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Barry Bonds Rookies - Which have the greatest potential?
JimMeant
Posts: 341 ✭✭✭
It is my opinion that it’s just a matter of time before Barry Bonds is enshrined into the baseball HOF. Whether right or wrong (another discussion entirely), I was wondering which rookie cards have the greatest potential to rise in value.
****OTHER THAN TOPPS TRADED TIFFANY****, which rookie cards of Mr. Bonds do collectors think will increase over time? Condition sensitivity of certain issues & pop reports should be taken into consideration as well. What do you guys think?
-Collecting anything vintage
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Maybe Leaf or O-Pee-CHEE?
I collect hall of fame rookie cards, https://www.instagram.com/stwainfan/
Johnny ray misprint
IT CAN'T BE A TRUE PLAYOFF UNLESS THE BIG TEN CHAMPIONS ARE INCLUDED
1987 OPC
1987 Topps Tiffany
1986 Fleer Update
1987 Leaf
1987 Fleer
1986 Donruss “The Rookies”
1987 Toys ‘R Us
1987 Fleer Glossy
1987 Donruss
1986 Sportsflics
1987 Topps
1986 Topps Traded
That would be my order. Fully get the Johnny Ray error card, but I don’t personally like a card that doesn’t actually picture Bonds.
Topps traded Tiffany... I know you said other than that but that's the one everyone will want.
Join the Rookie stars on top PSA registry today:
1980-1989 Cello Packs - Rookies
I'm going to borrow this as it's pretty close to what I would put down. Just a few minor tweaks.
1987 OPC
1987 Classic Travel Green Back
1987 Leaf
1987 Topps Tiffany
1986 Fleer Update
1987 Fleer
1986 Donruss “The Rookies”
1987 Toys ‘R Us
1987 Fleer Glossy
1987 Donruss
1986 Sportsflics
1987 Topps
1986 Topps Traded
The Opening Day is in it's own category. The Classic Travel Green Back's pop basically mirrors the O-Pee-Chee (actually fewer 10s and 9s than the OPC) but it sells for less than 1/10 the OPC. Granted, the OPC has the brand and the image going for it but I'll still bet on rarity over most of the other cards.
I'm actually not high on the '86 TT Tiffany at all. I know that's the one that everyone will gravitate toward but it's not condition sensitive. The amount of (genuinely) factory sealed 1987 Tiffany sets is starting to dry up (the amount of resealed ones is growing, but that's a topic for another thread). With the bazillion sets that have been ripped, the '87 Tiffany still only has 200 PSA 10s, half the amount of the '86 Tiffany.
Arthur
My favorite Bonds RC.
I collect hall of fame rookie cards, https://www.instagram.com/stwainfan/
I always did like the Pirates yellow helmets with the black brim, more so than the solid yellow. I don't believe they wore either one for more than a season or 2, but they coincided with the start of Bonds' career.
OPC is nearly impossible to get a 10 on. I own a slightly tilted 9 and consider myself lucky to have that. I think it’s the card to own, followed closely by 86 Traded Tiffany.
I'd go with the '86 Fleer Update although the OPCs are really, really underrated.
OPC is tough but there are lots of uncut OPC sheets and unopened out there. I would say the pop will jump substantially in the next two years now that it is a 2k card. Choose wisely with that one.
All you have to do is look at the Yzerman and Patrick Roy pops to see the effect.
I took the plunge on an 87 Tiffany Bonds tonight with the 15% off. Paid $313 so I thought that was a fair price
I would go with the 1986 Topps Traded Tiffany in PSA 10. Pop count is still reasonable at around 408.
I didn’t think PSA graded sheet-cut cards.
OPC does not grade cards that have been cut from a sheet unless they are intended to be cut out (e.g. 1984 Topps Nestle). The unopened wax part is accurate, but good luck pulling anything from a box of 1987 OPC that will grade a 10.
SGC just announced that it would cut your sheet for you, and then grade the cards! The flip would indicate they're sheet cut, but those are all ending up in PSA holders lol. What a fiasco this would be if they really went through with it. They need to stamp the card itself with disappearing ink or whatever, or this is going to crush whatever value there was in high grade 80s stuff.
I am worried about this as well and I hope you're wrong. But 1987 OPC baseball quality control is some kind of bad. Besides the MCs, for some reason on the Bonds in particular, you have rampant fisheyes in the same key spots, copy after copy, not to mention diamond-cut-level tilt. When you're talking about 95% of the print run not even being worthy of an 8, then you're only talking about 5% gradable, maybe.
Let's say 7 million of each 1987 Topps card were released, which is the highest estimate I can find anywhere. In 1987, the Canadian population was just over 10% of the US'. So on the high end, the most they would've printed is 700,000 1987 OPC Barry Bonds'. It's unlikely they made even that many since baseball is just not that big a deal in Canada. If you're generous, 5% of 700,000 may get you a shot at a 8, 9, or 10.
That's 35,000 eligible gradable cards in existence on the high end that could get you an 8, 9, or 10 on a good day. OPC, along with 1987 Donruss and 1987 Fleer is currently earning a 10 on about 5% of submissions. But 5% of a billion is still a gazillion. 5% of 35,000 is 1750 PSA 10s of OPC Bonds. Assuming every last card deserving of a 10 makes it to the TPG in pack fresh condition. That's still a crap ton, though, yes.
But what if Topps "only" printed 1M, and OPC 100,000? Then that works out to 250 PSA 10s of OPC Bonds. That's pretty scarce if demand is there.
Of course, I assume a lot of things that may or may not be true. Maybe Topps was insane and printed more than 10% of its US print run in Canada. Can anyone who grew up in Canada talk about what they experienced in 1987? How flooded was the market? Does anyone know of warehouses full of unopened 1987 baseball? For those who break boxes and packs, do you think 5% is a fair estimate of percentage of examples that would earn an 8 or higher, out of all the OPC Bonds cards ever made? To what extent will PSA distort the market by withholding 10s since rarer, more expensive 10s beget more submissions overall and especially from the ranks of 9s?
The '87 OPC Bonds PSA 10 has been a $2k+ card for more than a year-and-a-half. It cleared $1k just about 2 years ago. There are sales of $600+ and $900+ back in 2007. In between those times it was a steady $300+ card. The idea that the market just recently discovered this card is wrong. People have been buying '87 OPC unopened as fast as they can get their hands on it for years, myself included. Four or five years ago, cases would sell instantly on the rare instance they showed up on eBay. Then they stopped showing up.
To compare OPC hockey with OPC baseball is kind of absurd. Canadians LOVE hockey, not so much with the baseball in the 1980s. I've opened over 50 boxes of '87 OPC and pulled one Bonds card that would grade higher than a cumulative 6 (8 (OC) being the high), You basically need to find a Bonds that is miscut top to bottom and then happens to fit all the other criteria for a 10. This is how all of the Bonds cards came out of the packs for me:
That's the norm. That's not how MOST of the Bonds cards came out of packs, that's how ALL of the Bonds cards came out of packs, until I hit my 9. Like I said, you're hoping for a miscut.
People aren't suddenly running to rip their huge stashes of '87 OPC. That happened 5-6 years ago. I still have the BBCE invoices from 2013 where I was buying ten '87 OPC boxes for $9/ea. I don't expect there to be a huge wax explosion affecting the pop report. I am very concerned about 9s getting turned into 10s though.
Arthur
That's interesting that you both put 1987 Tiffany so high. Out of the 13 choices listed above, it's 5th-most condition sensitive, if you measure by % of 9s and 10s granted (but 3rd-most if you're talking 8s + 9s +10s). Perhaps I'm biased. It's definitely a sleeker and rarer version of the card design most associated with pulling a Bonds RC out of a pack in 1987. But...
1) it came out of a box set that very few collectors and basically no kids had access to at the time;
2) if you want a rarer pack-pulled true RC, the design exists already in the form of OPC;
3) it's more fair to call it a parallel than a RC;
4) it's not even the first Tiffany issue of the player; and,
5) because it came out of a box set, it's not as condition sensitive as some of the others.
Can you guys give me a history lesson? I was out of the hobby between 1994 and 2018. Was there a time when 87 Tiffany was the hottest Bonds card in the hobby? As I understand it, 86 Traded, 86 Fleer Update, 87 Fleer Glossy all had their moment in the sun as THE "it" Bonds card? Do I have that right? Obviously, right now 86 Tiffany is most fashionable. Set me straight on this one, did I leave any out or include any I shouldn't have? Also, in what order did they release Traded, Tiffany, and Traded Tiffany back in the day, just for my own edification?
For me, 86 Tiffany shares many of the same problems as 87 Tiffany, but it's 6x rarer, and it's (basically) Bonds' first and nicest appearance in the iconic Topps universe.
As I recall, the 86 fleer was very popular in the early 00's. Maybe even eclipsing $1000 for a time. Also the 86 tt tiffany was a gold standard and the regular 87 fleer. It seems to me the popularity of the opc rookie is a more recent development.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I'm going off my own experience. The '87 Tiffany is many, many times more condition sensitive than the '86. Here are the PSA 10 numbers (I couldn't care less about the 8 and 9 numbers):
1986: 17.6% 409 total
1987: 6.7% 210 total
That's a huge difference, especially when you factor in the larger quantities of '87 Tiffany sets. As far as your other points...
The '86 set was certainly produced in far fewer numbers than the '87 set but I think at the end of the day we're talking about PSA 10 examples and in that case there are half as many '87 as there are '86 and the '87 is far more condition sensitive than the '86. But nobody is knocking the '86 Tiffany. It's obviously a Bonds monster and will always have a fervent following.
Arthur
It's so awesome that OPC is getting baseball collector love through the Bonds rookie.
But now that there are more opportunities to buy, seemingly one per month now, anyone considering buying a Gem Mint Bonds OPC rookie should understand at the very least that the 1987 OPC cards from packs have some degree of a rough cut. Not particularly ragged like the late 1970's opc, but perceptible.
People should also consider that sheets walked from the OPC factory in the 80's in droves. Choose your copy wisely.
-Nathanael