I have been researching and following 1980 Topps #482, Rickey Henderson's rookie card (RC), for over a year. I bought my first card as nostalgia, but my continued interest grew as I learned more and more about the economics and potential investment of this single card. My initial instinct was 1980 Topps #482 was a bad investment, read here. To my surprise, when I looked into it, I found 1980 Topps card #482 would have been an excellent investment over the last 20 years, read here.
Rickey Henderson is considered by many to be the greatest leadoff hitter in baseball history. He holds the all time records for stolen bases and runs, and his single season and career achievements go on and on.
1980 Topps #482 has become one of the most iconic baseball cards over the last few years. Last month, a PSA 10 Gem Mint 1980 Topps #482 sold for a record high, $183,000. A Google search will reveal the cards popularity and presence on list after list of baseball cards of the 1980s. When Topps selected 20 historic baseball cards for its Project 2020 series, 1980 Topps #482 was one of the 20 cards. Based on highest sales prices in the 2020s, it is the most valuable baseball card of the 1980s.
The card is popular and expensive, especially compared to its 1980 Topps peers. No other card from the 1980 Topps set comes close to #482. To find a comparable card, collectors would have to go back to George Brett's RC in 1975. Similarly, there isn't another card that sells for equal value until the 1990s.
Introduction
Why does Rickey Henderson's RC sell for so much higher than other cards of his generation? There are multiple factors from career baseball achievements to off the field personality. For this post, I will be evaluating the higher graded cards and specifically looking into the relationship with the scarcity of those grades. Any alternative explanations will be for a different author or different post.
This post is a case study into the sales of PSA grades ranging from 7-10. (I want to look into other cards later.) All the results are descriptive and not intended to be causal. This post cannot prove causality.
I am the main audience, but for anyone else who stumbles across this, I hope to make it clear for general readers.
When I refer to PSA 10, PSA 9, PSA 8, and PSA 7, I will be referring to 1980 Topps #482 of those grades.
Methodology
I pulled the S&P 500 from Google Finance and US Dollar inflation data from https://fred.stlouisfed.org, both using formulas in Google Sheets. These are two measures to compare magnitude of the increases over time.
My starting point is based on the first sales available in VCP's records. The charts below start with October 31st, 2006. If anyone is interested, they can easily create a new chart from any starting date they choose. All the data I used is in the spreadsheet I shared above.
I used end of the month (EoM) prices for S&P 500 and CPI/inflation.
For PSA 10 sales, I used the most recent sales prices because PSA 10s only have 1-3 sales most years.
For PSA 9, PSA 8, and PSA 7, I used the median sales for each month. PSA 9 has averages over 15 sales per month since 2012, PSA 8 over 45 and PSA 7 close to 30.
The PSA 10 sales are not statistically equivalent to the PSA 7-9 sales prices. I chose recent sales price to keep it simple for me.
I normalized all the values to starting values of $1, see the table on the Master Sheet in the spreadsheet. Without normalizing the data, the charts would be very difficult to see because the PSA 10 sales are 50-100 times higher than the other cards, stock, and USD.
All prices are gross sales prices, including auction company fees. Shipping costs are not included in the card prices. The prices are also nominal, not adjusted for inflation.
Limitations
Measurement
- All data is based on 1980 Topps #482.
- There is a selection bias to the availibilty of VCP's data.
- All prices are nominal. CPI/inflation is shown has a reference point, but no prices are adjusted for inflation.
Data
- There is an asymmetry in my sample sizes, sales of PSA 10s vs PSA 7-9s.
- PSA 10s only have 1-3 sales most years. This creates an asymmetric sample size.
- I did a cross sectional analysis of the PSA population sizes vs the sales prices. I had population reports saved for two other dates. So I used those dates to make a comparison with the r=most recent data. If I had full access PSA population reports over time, I would have choose a couple more points to analyze.
- It would be difficult to know the liquidity of PSA 10s due to the infrequency of sales. Timing and other factors may play critical roles in the sale prices. Although CAGR is reported, liquidity may not be reliable. It's unclear how much timing and other market forces affect prices.
- PSA 7 and PSA 8 data missing for Jan 2020.
Grading
- Grading responds to sale prices.
- Regrading contaminates grading population sizes. Scarcity is overstated because many PSA 7-8s are collectors trying to get a PSA 9.
- There is population endogeneity. Population reports approximates scarcity, but grading, prices, and scarcity all affect grading behavior, which affect prices. The system is interconnected.
- Older graded PSA cards have far less quality control. PSA has gotten a lot better at quality control with time. New grades are more consistently graded. Older grades have a lot more noise.
- Within PSA grades, sale prices can fluctuate based on the visual appearance to the human eye. Not all cards of the same grade are of equal value. Some cards look brighter, more centered, etc. There is an artistic aspect to the cards in addition to the objective condition. Grading companies try to remove the subjective grader from the grades, but, in the end, buyers and sellers are subjectively valuing cards based on several factors that vary between buyers/sellers.
- Collectors/sellers regrade cards. They take cards out of the secure graded plastic slabs, and then resubmit the cards to grading companies. This is a common practice according to card forums online and YouTube videos. Grading companies do not report data on regrades, so it is impossible to know how many graded cards were regrades. Grading population reports include, at least some, regrades.
Results
All the following sales data and prices are discovered prices, not expected returns. Readers should also remember that sale prices included fees to auction houses, like eBay.
Rickey Henderson's rookie card, 1980 Topps #482 has done well the last 20 years.
Shocks, Timing, and Jumps
The CAGR suggests the growth was smooth across time, but the graph above shows the reality with large increases and decreases in sales prices, and months without any sales. The PSA 7-9 are smoother, but show signs of responding to PSA 10 shocks.
Besides the pandemic, the PSA 7-9 mostly look similar to the S&P 500. Post pandemic, the slopes of the PSA 7-9 return to a similar looking slope as the S&P 500.
On the graph, the PSA 10s have three distinct sections. The first spike in Jan 2016 has some rebound, but mostly stabilizes for almost five years. Then during the pandemic, two spikes, Sep 2020 and Feb 2020, increase the sale prices over 400%.
The pandemic was the largest spike for all grades. This was a market wide spike for trading cards in general. In December of 2024, Rickey Henderson passed away. Rickey Henderson's death created a card specific shock. It's unclear, of course, but unlikely that Rickey Henderson will have many more card specific demand shocks. One possibility would be if a documentary or movie was made about his life or baseball career. Market wide shocks are also very difficult to predict.
Population Size and Scarcity
Based on the data above, it's unclear whether the PSA 10s and 9s sell at higher prices because they are higher grades, or because they are more scarce.
The PSA 10 data has a lot less sales, an average of 3 sales per year the last 19 years. The realized prices of PSA 10 sales are remarkable, but there is not enough data points. The graph above shows long flat periods and huge jumps for the PSA 10 sales prices. An economist might call this a scarcity-driven price discovery. Where the lack of supply drives the prices. The total population is low, only 26 PSA 10 Gem Mints exist as of February 2026. Further, the frequency of sales/opportunity to purchase is low, ~1-3 sales per year the last few years.
Below are three tables of three dates I had available population data for.
*PSA 10 is most recent price at those dates
Just looking at the table above, one can see a correlation between population size and recent sales price. Below is a log-log chart allows a visual to see the extreme differences in population sizes and sales prices.
The plots show that the price and population have a strong inverse relationship. Jan 2020, I do not have the PSA 7 nor PSA 8 population data. There are only four points on the graph, and these are only three dates, but, still, the relationship is consistent. PSA 10 is above PSA 9 for all three dates. The slopes of each set of points appear to be mostly parallel over time. This implies that elasticity of price with respect to scarcity is stable over time. The log-log graph above describes how scarcity can explain the price levels of PSA 10.
For 1980 Topps #482, the scarcity between grades is extreme. This card has one of the highest PSA 9 to PSA 10 ratios in vintage baseball cards. The ratio of PSA 8 to PSA 9 is also high.
Scarcity can explain why PSA 9 and PSA 10 sell at a lot higher prices. The CAGR of PSA 10 has over a 20% annual return, but when looking at the sales graph, the PSA 10s can fluctuate significantly. Sales are infrequent; population size is extremely low- especially compared with the cards of that era; supply is low; and demand is high. This can explains why demand shocks can drive the prices of the PSA 10s. Scarcity can describe and explain the shocks responding to the scarcity of gem mint 1980 Topps #482.
Speculation about Grading
Collectors know and track the population sizes of the cards they buy, especially as the value of cards increase. As the market for cards grow and card sales increase, so does fraud. Fraud is easy to detect in person, especially for a savvy collector. But online sales pose a couple issues. Online is the largest market of trading cards, Ebay being the 800 pound gorilla. Since online buyers cannot properly inspect cards, grading becomes more necessary with the great value of cards. Grading offers a solution (although fraudulent graded cards is becoming more concerning). Grading provides security for buyers and reliability for sellers online. Buying and selling cards online increases the demand for grading companies. As a result, the grading companies identifies approximations about the scarcity of cards. The grading companies track and publish their data. This in return influences buyers and sellers choices.
In 2016, after a huge record sale for 1980 Topps #482, card prices went up, and incentives to grade went up. I do not have the population reports to state if grading increased for #482. Again, in 2020 and 2021, huge record sales increased prices and this time, the data shows that grading more than doubled.
As sale prices increased, grading increased, which further increased prices of PSA 9 and PSA 10 by identifying approximations of scarcity.
With PSA 10s selling over $100,000, and the last 20,000 plus graded cards only revealing two PSA 10s and less than 400 PSA 9s, the scarcity appears to be real. The sale prices also reflect collectors beliefs in the scarcity of the PSA 9s and PSA 10s.
Over the last six years, PSA has more than doubled the amount of 1980 Topps #482 that have been graded. During that time PSA 10 and PSA 9 have become less prevalent. This could be a signal to collectors that the PSA 10 and PSA 9 scarcity
Conclusion
Although my post does not and can not prove causality, I do believe that scarcity drives prices. Scarcity is not the only factor, but it is a serious contender for the largest factor on price. (I think with more rigorous analysis and investigation, I could prove scarcity drives prices)
For me, it is important to understand the relationship between scarcity and prices.
For most collectors these results won't be surprising, but it's nice to see that the data confirms my intuitions.
*Idea to Add and Analyze* PSA 9/10 scarcity is partly manufactured by incentives.
What's Next
I want to run these same comparisons with a few more cards and see how and if any of the dynamics different.
Reggie Jackson is probably as popular as Rickey Henderson, but his rookie card is a lot more scarce. Ken Griffey is more popular than Rickey Henderson, but his card was massed produced and has an abundance of PSA 10s. Then the GOAT of baseball cards, Mickey Mantle! Mantle is more popular and more scarce than Jackson, Henderson, and Griffey.
