as all the others above … but with an orange tab.

This one checks in on the lower end of the population spectrum along with the blue-tab version, but seems to be slightly tougher from a condition standpoint. Still, the $300-350 range probably isn’t too far out of line for a copy graded PSA 8.

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1986 Topps Jerry Rice (#161)

Of course, as great and fun as the McDonald’s cards are, with their relative scarcity and colorful variation, it’s this 1986 Topps Jerry Rice rookie card that really set the hobby on fire when Gentleman Jerry began to dismantle NFL defenses.

By the time this card was issued, Rice already had one season under his belt, a 1985 campaign that saw him play in all 16 games but record just four starts. That overall lack of playing time didn’t curtail Rice’s production much, though — 49 catches, 927 yards, three touchdowns.

By the end of the 1986 season, Rice had really given collectors a reason to pull his RC aside as it came out of wax packs — 86 catches for league-leading totals in yards (1570) and touchdowns (15).

It was off to the races from there, as Montana-to-Rice became as legendary a pairing as the sports world has ever seen, and as Rice himself went about redefining what was possible from the wide receiver position. Like Michael Jordan in basketball, Montana and Rice helped elevate football in the hobby, too, with rookie cards that drew attention and drove demand like none before them.

You could make a solid argument that the Niners’ superstars, along with a few others like Walter Payton, Dan Marino, and John Elway, helped whet collector appetites for the proliferation of new sets that exploded onto the scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Rice never really let up on the pedal, either, demolishing the record book on his way to the Hall of Fame in Canton, and pushing his rookie card into record territory, too.

In today’s noisy market, plenty of other cards have nudged the 1986 Topps Rice from the limelight, and outrageous prices for nearly-new cards are becoming the norm.

No matter how much glitz and glamor the new issues unleash, though, there are few cards that can touch the Rice RC in terms of historical significance.

And, with those green borders and diagonal white yard lines, this particular piece of history also presents some condition difficulties.

Here in the latter part of 2022, you can expect prices around $175-200 for copies in PSA 8 condition. Bump that up to the graded MINT (PSA 9) level, and you’re looking at a “buy” price in the neighborhood of $2000.

And if you want a perfect “10”? Might have to put that luxury car on hold for awhile, because your $80,000 is going to be tied up in cardboard.

No matter which route you run to this king of the Jerry Rice rookie cards, though, you know it’s going to be a touchdown in the end.

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Don’t believe me?

Consider how Votto plays the game — intense and hard-nosed, like the old-timers, but with a keen eye for adding “value” to his team … getting on base above mere contact, strikeouts as a by-product of getting on base, an appreciation for three-true-outcomes baseball.

With that in mind, I decided to dredge up a cadre of Votto cards that should appeal to old-timers like me, with a couple of restrictions: they have to be available for under $50, and I can only choose one directly-copied design from the past (Archives, Heritage, etc.) for each company.

Here, then, are 11 Joey Votto baseball cards that even old-school collectors will love.

2017 Donruss Retro Variations Joey Votto (#RV-8)

The first year I actively collected baseball cards — rather than just getting a pack here or there and tossing them in a corner — was 1983.

In my neck of the woods, we could get Topps in a few places, Fleer almost nowhere, and Donruss just about everywhere.

And that was just fine with me.

Because those blazing white borders with the green inner piping and – mercy! — the bat and glove underneath the player photo just screamed “baseball” to me. They were right there beside me as I learned about the game and fell in love with everything related to it.

So, yeah, this Joey Votto card in the style of 1983 Donruss floats my boat, even with no Reds logo on his batting helmet.

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2019 Panini Donruss Joey Votto Diamond Kings Heroes Joey Votto (#24)

That same summer, 1983, my parents dragged me to some antique shops in a small town. Not a card in sight, but we also stopped at a little soda-shoppe store straight out of the 1950s.

And there, on the candy rack between the Mars bars and the candy cigarettes were these packs of “old” baseball cards. I managed to wrangle enough from Dad’s budget for a pack.

I busted that bad boy open as soon as we were in the car, and what I found inside blew me away — painted cards of these old, old, ancient Hall of Fame guys, with names like Luke Appling and Early Wynn and Josh Gibson.

I’d hit the mother lode, and I had to have more. I finagled some deal with Dad, and we went back inside to buy the rest of the box — maybe ten packs.

Think I still owe him a first-born or something.

Anyway, this Votto seems to be modeled after those great Perez-Steele cards, and that’s more than good enough for me.

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2003 Multi-Ad Sports Dayton Dragons Joey Votto (#9)

The Dayton Dragons are a Class-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, and they have one of those quaint and shiny new(ish) stadiums that make minor league games so fun.

It’s mind-blowing to think about how cool it must have been to watch a young, young Joey Votto ply his trade there at Fifth Third Field in 2003 and 2004

Also makes you wonder what future Major League talents you’re missing out on every day you don’t spend at the local MiLB park.

Anyway, while Votto-matic was in Dayton, he landed on this 2003 Multi-Ad Sports Dragons card. It’s an obvious homage to the 1984 Topps design, and it’s spectacular … even if seeing Votto wear anything other than Cincinnati Red is a bit jarring.

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2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Joey Votto (#145)

This set was pretty much Upper Deck’s “response video” to Topps’ Allen & Ginter issues.

Adopting the basic design of the 1888 Goodwin Champions (N162) cigarette set, this beauty featured 210 cards in the base issue, done up in bright, clear artistic fashion.

Votto is a budding superstar here, rocking on with a raised fist in apparent celebration of gripping the barrel of his bat real hard. Bonus points for being the only one of these Joey Votto baseball cards to be staged in front of a local diamond that you and I might visit any Saturday afternoon.

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2010 Bowman Joey Votto (#180)

Nothing special to see here, really. Just a base card of a dude who was about to put together his National League MVP season.

But … it’s also loaded with calls out to classic baseball cards, like …

Black borders, a la 1971 Topps and 1985 Donruss …

Red pinstriping, further dredging memories of that special ’85 Donruss set …

Cloud-fade around the image, reminiscent of 1988 Fleer, 1987 Topps team leaders, and other blasts from the past …

A horizontal format with the “Bowman” logo looming overhead … who wouldn’t think of 1955 Bowman when you see this thing?

Add in a photo of Votto crouched down and zeroed in on a ball coming toward his frame-centered glove at first, and it’s hard not to love this card.

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2008 Topps National Baseball Card Day Joey Votto (#7)

Those 2008 Topps baseball cards sure do have a lot of white border space on them, huh? They can be almost blinding in the right light!

But all that bright, open real estate makes the cards feel really clean, even though the size of the pics suffers as a result. And the multicolored balls that hold the individual letters of the team name give the whole design a decidedly old-school feel.

The National Baseball Card Day set was a joint venture between Topps and Upper Deck, with each company contributing eight cards featuring different pictures from their base issue.

Add all that together — the classic design, the oddball nature of the set, the Votto follow-through, the ROOKIE CARD logo — and you have a winner even geezers like me can love.

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2011 Topps Joey Votto (#5)

Another nothing-special-about-it baseball card that just happens to show the reigning NL MVP (when it was issued, that is).

To these old eyes, though, this design is a cleaned-up, streamlined version of the 1985 Topps base set, right down to the Topps logo in the upper left-hand corner and the team logo in the lower right.

These cards also sport the old-school thick white borders.

So, squint your eyes just a little bit, and you’ll swear Votto is Nick Esasky or Ron Oester, and you’ll wonder why the image looks so clear.

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2014 Donruss Joey Votto (#282)

This Votto card feels about as a Donruss-y as a Donruss card can feel, from the huge Donruss logo to the red border splotches filled with little baseball stencils.

With Votto turned sideways to the camera, ready to field whatever comes his way at first base, you hardly even notice the missing Reds logo on his cap.

And with the script “Cincinnati” at the bottom hearkening back to 1978 Topps and Votto’s tablecloth of a uniform hearkening back to the era of oversize togs, there’s plenty of nostalgia packed into this cardboard swath.

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2009 O-Pee-Chee All-Rookie Team Joey Votto (#AR2)

These cards can say “O-Pee-Chee” all they want, but to me, they scream “Bazooka!”.

And that takes me back to the time I saw a grainy picture of the 1959 Bazooka Hank Aaron and fell in love.

And later, to that summer of 1989, when I was able to pull real, live baseball cards — Shining Stars — from real, live boxes of Bazooka gum.

It was great.

So are these 2009 OPC All-Rookie Team cards, in the same sort of gaudy, bright, Red-White-and-Blue, over-the-top, All-Star sorta way.

And a smiling, waving Joey Votto?

Sign me up for this most patriotic of Joey Votto baseball cards.

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2017 Topps Series 1 – Reds Salute Mother’s Day Joey Votto (#S24)

In a recent poll over on Twitter, I asked, “Did your mom throw out your baseball cards?”.

About 85% of the more than 700 respondents said, no, Mom did not throw out their baseball cards.

I could have told you that, because moms rule, generally speaking — but I had to ask, with Mother’s Day on hand and all.

A few years ago, Topps pushed out these modern-looking cards to honor mothers, again with Mother’s Day on hand.

So, why does this Joey Votto fit our theme of a card even old-school collectors can love?

Well, moms, for one thing.

And, Joey looks like he was carved right out of the 1950s, or maybe the 1910s, for another.

It’s the crouch and the steely stare and the Mr. Red on the uniform sleeve and the black & red & white Reds logo.

It’s the whole, and ribbons … and the moms.

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2018 Topps Archives Joey Votto (#288)

Speaking of moms, mine bought me my first baseball cards in 1981.

And, even though I didn’t like them, didn’t want them — she kept buying cards … Topps, Fleer, Donruss … in 1981 and in 1982.

By the spring of 1983, I was ready to embrace the game and the hobby, and Mom probably cowered in fear at the cardboard monster she had created.

That beast cut his baseball and baseball card chops largely on the (by then) beat-up 1981 Topps specimens squirreled away in an old shoe box.

So, of course, seeing this Archives Votto card brings it all back — the green borders for Reds players, the posed shots, the little baseball cap that defined the 1981 Topps design.

It’s all right there and, cheesy as it is, I love it all.

You probably will, too, if you’re of a certain age.

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—

Which of these Joey Votto baseball cards is your favorite? And which is your favorite Joey Votto baseball card overall? I’d love to hear your picks!

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By the time Rose left the Philadelphia Phillies after the 1983 season at age 42, it was pretty clear that he was going to hang around long enough to break Ty Cobb’s record for career hits.

The only question at the time was WHERE he was going to play out his career, and it looked like that might happen north of the border when he signed with the Montreal Expos in January of 1984.

Fans and collectors yawned or gasped at the news, depending on how closely we followed Rose, and we were all a bit shocked by the sight of Rose in his red, white, and powder blue togs that spring. We braced for the weirdness that would ensue when Charlie Hustle showed up in his Expos uniform that fall in traded and update sets.

Before we ever got that far, though, the Cincinnati Reds swooped in and traded Tom Lawless (irony?) for Rose to set up one of the most ballyhooed baseball homecomings of all time.

Though we may not have realized it at the time, the move also kicked off, in earnest, THE big hobby craze of the 80s: rookie card mania.

Not to Mention Hume Hysteria

Sure, before Rose found his way back to the Riverfront, collectors chased after the rookie cards of their favorite players because they wanted to have everything. There was also the general perception that rookie cards in good condition would be the rarest of all a player’s cards, due to attrition if nothing else.

But when Rose became the Reds’ player-manager on August 16, 1984, the entire baseball universe coalesced on the idea that the chase was on.

Rose would be chasing Cobb’s ghost while wearing the hometown Cincinnati Red — the same Red he had bled since childhood.

And hobbyists would be chasing Rose’s cards — all of them — to try and complete their collections before the magical base knock streaked through the Queen City night.

Leading the way, of course, was that 1963 Pete Rose rookie card.

Like a Cardboard Clown Costume

Visually, the card was striking, if not exactly attractive.

As was the case with most rookies during the 1960s and 1970s, Rose was relegated to the multi-player card treatment by Topps, who liked to hedge their bets on young, unproven talent.

In this case, card #537 featured a bright yellow background with four tiny, circular head shots of (clockwise from the top left) second baseman Pedro Gonzalez of the New York Yankees, third baseman Ken McMullen of the Los Angeles Dodgers, shortstop Al Weis of the Chicago White Sox, and Rose (listed as a second baseman).

Each floating head was ironed on over a red background, and a big blue rectangle at the top of the card proclaimed in white block letters that these were “1963 Rookie Stars.”

As it turned out, only Rose played regularly in 1963 and hit over .250 (though Weis managed the feat in 99 games), and he was rewarded with the National League Rookie of the Year award.

Twenty-one years later, Rose was the clear winner of the four-man lineup, and the rush to pick up his cards had pushed his rookie card values into the stratosphere. By Christmas of 1984, collectors and dealers were trying to catch their breaths and make sure they were stocked up for the 1985 season, when Rose needed needed a scant 95 hits to

So collectors from Cincy to Philly to Indy to NY to LA snatched up all the Roses we could find, and the prices on those pasteboards climbed skyward. eclipse Cobb.

It was the first time in the modern hobby era that we had an active player gunning for immortality AND a huge number of collectors gunning for his cards at the same time. Collectively, we burned up the card show circuit and kept the hot stove blistering throughout the winter.

Who Would Hit 4192 First — Rose or His Rookie?

The Rose rookie traded briskly at around $500 that holiday season, and you were ecstatic if you could scoop one up for less than $400. And back then, we cared about condit
ion, but there was no such thing as a graded card, so we did the best we could.

On September 11, 1985, when Rose slapped Number 4192 into the Riverfront outfield and stomped on first base next to a smiling Steve Garvey, then with the San Diego Padres, the Rose rookie was closing in on $1000 in eyeballed-mint condition.

That moment was the high-point of the Rose hype, but his rookie card — and his other issues — continued to make steady gains as he led the Reds into strong second-place finishes each year from 1985 to 1988.

And then, being the frontrunner that he is, Rose was at the forefront of the bust that would threaten every aspect of the hobby in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

What Goes Up May Go Up Again

Of course, the downfall of Rose’s cards mirrored the downfall of the hero himself, and lifetime banishment for betting on the game he loved tarnished all aspects of his public persona.

Baseball cards were simply along for the ride, and prices fell precipitously.

Over the years, however, many fans have softened their stance on Rose, whether due to comparisons with the transgressions of steroid-era players or just thanks to the passage of time. And, as more and more of the new generation realized what a great player Rose was on the field, his card prices began to rebound.

This was especially true for graded older issues, and, naturally, the blue, yellow, and red monstrosity led the way again. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a graded copy of his 1963 Topps rookie card in PSA 7 (NM) for under $4000.

Love him or hate him, the Cobb-buster changed baseball forever.

And, ugly or not, the 1963 Topps Pete Rose rookie card ushered in a new era in collecting mania and set the stage for much of the hobby explosion to come.

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The 1974 Topps Pete Rose baseball card was a cardboard embodiment for a man who stood as an almost mythical figure when I started collecting baseball cards in the early 1980s.

For example, my dad used to tell me stories about Rose’s exploits with the Cincinnati Reds even though Dad was never a baseball fan and Pete had been in Philadelphia for about five years by that point.

It was relatively easy to find information about Rose in those pre-Internet days, too, which helped build him up as larger-than-life in my impressionable mind.

He was interviewed and written about in The Sporting News and Sport.

He was all over the pages of hobby publications like Sports Collectors Digest and Baseball Cards.

And he was featured prominently in every baseball card set and subset I came across — Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Topps Foldouts, Topps Stickers, Fleer Stickers, Topps All-Stars, and on and on and on.

4192

Pete was a bona fide legend, but that wasn’t the only reason he was getting so much play. No, it was becoming clear that Rose would do whatever it t ook to hold on long enough to break Ty Cobb‘s all-time record for career hits, commonly accepted at the time to be 4191.

Hence, “4192” became synonymous with Rose and his chase.

Given all that, I expected to see Rose around each cardboard and paper corner as I devoured every bit of information I could find about baseball and baseball cards.

But I was a new collector, and my world was modern. I wasn’t at all prepared for the display case full of old cards that ran me over one day when my parents took me to a junk/antique shop in the next town over when I was about 11.

There were cards from the 1950s and 1960s, with names like Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Koufax, and all the other mythical figures I was learning about.

It was a mesmerizing sight for young eyes accustomed to thumbing through wax packs filled with the round headshots of 1983 Topps and the bat-and-glove design of 1983 Donruss.

The Best of the Best

As mindblowing as all those golden swaths of cardboard were, though, one card knocked all the others to the side like a raging bowling ball and grabbed me by the throat — the 1974 Topps Pete Rose base card.

Of course, I didn’t know what issue it was from at first sight, and the card probably looks pretty mundane to modern collectors. After all, 1974 Topps features some of the grainiest photos and one of the more blah designs of the entire decade.

But, man, Pete looked absolutely perfect in this shot.

His laser stare was locked on an unseen pitch rocketing his way. He gripped the bat in both hands, throwing it forward to bunt the ball. His legs were already motoring toward first base, so confident was he that he’d succeed in his mission.

And just in case things didn’t work out, Pete’s mouth hung open as if he’d take a bite out of the ball if it came to that.

This man was throwing his whole being into getting on base for his beloved Cincinnati Reds, and the simple red banners accentuated Rose’s Cincy uniform.

The whole concoction was a red-alert, blood-pumping bundle of baseball grit that was irresistible to a young fan with a burning passion for the game.

It was a masterpiece in cardboard for which I gladly plunked down my hard-earned $3.50.

A pittance to pay for a card that still burns as one of my favorite from the 1970s more than 30 years later.

(This is Day 11 of our response to Tony L.’s 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge. See all our posts in this series here.)

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But, as Bonds’ own star began to dim during the PED scandal of the late 2000s and 2010s, his cards slid slowly from favor, too.

These days, Bonds remains outside of Cooperstown looking in, so far denied the Hall of Fame plaque that seemed his birthright for so long.

Even so, the hobby boom of the 2020s has carried Barry’s collectibles right along with it, and today his rookie cards enjoy strong popularity with collectors.

Hard to shake off those huge numbers completely, it seems, especially when they include the all-time records for single-season home runs, career home runs, and walks.

There are plenty of fans who still credit Roger Maris and Hank Aaron with those marks, of course, but enough collectors still love Bonds to keep him hobby-hot … he certainly seems to be faring better in that regard than Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa.

Here, then, is a complete guide (and pricing) to all Barry Bonds rookie cards — defined loosely here as any cards issued in 1986 or 1987. Prices are based on actual selling prices for PSA 10 copies of the cards, which you can track through the various PSA price guides.

Play ball!

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

1) 1986 Donruss The Rookies Barry Bonds (#11)

Bonds was not the main impetus for Donruss’ entry into the year-end set fray — the 1986 exploits of Wally Joyner and Jose Canseco and, to a lesser extent, Bo Jackson gave rise to “The Rookies.”

All these years later, though, it’s Bonds duking it out with Bo for price supremacy in this debut set that was bold enough to tell the world it existed merely to capitalize on the rookie card craze sweeping the hobby.

Value: $200-250

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2) 1986 Fleer Update Barry Bonds (#U-14)

Most of Bonds’ early cards feature the Pirates’ young star in a headshot, sometimes even gracing us with a smile.

His first Fleer issue, though, shows Bonds in his “office,” giving us all a preview of the batting stance that would come to fuel pitchers’ nightmares for the next two decades.

As with other year-end sets in 1986, Bonds was sort of an afterthought for most, a nice-to-have thrown in as window dressing for the Cansecos and Joyners we were really after. Even then, though, it was always neat to have another batting cage card.

Value: $375-400

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3) 1986 Topps Traded Barry Bonds (#11T)

Even though it took collectors awhile to warm up to Bonds and his talents, and even though that relationship has always been rocky thanks to his controversies and not-so-warm-and-fuzzy personality, this 1986 Topps Traded card has become a hobby classic.

The initial big attractions in this set, of course, were the first Topps cards of Wally Joyner, Jose Canseco, Bo Jackson, and other headline rookies of the day.

Meanwhile, Bonds had the family name that generated some buzz, but it took a few years for his stats to catch up with his “tools.” Once they did, though, this was the card to grab, and it stands today with Bo as the top cards in the set.

(As with other Topps issues of the day, the 1986 Topps Traded – and the Bonds XRC – was also issued in a glossy “Tiffany” version. You can expect prices for the Bonds Tiffany to run 20-30X those of the non-glossy version.)

Value: $375-450

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4) 1986 Sportflics Rookies Barry Bonds (#13)

Sportflics wasted zero time diving into the year-end market, issuing their own “Rookies” set in 1986, their first year in the game.

And who could blame them?

With the whole hobby ablaze in rookie card mania, there was gold in them thar RCs!

Imagine how much this Bonds card might be worth today if only you could actually see him through all the Lenticular Magic Motion goodness and innovation that Sportflics unleashed on collectors.

Value: $45-65

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5) 1987 Donruss Barry Bonds Rookie Card (#361)

Bonds didn’t warrant the Rated Rookies treatment for 1987 in Donruss’ eyes, but he still got the head-and-shoulders treatment, wearing a black jersey.

At the time, this card made a pretty nifty complement to the Bobby Bonilla rookie card from the same set, which featured a similar pose and proportion, with Bobby Bo in a white jersey.

What could have been better for Bucs fans, or for RC collectors?

Today, of course, these cards are in different leagues, as are the final stats of the two sluggers.

Value: $180-200

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6) 1987 Fleer Barry Bonds Rookie Card (#604)

Like most other cards on this list, Bonds’ first base card from Fleer was a simple head-and-shoulders affair, with this one giving us a preview of the scowl that would become part of Barry’s stock-in-trade.

And, like most other cards on this list, the Fleer RC took awhile to capture collector hearts and wallets, but it does just fine for itself today, with or without Bonds having that Hall of Fame plaque.

There is also a glossy version of this card, which sells for about the same price as the base version.

Value: $250-275

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7) 1987 Topps Barry Bonds Rookie Card (#320)

After the bright white themes of Bonds’ 1986 Traded card, Topps featured the budding star in Bucs road grays — and in action! – on his 1987 woodie rookie card.

There are probably millions of these cards out there on the market today, but the 1987 Topps Bonds is an instantly recognizable classic.

As with the 1986 Topps Traded, this 1987 RC has a Tiffany counterpart, which generally sells for 8-10X the base issue prices.

Value: $225-250

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8) 1987 O-Pee-Chee Barry Bonds Rookie Card (#320)

The Canadian version of the Bonds rookie card seems to be *much* less plentiful than its Topps counterpart, with PSA having graded only about 1100 of the O-Pee-Chees as of February 2022 (compared to more than 17,000 of the Topps version).

Market prices tend to reflect this relative scarcity, making the OPC a key if you’re goal is to collect ALL of Bonds’ rookie cards.

The good news is, that while the PSA 10 prices are foreboding to mere mortals, prices fall to more earthly levels at lower grades (and raw).

Value: $18000-20000

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9) 1987 Leaf Barry Bonds (#219)

As with the OPC-Topps pairing, the Canadian version of Bonds’ Donruss RC is much scarcer than the American version. Indeed, as of February 2022, PSA has graded nearly 27,000 of the Donruss Bonds cards, but fewer than 1700 copies of his Leaf rookie.

Accordingly, the Leaf version carries a significant price premium in most grades.

Value: $2000-3000

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10) 1987 Classic Yellow Update Barry Bonds (#113)

Part of a 50-card update to the original Classic set that was issued in conjunction with a board game, this Bonds card pretty much went unnoticed for much of its existence.

But it’s a nice looking issue that turns out to be limited by the standards of the day, with an announced print run of 150,000 sets.

Of those, about a third were mistakenly issued with green backs, while the other 100,000 feature the “corrected” yellow backs.

High-grade copies of the green-back Bonds sell for about 10X the value of the yellow-back version (prices below reflect the yellow version).

Value: $150-200

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11) 1987 Donruss Opening Day Barry Bonds Error (Johnny Ray) (#163)

To show you how much Bonds *wasn’t* among the most hyped rookies of his day, Donruss issued the first batch of their Opening Day set with Barry wearing a black jersey – and looking JUST like Johnny Ray.

Donruss quickly corrected course, leaving us with one of the most scarce and valuable error cards of the 1980s.

Value: $3000-5000

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12) 1987 Donruss Opening Day Barry Bonds Corrected (#163)

This white-jersey version of the Bonds card – which actually does show Bonds – is a bit anomalous in its own right, seeing as how it shows Barry with that big old smile plastered across his face.

Nowhere near as scarce as the error version, this is nevertheless a popular early card of one of the game’s greatest hitters.

Value: $275-300

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13) 1987 Fleer Hottest Stars Barry Bonds (#5)

Distributed at Revco stores in 1987, Baseball’s Hottest Stars was one of about a bazillion box sets issued in the mid-1980s. And, to help the set live up to its name, Fleer included standouts like Scott Garrelts, Reggie Williams, and Bruce Ruffin in their 44-card checklist.

Truth be told, that group might have been a tad more impressive in 1987 than it reads now, but Barry himself doesn’t look all that enthused at being included in such a lineup.

Still, it’s an early Bonds card, and that makes it hobby gold … or at least, like, hobby aluminum foil.

Value: $400-500

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14) 1987 Sportflics Team Preview Barry Bonds Pittsburgh Pirates (#18)

As if having three indecipherable images on each card weren’t enough, Sportflics did us one (actually, eleven!) better in 1987 with their Team Preview set.

Featuring one card for each of the 26 MLB teams, Team Preview cut every card into quadrants, hammed a picture in each, and then didn their Magic Motion thing.

The result was 12 players per card, and a dramatic uptick in Dramamine sales.

Legend has it that a young Barry Bonds lurks somewhere in the Bucs melee, and you just might catch a glimpse of him … if you have the stomach for it.

Value: $20-30

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15) 1987 Topps All-Star Glossy Barry Bonds (#30)

Topps Send-In Glossies were the type of card that 1980s collectors clamored for every year – clean design, premium stock, great photography, super glossy.

And, while we would eventually get most of that in the premium sets of the 1990s, we could scratch at least some of our aesthetic itch with these babies.

All we had to do was collect six Spring Fever Baseball contest cards from Topps wax packs, send them in with a buck, and we’d get ten cards.

Do it five more times, and we’d have the whole set.

Young Barry was among those included, and he looks quite picturesque in his Pirates pillbox hat against a perfect baseball sky.

Value: $65-90

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16) 1987 Topps (Panini) Stickers Barry Bonds Neil Allen (#131)

“Nothing too much to this “card,” which is just a standard two-player Topps sticker from the era.

As such, Bonds appears on a tiny, near-stamp-size swath of paper real estate, sharing space with Neil Allen, who crafted a fairly nondescript 11-year big league career as a reliever and swingman.

Of note, though, there are a couple of parallel versions of this one …

First, there is an O-Pee-Chee sticker, which sells for about the same as the Topps/Panino version.

And then there is a much more scarce Topps test issue that plopped the same sticker down on ‘hard” cardstock. It seldom shows up on the market, and when it does, prices are all over the place – expect to pay 2-10X the price of the base version for this one. “

Value: $300-400

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17) 1987 Toys R US Rookies Barry Bonds (#4)

Bonds looks quite pleased with himself on this one, part of a 33-card box set issued by Topps in conjunction with – you guessed it – Toys “R” Us.

Like a few other entries on this list, this card, and the entire set it was part of, was a nod to the raging rookie card mania in the hobby, and an attempt to capitalize on the same.

While collectors enjoyed these sets for the most part, they sort of got swallowed up in the Junk Wax glut for decades.

Today, though, you gotta have this card if you’re building out a Bonds master set, and it’s plenty popular in the modern hobby.

Value: $375-450

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Not only that, but Hodges’ status as a legend both as the first baseman for the almost mythical Brooklyn Dodgers and the Amazin’ 1969 Miracle Mets give his cards a special sparkle.t

Doesn’t hurt anything that Gentleman Gil was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2022.

Come read through our list of posts (and images!) dedicated to the the grandeur of Gil Hodges baseball cards!

• 1962 Topps Gil Hodges
• 1967 Topps Gil Hodges Sees What Might Have Been
• 1969 Topps Gil Hodges
• This 1990 Gil Hodges Was Just Swell
• Greatest World Series Thrillers [Vintage Baseball Book Review]

It’s the same transformation you see with most longtime players, but it’s all exaggerated in Niekro’s case …

Even though he got a late start in the Majors, the Braves legend is still fresh-faced in those early cards.

He was already in his 30s, though, by the time he reached superstardom, so collectors spent most of his career watching gray hair become grayer, and that funky knuckleballer’s motion become stiffer.

But, seeing as how Niekro pitched into the late 1980s, and for, like, centuries, he appeared on a ton of baseball cards.

Too many to run through in any one blog post.

What we can run through, though, are all of the Phil Niekro baseball cards from the 1960s, when he was an up-and-comer, and when no one really knew he was a multi-generational phenomenon in the making.

So let’s do it, starting with …

1962-1965 Jay Publishing Phil “Nierko”

Jay Publishing produced 12-card picture packs for a number of Major League teams from 1958 through 1965, with a switch from san serif to serif font breaking the run in two.

Ol’ Phil “Nierko” made his appearance with the Milwaukee Braves here in the Type 2 cards, and you gotta figure he showed up near the end of the run considering he didn’t debut in the Majors until 1964.

The knuckler is coming at you in brilliant black-and-white on this 5″ x 7″ card, complete with a tractor in the background.

And a misspelling.

Classic hobby fare, right there.

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1964 Topps Braves Rookies (w/Phil Roof) Phil Niekro (#541)

I suppose you could call this one the “Phils” Rookies seeing as how … you know … both guys were named “Phil.”

Seemed the Braves were hedging their bets, hoping at least one of the Phils would pay off. Or maybe it was Topps who were hedging their bets.

Either way, both of them featured Phil Niekro and Phil Roof, though the former didn’t exhaust his rookie status until 1965.

And the latter hung onto his rookie-ness until 1966, by which time he was with the Kansas City A’s.

Roof did OK, though, crafting 15-year Big League career that normally would have given him counting supremacy over his cardboard partner.

Who could have known Niekro would tack on nearly another decade to his coulda-been battery mate’s tally?

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1965 Topps Braves Rookies (w/Clay Carroll) Phil Niekro (#461)

So, this would have been a more conventional two-fer rookie card had Niekro not already scored an RC the year before.

But at least Carroll was a cardboard virgin!

Carroll would go on to lead the National League with 73 appearances in 1966, the same season Topps featured him on that exquisite card that foreshadowed Jack Torrance in The Shining.

Atlanta traded Carroll to the Cincinnati Reds halfway through the 1968 season, and he’d end up throwing a lot of games for them, too, and tasting a lot of post-season nectar.

Niekro ended up pitching forever, and got just a couple of light October snacks, in 1969 and in 1982.

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1966 Topps Phil Niekro (#28)

Finally! At the age of 71, Phil Niekro finally got his first solo card in the 1966 Topps set.

OK, so he wasn’t 71, and he actually looked sorta young on this card. Hopefully, Braves fans and collectors were able to fully appreciate the moment, because middle age would set in all too soon.

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1967 Topps Phil Niekro (#456)

Fine.

So middle age didn’t come to Niekro in 1967, either, but his first real taste of Big League success did — he led the National League with a 1.87 ERA and a 179 ERA+, because ERA+ was really big stuff in the late 1960s.

Oh yeah … Niekro also led the circuit with 19 wild pitches. That probably worked to his advantage, because I’ll bet it hurts to get hit by an MLB knuckleball, no matter how much crap those dudes take for their fluff speeds.

While he was on the mound hammering stuff down (flutteringly), collectors were pulling this nifty 1967 Topps Niekro card from packs.

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1968 Dexter Press Postcards Phil Niekro

Dexter Press was once the maker of fine postcards, with subjects ranging from the World’s Fair to a Crazy Horse scale model to West Nyack, New York.

And, from 1966-68, they made baseball cards (postcards) that were tied to Coca-Cola giveaways in some way.

These things were downright gorgeous, too.

To my eyes, Niekro is starting to look a bit peaked around the eyes, hinting at the old dude to come, but he’s beautiful, too, with his arms over his head against a blue sky on his 1968 Dexter Press card.

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1968 Topps NL ERA Leaders (Jim Bunning/Chris Short) Phil Niekro (#7)

This card was Niekro’s reward for winning that ERA title in 1967 (the Dexter Press piece was a nice perk, too).

Niekro doesn’t just appear on the NL ERA leaders card with Hall of Famer Jim Bunning and his Phillies (Phils?) teammate Chris Short, though … no, Niekro is the headliner.

Take that, Senator!

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1968 Topps Phil Niekro (#257)

Of course, Niekro got his own burlap-bordered card in the 1968 Topps set, a closer-up version of the Dexter shot, sort of.

I mean, he has his hands over his head, at least.

Cutoff sleeves instead of a warm-up jacket under his Braves jersey this time, and he doesn’t have his Michael Douglas working quite as well as he did on that Dexter Press card.

Still, a classic 1960s card of a budding star.

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1969 Milton Bradley Phil Niekro

As black-and-white Phil Niekro cards from the 1960s go, this one comes in a shade or three below the Jay Publishing entry that led off our list.

But the Milton Bradley cards are pretty neat considering they came as part of an actual game that let you play baseball right there on your tabletop, and that there are 296 cards in the set.

This Niekro number is just a head shot, and you’ll usually find it with perforation marks around the edges since the cards were all sheeted up as part of the game.

Cool stuff, if not all that pretty.

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1969 MLB Photostamps Phil Niekro

In both 1968 and 1969 the Major League Baseball Players Association issued stamps and an accompanying album of 216 players — that’s nine for each of the 24 Major League teams.

Originally issued in sheets, most of the singles you’ll find today were at some point cut by hand (and, presumably, scissors) from their sticky-paper brethren.

The Niekro stamp features a full color shot, showing Niekro with his hands over his head and wearing a warmup jacket under his Braves jersey.

Hmmmm …. sounds familiar.

And looks familiar, too, if you’ve ever seen Niekro’s 1968 Dexter Press card (as in, above).

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1969 Topps Phil Niekro (#355)

To round out Niekro’s first decade in the Major Leagues, Topps rolled out this classic baseball pose as part of their 1969 set.

Here we see old Phil, entering his age-30 season already, following through with his mouth open. Looks like he’s jawing at some whippersnapper to me, but Niekro never really struck me as that type.

What do I know. though?

Well … I do know Niekro was on the cusp of his first 20-win season, as he went 23-13 with a 2.56 ERA to help the Braves win the first-ever National League West crown.

I also know he got sorta lit up in Game 1 of the NLCS against the Mets and Tom Seaver, giving up nine runs in eight innings, though only four of them earned.

That would be Niekro’s only playoff appearance until 1982, when he went six innings in a Game 2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals (Gene Garber took the L).

Atlanta was swept out of the post-season both years, and Niekro never saw October baseball again.

His 1969 Topps card is still a beaut, though.

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