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Top 5 cards of the 1980's
JimMeant
Posts: 341 ✭✭✭
Let's have a little fun debating this topic.
How would you guys rank the top 5 cards of the hobby during the decade of the 1980's? You can consider value, iconic status, etc. It's your opinion. Here's my list:
- 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie
- 1980 Topps Magic/Bird rookie
- 1981 Topps Joe Montana rookie
- 1982 Topps Traded Cal Ripken Jr. rookie
- 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie
Lets hear your list!
-Collecting anything vintage
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Comments
Jordan
Bird/Magic
Henderson
Jerry Rice
Montana
Tough to leave 89 Upper Deck Jr. off the list. Everyone should own at least one and I think probably everybody does. I have never owned a Jerry Rice. What a condition sensitive tough centered lime corners frustration set.
No particular order:
1980 Topps Rickey Henderson
85/86 OPC Mario Lemieux
1981 Topps Joe Montana
86/87 Fleer Michael Jordan
84/85 Star Michael Jordan
Honorable Mention: 80/81 Topps Bird/Magic
Here is my list based on hobby influence at the time. I started collecting in the 1980's and it was a wild ride:
1) 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly
2) 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr.
3) 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco
4) 1985 Topps Mark McGwire
5) 1988 Fleer Gregg Jefferies
All those cards set off some type of frenzy in 1980's.
Not a high value card, but the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card was the first high end card to hit the market. It was an enormous leap in quality and price. Packs were going for 1.00 while the other brands were going in the .45 range.
I will limit to baseball:
1) 89 Griffey Upper Deck
2) 80 Rickey Topps
3) 82 Ripken Topps Traded
4) 84 Puckett Fleer Update
5) 84 Mattingly Donruss
Erik
The 1984 Donruss Mattingly has to be on the list, IMHO. It kick started the whole thing.
1986 Fleer Michael Jordan
1989 UD Ken Griffey Jr
1980 Topps Rickey Henderson
1981 Topps Joe Montana
1980-81 Topps Bird/Magic
Steve
I think these 5 were all very hot at the time and are "legends" of the 80's. All baseball
80 Henderson
84 fu Clemens
84 donruss Mattingly
86 donruss Canseco
89 ud griffey
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
80 Bird/Magic
86 MJ
81 Montana
84 Fleer Clemens
82 Ripken
just missing the cut...
86 Rice
80 Henderson
85 Mario
86 Patrick Roy
89 Griffey
I liked very much seeing the 84 Fleer Update Puckett in the @estang list.
Jeff
I had the 1986 Rice rookie when I was a kid. Got a bunch of Football cards from a relative for Christmas one year and know that one was in there. Didn't like football cards as much as baseball cards though so I traded ALL of my 1986 football cards, including the Rice, to an older neighbor kid for a 1987 Topps Rafael Palmeiro "future stars" card because I liked the Cubbies, haha! The older neighbor might have taken advantage of me just a bit
Don't collect cards much now, but one of the top cards from the 1980s that I haven't seen on the list is the 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken. I still have the one I bought from local card shop for $30 along with the receipt. Might not be one of the valuable cards today, but it was certainly a big deal at the time.
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Fun topic. If we are going with iconic in the sense of the top 80's cards everyone instantly recognizes, desired and coveted, then:
1) 86/87 Fleer Michael Jordan
2) 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr.
3) 1981 Topps Joe Montana
4) 1985 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Adam Bomb
5) 80/81 Topps Bird/Magic
I couldn't complete an 80s list without the '88 Topps card of Gretzky holding up his Kings jersey. Considering what that move meant to hockey, good or bad, it must have some kind of iconic status. I recall going to card shows and people gobbling those up like pastries.
Definitely two (or more) ways to look at it... impact/hype/popularity during the 80s:
Griffey 89 UD
89 Ripken FF
80 Bird/Magic
81 Montana
82TT Ripken/84 FU Clemens
And then ranking the best based on everything we now know:
86 Jordan
80 Bird/Magic
80 Henderson
81 Montana
82TT Ripken
Prime examples are the Jordan and Griffey cards. Jordan had hype, but 86F was not a popular issue right away and Jordan didn't become a champion/ATG until the 90s. Griffey and UD had the hype and the immediate impact, but knowing what we know now (including going back and printing more) I think it falls off the list.
And #5 is the hard one left. I'd choose between 1982 Cal Ripken, 1980 Henderson, 1986 Rice and despite already having Jordan at the top of the list also the 1984/85 Star Jordan both the regular and the much better looking slam dunk card. I guess I'd choose the most valuable PSA 10 card but between these it doesn't help the decision much other than around the Ripken.
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Which 5 cards from the 80's are the most expensive now?
They call me "Pack the Ripper"
my list is based on what i remember of collecting at the time.
86 Fleer Jordan - let's be honest, this card alone put basketball collecting permanently on the map
81 Topps Montana - Cool Joe was on every want list, then and now
86 Donruss Canseco - the fever over this card was EXTREME, and was a big part of moving people collecting other baseball sets besides Topps
89 Upper Deck Griffey - this set temporarily moved the hobby forward, and subsequently almost killed it, but still an iconic piece of cardboard
80 Topps Rickey - just a clean, perfect image and simple design, we knew we were seeing something special even at that time
honorable mention - 86 Topps Rice, 88 Topps Bo, 89 Score Barry Sanders, 84 Donruss Mattingly, 85 Topps McGwire
i didn't include any of the traded/updates in my list, mainly because i don't know that "player collecting" was quite such a thing yet in the 80s. at least at the shows/shops i frequented, "traded" sets were just that - sets. it was rare to see them broken up into singles because they weren't "regular cards" - thus the XRC designations, etc. they were "add ons" to master sets really.
i also don't include the star basketball cards because there was too much "fear and scandal" associated with them, and i'm not sure a lot has changed in 30 years. these just weren't commonly included in collections at the time as there wasn't a lot known about them which scared a lot of people off.
i didn't include hockey either because it didn't really hit the "mainstream" until after football and basketball had, probably late in the decade so the burn just wasn't long enough yet.
1984-85 Star #101 Jordan
1980-81 Topps Bird / Magic
1980 Topps Henderson
1986 Fleer Jordan
1981 Topps Joe Montana / 1986 Topps Jerry Rice / 1986 Topps Steve Young / 1985-86 OPC Mario Lemieux
Steve
I'd guess a PSA 10 Bird/Magic goes for around $100k and move to the top of PSA 10s of the others on this list.
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I lived in Michigan near Detroit in the 1980's. I don't recall the 1986 Fleer Jordan being that influential of a card in the hobby. I recall seeing bagged Star basketball sets at the large Plymouth, MI shows that caused a little buzz.
It was definitely a card of interest but almost more of a novelty. I think that card really took off in the early 1990's when the Bulls started their run. Baseball was the King of that era by a HUGE margin, it's tough put any other sports in the top 5 unless you are looking at it retroactively.
Basketball started to take off with the Pistons runs and the 1989 Hoops set, but it really blew up with the 1992-93 Shaq cards. Football starting to perk up with the 1989 Score and ProSet boxes. Of course being in the Detroit, the 1990-91 Hockey sets pretty much took over the entire local market. I had to get into hockey cards even though I wasn't a big fan.
It may have been different in Chicago or other markets, but we didn't have the interweb back then so I only heard the war stories from the old fat dealers.
You are correct. I got confused between the Gretzky and the Bird/Magic RCs. The Gretzky was, of course, issued in 1979, so it wasn't issued in the decade of the 1980s.
Steve
1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. #1
1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57
1989 Score Football Bo Jackson, Black & White with Bat on Shoulders
1989 Fleer Billy Ripken FF error
1980 Topps Rickey Henderson
I'll agree with bounce on '86D Canseco as well. Aside from testimonials from the dollar sign crowd, this card was THE card for some time, probably until the '89UD Griffey blew sky high. People were gladly dropping a few hundred on raw copies to own it and going to card stores was a trip into purgatory.
The '85 Topps Dwight Gooden created quite a stir as well. Certainly not top 5, but did have have the hobby jumping for a while.
In the late 80s not only was the 86 Canseco a hot card, the 87 Fleer and Donruss cards of Bonds, Larkin, Mitchell, Bo Jackson, Will Clark and a few others were hot. I had opened a lot of 87 Fleer and Donruss. I remember making well over $600 one Saturday by selling these hot rookies to dealers at a local show and a local card shop.
James
So tough to pick. Here are 10 I like:
1986 Fleer Michael Jordan
1984 OPC Steve Yzerman
1985 OPC Mario Lemieux
1980 OPC Mark Messier
1980 OPC Ray Bourque
1983 Panini Voetbal Mark Van Basten
1985/1986 Italian/UK Mike Tyson
1986 OPC Patrick Roy
1980 Topps Bird/Erving/Johnson
1989 Swedish Semic Elitserien Stickers Nicklas Lidstrom
Hockey and Basketball cards were damn cheap in the 80s!
WTB: PSA 1 - PSA 3 Centered, High Eye Appeal 1950's Mantle
Maybe not in the top 5, but these two had their day in the sun:
Griffey #1 easy. I remember ripping foil packs in card shops as a 12 year old looking for this iconic card. Jordan and montana are great, but i never ripped those packs and those cards were already out of my price range when griff first hit the street
As a kid who grew up on 1980's stuff.
Then
1986 Donruss Canseco
1989 FF Ripken
1989 UD Griffey
1984 Donruss Mattingly
1985 Topps Gooden
Now
1986-87 Fleer MJ
1980-81 Topps Bird Magic Rookie
1981 Topps Montana
1984 Topps Marino and Elway (tie)
1986 Topps Rice
money out the window, from pure excitement as a kid:
89f ripken
84t mattingly
85t nasty nick
86d jose canseco
and the score bo jackson w bat and shoulder pads.
runner up:
89ud dale murphy reverse neg
BB1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr
FB1981 Topps Joe Montana
BK1986 Fleer Michael Jordan
HK79/80 OPC Wayne Gretzky
BB1985 Mark McGwire
1980 henderson
1984 star Jordan
1981 montana
IT CAN'T BE A TRUE PLAYOFF UNLESS THE BIG TEN CHAMPIONS ARE INCLUDED
My favorite card of the 1980's is the 1982 Topps card of Shooty Babbitt. This has to be one of the all-time great names of baseball history.
This seems like a tough issue to debate with no clarity on how to gauge the top 5 cards. A 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco for a time was the king of the hobby. Today it is just another card from many of our childhoods. A Mike Tyson Panini is obviously a popular card but very few if any knew it existed in the 1980's. The OP went with cards in general from the 1980's and some just chose baseball. Does grading play a role? If so the Magic and Bird rookie has to be right at the top. If not the Jordan is at the top as it exploded in 1989. Does scarcity play a role? If so the orange Cal Ripken minor league card must be considered.
Dpeck makes some valid points. I think the 1982 Hulk Hogan Wrestling all stars rookies deserves to be in the conversation. Hogan was huge superstar in the 80's that became a global icon.
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While this may be true, to be considered one of the top 5 cards of the 80's the card should be widely collected. There aren't many wrestling card collectors.
James
If we are going by value, the 1982 Wrestling All Stars Hulk Hogan in a PSA 10 if one ever hit would be probably in the #2 or #3 spot for most expensive cards from the entire decade. I remain skeptical that one will but time will tell. Obviously wrestling is a very small niche and if popularity is the determinant I wouldn't put the Hogan anywhere close to the top. I do think this discussion would be more interesting though if some parameters were put in place and then everyone who adds input is thinking in the same terms.
I could similarly contend that the early 80s Donruss issues of "The Chicken" were wildly popular for a time, again while not many collectors were eyeing the future with dollar signs in their eyes, but just enjoyed having something fun. Too bad there wasn't anyone brave enough to create an oversized Morganna card.
The irony here is that the 80s, by and large, had no parameters and things just kept bulging until the 90s when they blew up and then hissed like a giant damaged balloon. The responses herein represent the variety of interpretations we all inherited from that time period. A lot was learned from it.
I am going with value:
I believe the 1985 McGwire Tiffany in PSA 10 would be $1000 more valuable than the Lemieux??
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OPC Lemieux has been as high as $16k. McGwire Tiffany recently went for $5,600.
Oh there's an OPC, I know nothing about hockey.
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Appreciate today-
Bill
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