Fun With Illogical Correlations (Bird/Magic Rookie Style)

ReggieCleveland

The 1980 Topps Bird/Erving/Magic card is iconic. It might be the most iconic basketball card and you could probably make an argument for it to be on the list of most iconic sportscards. It's a monster that's seen its PSA 10 exaples explode in the past few years, reaching as high as $96,000+ in November of last year. I suppose that's to be expected of a card with a pop of just 22 that has the rookie card of two of the best to ever play the game as well as an aesthetic throw-in of another great's Scoring Leaders card.

As one might imagine, the card casts a large shadow. So large, in fact, that people seem to have forgotten that both Larry Bird and Magic Johnson have their rookie cards on separate cards, by themselves. Bird is on the Bird (RC)/Cartwright/Drew and Magic is on the Van Breda Kolff/Erving/Magic (RC) card. While both of these cards have seen their PSA 10's rise in their own right over the past few years, it's minuscule by comparison. In fact, The Bord rookie only has two recorded sales on VCP over $1,000 -- a $2,100 best offer last year and a $1,184 auction this year. The Magic is similar, just two recorded sales on VCP higher than $1k -- a $2,500 BIN in February and a $2,600 auction last week.

But what about their pops? The Bird/Erving/Magic is just a pop 22 after all, certainly not nearly enough to cover the demand for two legends. The two cards are right there with it. The Bird rookie is a pop 28 and the Magic rookie is actually lower, a pop of just 17!

Now, before anyone poops a pumpkin, I'm not suggesting that the Bird rookie or the Magic rookie should be anywhere near what the Bird/Erving/Magic is at. But I can't help but wonder (and this is where the illogical correlation comes in), how does a pop 19 Rickey Henderson PSA 10 rookie become a $30,000 card while a Larry Bird rookie or Magic Johnson rookie from the same year only recently just cross the $1,000 threshold?

bishop

More baseball collectors and registry competition than for basketball ?

ReggieCleveland

Both of those things are definitely true. I'm not sure they're $29,000 true, though.

vintagefun

Interesting points.

I'd like to see PSA grade the singles too. Topps did sell the packs as 24 cards. The separation would likely make them condition sensitive and I'd like to have an individual RC of each.

Stone193

Interesting thoughts Arthur.

From my experience, multiplayer cards are usually not favored over singles.

I guess when it's two iconics? Then people have pumped up the scarcity meter?

ReggieCleveland

@vintagefun said:
Interesting points.

I'd like to see PSA grade the singles too. Topps did sell the packs as 24 cards. The separation would likely make them condition sensitive and I'd like to have an individual RC of each.

I'm torn when it comes to the single panel grading. On one hand, I like the idea of just Bird or Magic tobacco sized rookie cards. On the other hand, I think pops would shoot through the roof as lower grade three-panel cards got chopped up for single panels.

baz518

The Bird and Magic solo cards are very much under appreciated considering there's half as many. The way this issue was printed, half of the set was double printed (combo card) and the other half was single printed (the solo cards). As far as being compared to Rickey's rookie, baseball is definitely more popular.

ReggieCleveland

Baseball is more popular but that argument falls apart when you look at the popularity and price of the Bird/Erving/Magic card. Obviously, the market is there for these players, yet somehow, their solo rookies have flown under the radar for years now.

alifaxwa2

@ReggieCleveland said:

@vintagefun said:
Interesting points.

I'd like to see PSA grade the singles too. Topps did sell the packs as 24 cards. The separation would likely make them condition sensitive and I'd like to have an individual RC of each.

I'm torn when it comes to the single panel grading. On one hand, I like the idea of just Bird or Magic tobacco sized rookie cards. On the other hand, I think pops would shoot through the roof as lower grade three-panel cards got chopped up for single panels.

These chopped cards may look real strange with 1 clean edge and 3 'unclean' edges. Its unlikely the high pops would jump substantially, because many lower grade combos, would still yield low grade singles.