General Forum

Over the last 3 to 4 months, there has been quite the phenomenom regarding the 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie.  The price for a nicely graded PSA 9, has more than doubled in price on eBay recently, yet the pop report continues to grow.  This is an iconic card, but not a rare card, and can only be considered borderline vintage in my opinion.  It's as if sellers are arbitrarily inflating the price, superceding PSA grading standards, by claiming that their PSA 9 is somehow "Super High-End", has "Great Centering", or is "Pack Fresh", which always makes me laugh....fresh in a 36 year old pack is quite a stretch.  I'll stick with my ungraded Rickey Henderson rookie, and just want to bring awareness to the situation.

Interesting.  That's always been a tough card.  It doesn't look like I'll be upgrading mine anytime soon.

I used to have one back in the day, but for some reason I couldn't find it around '91. It wasn't all that hard to get, as I never bought more than a dozen packs of it.

I wouldn't pay more than 20 bucks for a PSA 9 for one now. It could very well be sellers manipulating the market.

 I have one in a box in a complete set.  I haven't looked at it since it went into the box.  Knowing Topps, it is probably off-centered.    I certainly would not pay to have it graded.

I've had that card since the early-mid 80's. I was still learning how to take care of my cards at the time. It has a pen mark on the front with four well-rounded corners. Basically, it looks like an elephant sat on it. I've always meant to upgrade but never have. Still one of my favorite all time cards. 

I have a couple stories about the Rickey Rookie.

It was the first card I owned that had any significant value. I started in 1978 with very few cards, and had thousands of 1979s, but none of them were very "hot" back then. (Hottest player back then was probably Pete Rose). Then I saw an ad in Baseball Cards magazine with this card listed for double digits. I had never seen one of the cards I owned go that high before that. I was astounded.

Later on, I came to realize that I had one in my set, one in my Rickey PC, and an extra! Now we're in the early 90s (90-91), around the time Brock's record was going down,  and I'm setting up at cards shows in FL to sell off extras. Card now has a BV in the triple digits. I have mine sitting there for $125, but not marked (I think BV was $200). I step away from my table, and turn things over to my dad. I come back and he says someone asked about the Henderson, I told him you wanted one twenty five for it but he didn't buy it. Me - "Oh, did you offer it for one hundred and ten?" Dad - "What? You mean it wasn't a dollar 25?" Thank goodness he didn't sell it. (I did sell it years later on ebay for a very small amount, but still much better than $1.25!)

One of the first cards I ever got graded. Have a voucher from Beckett for two cards, got the Rickey and Gretzky rookies graded. BVG 5.5 for both :(

Don't forget, the same card may have two PSA 9s, but one may be OC.   So yes, one can hype his card as being perfectly centered.