Below is a look at 20 of the most iconic minor league baseball cards of the 1980s. Another thing that stands out is its deep checklist that is highlighted by rookie cards of ryne sandberg and wade boggs, and the secondyear cal ripken jr. I remember every few months while collecting cards id also buy a large book full of card values and see what my cards were worth and would put a check next to the cards i had and highlight the ones i wanted. Boyd and harris do a great job of conveying what makes sports cards so much fun and innocent. So there you have it, the ten most valuable 1987 topps cards. The beginning of the baseball card collecting era would lead cards to a path of greatness and immortality.
Most valuable baseball cards of the 1970s the silicon. Mars attacks del rey books insert topps, 1996 at least four different cards promoting the. However, by the 1980s, the personal computer was gaining traction in homes around the world, with companies like ibm launching their own massmarket pcs. The subsets for the 1980 topps baseball cards are highlights of the 1979 season 16, league leaders 201207, and future stars 661686. Potato head, lincoln logs and cabbage patch dolls are among the most popular. The complete topps cards 19501959 slocum, frank on. Aug 10, 2015 i was a graphic designerpackage designerillustrator with hasbro from 1983 thru 1989.
I was surprised to learn that baseball cards have been in existence since the 1860s. Finding a book when youve forgotten its title the new. Most of the baseball cards around the beginning of the 20th century came in candy and tobacco products. Though the saved by the bell cards didnt come with gum or a lock of zacks hair, they were highly collectible and fun to trade. There were also less known collections that came with. The gap in value between psa gem mint 10 and say, psa near mintmint 8 cards that at arms length look perfect, is astounding. Vintage baseball cards issued from the 1940s 1980 make up the most popular eras and sets for todays collectors. By far, the most expensive baseball card in the 1980 topps set is the rickey henderson rookie card. The ten best topps baseball cards of the 1970s jasoncards. Here are some work that i still have from that time. Lets take a year by year walk through the most valuable baseball cards of the 1970s. If you have enough inventory, you can hold a card show in your garage. Mlb baseball cards plus to cover all if any duplicates, 1980s thru early 2000s rookies, stars. The objective of the offensive team batting team is to hit the ball into the field of play, allowing its players to run the bases, having them.
Catalog and price guide of topps, bowman, donruss, fleer, leaf, opeecee, score, and upper deck 1993 by larry grossman mar 1, 1992 5. As you can see, it will take them being professionally graded in gem mint condition to be worth much. Buy 1980 topps baseball cards, sell 1980 topps baseball. This set was one of the most popular of the 1980s and contained a monstrous 792 card checklist in total. The first monster i remember is a sort of trex tyrant monster that maybe has the childrens parents or someone close to them captive. Just about every list like this of most valuable baseball cards from the 1960, 1970s, or 1980s is going to include pete rose. It was during this era that the most valuable baseball card ever printed was produced the t206 tobacco card featuring honus wagner. That, along with lower production numbers, makes it an important decade in todays market. The game proceeds when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball which a player on the batting team tries to hit with a bat.
Monster cards, saturday morning cartoons, famous monsters, vintage horror. Another book with several editions, the great american baseball card flipping, trading and bubble gum book dates back to 1973 and could be credited as being the first book to reflect on baseball card collecting, much like may hobby bloggers do today. The first baseball cards were trade cards printed in the late 1860s by a sporting goods company, around the time baseball became a professional sport. The football cards themselves were meant to go in a yearly book. While most people associate the concept of trading cards with sports and their most. Publications game programs baseball 60s mickeys cards. Considered to be the top minor league baseball cards of the 1980s, there are two versions of the 1980 charlotte os cal ripken.
Baseball cards from the 1970s comc card marketplace. A book is also a considerate option when giving to an acquaintance such as. Trading cards from the 70s, 80s and 90s do you remember. Baseball is a batandball game played between two opposing teams who take turns batting and fielding.
If you grew up in the 80s, youve probably owned many of these classic toys. An album full of baseball cards from the 1970s and 1980s. These cards feature one or more baseball players, teams, stadiums, or celebrities. I just was given hundreds of baseball cards from the 1980s. An important thing to consider, too, is that many players generation x grew up watching came up in the 1970s. Within a welded slab of hard plastic was my t206 piedmont rube waddell baseball card. My wife tejal held a torn manila envelope, displaying the contents before me. The insidious disease of speculation began in the mid1980s with baseball cards in the united states, and would eventually infect our beloved hobby. Growing up, i had a few baseball cards starting with some 1979 topps, but started seriously collecting when i could go to the local 7eleven by myself to buy packs of 1987 topps. Since 1887, baseball cards have been a major part of many peoples lives. A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on cardboard, silk, or plastic. That first edition of the guide that came to be known simply as beckett was. Uk publisher, circa 1980s smaller blank backed english cards released in the uk.
Part deux a catalog of 1980s baseball card boxed sets. Before the 1980s, with the exception of a few models, computers were largely machines that took up entire rooms and were predominantly used by astronauts, scientists, and government officials. Each card is rating from 15 according to my 3p criteria, and the ratings are summed to create a total score player think of a 5 as a nodoubtaboutit hall of famer, a 3 as a guy who maybe made the allstar team a couple. Some cards are valued at ten cents, while others, are valued at over one hundred thousand dollars. A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on cardboard, silk. Monstrum hominis 1963 topps monster midgee trading cards. The company continued to use the donruss name on baseball cards, which now benefited from leafs established distribution network.
In many ways, the 1980s were the golden era of baseball card collecting. Privacy the monster box 2020 spring training baseball briefs baseball cards. The lot includes notable names like lou brock, nellie fox, harmon killebrew, tom seaver, paul molitor rookie card, whitey ford, willie mays, and many more. The early 1980s had a bit of a 1970s hangover, where most of the toys where very similar to toys that already existed in the 1970s. Book series about two kids maybe a brother and sister where they have a stop the summoning of four monsters. For proof, check out this list of the top 15 modern card prices. The smallersized star wars action figures of 1978 were so popular that almost all action figures changed to the smaller size by 1982. There were new players in the industry, like upper deck and score. What started as a relatively barren landscape with just one manufacturer topps and one major set a year in 1980 ballooned to five cardmakers and an almost countless array of issues by 1989. The leaf brand was used from 1985 through 1988 on specially made baseball cards distributed in canada, and in 1990 on a premium series of cards distributed in the u. Baseball cards from the 1980s check out my baseball.
Buy from many sellers and get your cards all in one shipment. Baseball card news newspapers books scholar jstor february 2019 learn how and when to remove this template message. Sister company, parker brothers, released starting lineup talking baseball, an electronic baseball game that was packaged with a set of 40 baseball cards featuring the biggest stars of the day. Theres a very good reason you have several thousand baseball cards from the 1980s and 1990s primarily, they were overprinted to such an extent that they seem more common in the universe than hydrogen atoms. The market for 1980s baseball cards was strong as the general public began to see what some of those old cards that were in americas attics were bringing on the open market. Sportscards plus was selling copies a year or two ago. Topps monster laffs midgee cards lot of 24 vintage horror. Collectible cards, nicolas cage, d day, comic books, comics, comic book, comic. The book explores, in a very entertaining way, the marketing of cigarettes and gum by packaging them with collectible cards. Topps finally lost a challenge to its monopoly in the late 1970s and the 1980 topps baseball cards were the last to have no competition. They are a onesizefitsall solution to the problem of what to buy for a loved one. In the 1980s baseball cards went from the same old cardboard we had known since the 1930s to a new world of competition, holograms and rookie card mania. They had pictures of, say, a huge ugly monster smoking a cigarette, with the caption i told you smoking would stunt your growth. The key to unlocking these monster values is the card receiving the grade of psa gem mint 10.
You will be disappointed in the book if you are getting it only because it says baseball cards. A trading card has an image of a person, place, event or thing on the front, and on the back is. When the 1994 strike happened, i checked out completely from baseball and baseball cards for about 20 years. You used to get the wellillustrated funny monster cards in a flat bubble gum packet. Most valuable baseball cards of the 1980s the silicon. I have so many great memories of my dad taking me to the baseball cards shop and buying cards for me. A cultural history of the baseball card the atlantic. An online catalog of all known monster trading cards. The dualphoto fronts remain a favorite with many collectors. As a result, his cards remain popular with collectors. The set consists of 98 different sticker cards and 1 checklist card, which one of. A catalog of 1980s baseball card boxed sets february 25, 2015 by adam hughes when fleer and donruss entered the baseball card market in 1981, they opened the door for other manufacturers to fo llow suit, and by the middle of the decade, cards were available for purchase just about everywhere.
Collecting the 1982 topps baseball set the first 792card set in 1982, topps unleashed a monstrous set, tallying nearly 800 total cards in order to complete it. But some action figures just didnt resonateat least back then. Many people of a certain age look back at the 1980s as the golden age of toys. Shop comc s extensive selection of baseball cards from the 1980s. The first baseball cards were made of a cloth like material. Checklist 504 reggie jackson 419 tom seaver 418 hank aaron 393 johnny bench 367 pete rose 351 nolan ryan 350 rod carew 323. Home cards sport baseball cards modern 1981 1989 1988 topps topps big baseball. Thats because, no matter what you think of the man, the fact remains that he is baseballs alltime hits leader and he helped light the hobby on fire as he ran toward and past ty cobb. Are there any baseball cards from 1989 that are valuable. Baseball card production peaked in the late 1980s and many collectors left. Here are 12 rejected toys of the 80s that, in some. Published in 1994, this book sat right on the line between the baseball card. The 1980 topps baseball card set consists of 726 standard size cards. A guide to 80s teen series part 1 a to d abracadabra bantam put out this fantasy driven series in 1989 and like most powerswithout responsibilities themes many of the plots centered around year old protagonist dawn suffering the repercussions of her capricious spell casting.
This information only came to light because of net54 contributors. They are items that provide hours of enjoyment for the recipient. There was a point in the 90s tween book craze when it seemed like publishing execs were just pointing to every single thing that came up in their daily lives and. Revisiting the 90s speculative boom that nearly ended the. One story was about a bubble gum machine and another story was about a little monster s birthday. One of the children may have also had special ocular powers or another sort of powers. The sports card collecting frenzy made its way north of the boarder by late 1980s although it was hockey cards that drove our bubble because, well, its canada. Dragons lair was, for those who never went into an amusement arcade, an arcade. Monsters is an old school trading cards collection that brings back the spirit of trading cards collections from the 80s, with a vintage style and classic artwork. Topps creature feature cards came out in 1973 and were rereleased in 1980 and. Kenner debuted its starting lineup figures and cards in 1988 with a set of 124 baseball players.