1987 Topps Baseball project. Grades are in.

JoeBanzai

Almost two years ago, I noticed that you could get 1987 Topps baseball unopened product pretty cheap and Bonds, McGwire, Canseco and Larkin cards were all selling pretty well. I bought some wax, vending and rack, amounting to over 10,000 cards, and began ripping.

Went through the cards and was pretty upset over the lack of rookies and stars in what looked like "perfect" condition (with the exception of a nice group of Bo Jackson cards). No Puckett, Mattingly or Gwynn cards even worth sending in! A buddy of mine suggested I look for low pop commons if I wanted to potentially make any money.

I went through the entire pile of commons, pulling out anything that looked mint. I then went through those "mint" cards three times pulling anything with a print dot or imperfect centering, then my buddy went through them and pulled out about 20% and then I went through them again and culled a few more. Ended up with 93 cards to submit, figuring about 85 of them were flawless. The Bonds cards were selling for enough in PSA 9 at the time so they were worth sending in and a few of the low pop cards were so scarce in high grade, I gambled (and eventually lost) on a few.

Here's the results of the "Star" cards:

One Wade Boggs 10
Three Bo Jackson 10's (saved my bacon) and a 9 .
Two Barry Bonds 9's. I wasn't even going to send these in as they were all a little off center.
One Mark McGwire 10 and one 9 that was just as nice. Two of the most beautiful cards out of the entire purchase!
One Brett 9.
One Schmidt 9.
One Dale Murphy 10.
Two Jose Canseco 9's (perfect cards).
One Barry Larkin 10 and two 9's that were just as nice.
One Ryne sandbeg 9.
One Steve Carlton 10
One Ricky Henderson 10
Two Nolan Ryan 9's (perfect cards).

Pretty disappointed on the "Big Four" rookie cards. Very happy on the Bo Jacksons.

I did pull 17 commons that graded 10's that are now one-of-ones!

Sent in 93 cards, received 27 10's, 52 9's, 9 8's and 5 7's.

Everything is for sale. If you are interested in some of the low pop commons send me a PM.

I spent a couple hundred on the cards and was fortunate enough to get these graded for $9.00 a card.

What are your thoughts on the project?

rexvos

Curious as to what the commons are

Bosox1976

27 10's out of 10,000+ raw cards is interesting, as is 27 10's out of 93 submitted.

Sounds like the kind of fun experiment that was possible with cheap unopened and reasonable grading fees - hope we can have that combination back in some way, shape, or form down the road. Those arbitrage rips are few and far between theses days.

JoeBanzai

@rexvos said:
Curious as to what the commons are

I just posted a list on the BST page.

JoeBanzai

@Bosox1976 said:
27 10's out of 10,000+ raw cards is interesting, as is 27 10's out of 93 submitted.

Sounds like the kind of fun experiment that was possible with cheap unopened and reasonable grading fees - hope we can have that combination back in some way, shape, or form down the road. Those arbitrage rips are few and far between theses days.

Doubt that we will ever see $9 a card again.

I looked at the star cards and added up the average recent sold prices and came to about $1.100.00 if I sell them all.

Cost of grading was about $850 and cards were about $200.00.

It started out a LOT of fun, but was a learning experience as far as "mint" is concerned. Almost every card has a flaw of some kind. After looking at cards over and over again, you tend to not want to do it any more, at least on this scale.

Jayman1982

Your story is similar to my experience with gobbling up early 90's hockey the last couple years, I'm really going to miss those under $10 fees...The price hike has destroyed that part of the hobby

bensie

@JoeBanzai said:

@Bosox1976 said:
27 10's out of 10,000+ raw cards is interesting, as is 27 10's out of 93 submitted.

Sounds like the kind of fun experiment that was possible with cheap unopened and reasonable grading fees - hope we can have that combination back in some way, shape, or form down the road. Those arbitrage rips are few and far between theses days.

Doubt that we will ever see $9 a card again.

I looked at the star cards and added up the average recent sold prices and came to about $1.100.00 if I sell them all.

Cost of grading was about $850 and cards were about $200.00.

It started out a LOT of fun, but was a learning experience as far as "mint" is concerned. Almost every card has a flaw of some kind. After looking at cards over and over again, you tend to not want to do it any more, at least on this scale.

Yeah, it's a real grind finding gems in junk wax rips. I had a blast ripping 1991 UD before the pandemic. Those are quite a bit easier to grade than 1987 Topps, but even after well over 20 wax boxes, I had zero GEM 10 Griffey and zero GEM 10 Frank Thomas cards.

thehallmark

If PSA hadn't screwed the pooch, I absolutely would have tried to put together this set in PSA 10 over the next decade. Just like my 1990 Pro Set journey - it would have been really fun to rip and bulk submit for super cheap.

Good luck on the sales - hope you have some fun along the way.

azvike

@JoeBanzai said:
Almost two years ago, I noticed that you could get 1987 Topps baseball unopened product pretty cheap and Bonds, McGwire, Canseco and Larkin cards were all selling pretty well. I bought some wax, vending and rack, amounting to over 10,000 cards, and began ripping.

Went through the cards and was pretty upset over the lack of rookies and stars in what looked like "perfect" condition (with the exception of a nice group of Bo Jackson cards). No Puckett, Mattingly or Gwynn cards even worth sending in! A buddy of mine suggested I look for low pop commons if I wanted to potentially make any money.

I went through the entire pile of commons, pulling out anything that looked mint. I then went through those "mint" cards three times pulling anything with a print dot or imperfect centering, then my buddy went through them and pulled out about 20% and then I went through them again and culled a few more. Ended up with 93 cards to submit, figuring about 85 of them were flawless. The Bonds cards were selling for enough in PSA 9 at the time so they were worth sending in and a few of the low pop cards were so scarce in high grade, I gambled (and eventually lost) on a few.

Here's the results of the "Star" cards:

One Wade Boggs 10
Three Bo Jackson 10's (saved my bacon) and a 9 .
Two Barry Bonds 9's. I wasn't even going to send these in as they were all a little off center.
One Mark McGwire 10 and one 9 that was just as nice. Two of the most beautiful cards out of the entire purchase!
One Brett 9.
One Schmidt 9.
One Dale Murphy 10.
Two Jose Canseco 9's (perfect cards).
One Barry Larkin 10 and two 9's that were just as nice.
One Ryne sandbeg 9.
One Steve Carlton 10
One Ricky Henderson 10
Two Nolan Ryan 9's (perfect cards).

Pretty disappointed on the "Big Four" rookie cards. Very happy on the Bo Jacksons.

I did pull 17 commons that graded 10's that are now one-of-ones!

Sent in 93 cards, received 27 10's, 52 9's, 9 8's and 5 7's.

Everything is for sale. If you are interested in some of the low pop commons send me a PM.

I spent a couple hundred on the cards and was fortunate enough to get these graded for $9.00 a card.

What are your thoughts on the project?

Do you happen to have a Dale Mohorcic 9 or 10?

JoeBanzai

"Do you happen to have a Dale Mohorcic 9 or 10?"

All graded cards I have are listed on the BST forum. I did put together two "mint" raw sets, so I have a lot of nice cards from this set.

I did not sub any cards with that many 10's in the pop report, but I'll bet I have a nice raw one that would grade a 9 or 10.

These cards are going to be interesting with the higher grading fees.

PM me if interested in seeing what I have in a raw one.

ReggieCleveland

Yeah, but, pops are going to explode because people will be ripping unopened and there will be a billion PSA 10 Bonds soon. Haven't you heard?

Arthur

softparade

Loved reading this Joe! Awesome results! Makes me think back to the days 15 plus years ago when I was ripping 1978 Topps by the case and box in the quest to complete a full graded set in 9.00 or better. Which I did do but man oh man I would never be able to pull that off today for obvious reasons. In those days there were $5 bulk specials. I built 70 plus percent of the set that way. Anyway, awesome stuff. It's cool you were able to sneak this in at $9 per.

JoeBanzai

@softparade said:
Loved reading this Joe! Awesome results! Makes me think back to the days 15 plus years ago when I was ripping 1978 Topps by the case and box in the quest to complete a full graded set in 9.00 or better. Which I did do but man oh man I would never be able to pull that off today for obvious reasons. In those days there were $5 bulk specials. I built 70 plus percent of the set that way. Anyway, awesome stuff. It's cool you were able to sneak this in at $9 per.

Thanks!

I was one of those guys who thought there were a lot of 10's waiting to be discovered in unopened.

NOT REALLY! Out of more than 10,000 cards, all from unopened. Not one single Bonds rookie that deserved a 10. The two 9's I almost didn't submit. One Larkin, one McGwire, no Canseco's. Of course those might all not be "true rookies" but they are the money cards.

Thankfully, I got lucky on Bo Jackson, or even at $9.00 a card, I would have to really scramble to break even.

I think it's the end of the line for people putting together 700-800 card graded sets.

I did get a couple of "oddball" cards that may be of interest to the Cal Ripken and Ken Griffey Jr collectors;

GEM MINT 10 1982 All-Star Game Program Inserts-Hand Cut Cal Ripken Jr.

GEM MINT 10 1992 Baseball Cards Magazine Repli-Cards 36 Ken Griffey Jr.

Looks like there's only one other 10 of the Ripken "Rookie" and the guy with the #1 Master set has it.

The Griffey is a pop 4.

"SHOW ME THE MONEY!"

Hoping these two are big money cards. Possibly consign with PWCC?

jayhawke

I just got some grades back. I submitted 14, 1987 Topps and got 2-10’s,9-9’s,3-8’s. Disappointed on the 8’s and didn’t expect all 10’s. I believe this was going through a few vending and a few wax boxes. I probably have 50 commons to grade that I hope will be 9’s and 10’s. I’ll have to wait for the new fee schedule.