Toughest 1980-89's HOF RC's and Popular Non HOFer RC's to pop in PSA 10

RookieHOFers

Like many of you on these boards I began collecting in the 80's. Actually 1987 is the first cards I remember purchasing and anything McGwire and the 86 Donruss Canseco were on fire at the time, followed closely by Orel Hershiser who was working on 53 consecutive no runs allowed IP. Well fast forward to today and I love these cards and I am still buying plenty of 1980's RC of the HOFers and guys like Mattingly, Canseco, Bonds and Clemens, who aren't in the HOF, but guys who are all heavily collected. As I added a 1985 Fleer Clemens PSA 10 recently and realized this was a pop 155 card, it got me thinking....What are some of the other really hard cards to pop in PSA 10 of the 1980's HOFers or popular players?

At one time I believe that Arthur (Reggie Cleveland) had compiled a pretty good spreadsheet with a lot of detailed information around this question. I searched for it, but wasn't able to located it. Maybe he will have his list, and hopefully hes updated it over the last few years to provide some insight into how the pop reports have changed over the last few years.

Look forward to hearing from the community.

Beck6

Andre the Giant

BPorter26

@Beck6 said:
Andre the Giant

Hear me now Tim... THERE WILL NEVER BE A PSA 10 ANDRE THE GIANT NEVER.

Beck6

My short list.

1981 topps Valenzuela
1980 topps Henderson
1985 topps Clemens
1985 OPC Puckett

RookieWax

1989 Topps Big #287 Randy Johnson is very tough to find centered and without imperfections in the high-gloss surface. Actually pretty difficult to find raw in quantity as well. Only 11 PSA 10s. 4sharpcorners has one up on ebay priced at $599.

BPorter26

Don’t forget the 1987 OPC Barry Bonds.

GoDodgersFan

The 1987 OPC Barry Bonds PSA 10 just sold for 2,550.00 on ebay.

ReggieCleveland

You guys can all go sniff butts. I posted all that juicy info and then came back a year later and all the cards I hadn't gotten yet had doubled and tripled! I'm keeping all that info to myself now.

Arthur

craig44

1985 topps tiffany mcgwire and clemens
1986 topps traded tiffany bo jackson
I think the 1982 fleer ripken is also tough in psa 10

ReggieCleveland

Still my favorite, craziest pop report entry from the 80s:

1988 Topps Glossy Rookies Mark McGwire -- 6,163 total submissions, 3 PSA 10s

Arthur

LarkinCollector

Unlike Arthur, I'll happily pay up if someone pops a 9 or 10 of this one:

1987 Kahn's Reds 15 Barry Larkin

None better than an 8 yet.

Time4aGansett

Any 1982 Bantam FBI disks. The white whale of all player set collectors.

Dpeck100

In honor of Wrestlemania.

rcmb3220

I know there are about 1,400 of them, but 9 out of every 10 1989 donruss Griffey psa 10’s aren’t that great.

miwlvrn

I know most of you guys aren't familiar with what I'm talking about here, but a good answer to the OP question is 1983 Panini Voetbal '83 #21 Marco Van Basten. Finding a 10 in that one is almost certainly a contender in payday with the likely sale price of a PSA 10 Fernando. The Van Basten in a 10 is a fool's errand though, never to exist.

NGS428

@rcmb3220 said:
I know there are about 1,400 of them, but 9 out of every 10 1989 donruss Griffey psa 10’s aren’t that great.

About 5% of the 89 Donruss Griffey come back at a 10. Under 5% for the 89 UD. Fleer around 7% and Bowman around 8%. These stats were from last fall... when I last pulled their pop reports.

ReggieCleveland

@NGS428 said:

@rcmb3220 said:
I know there are about 1,400 of them, but 9 out of every 10 1989 donruss Griffey psa 10’s aren’t that great.

About 5% of the 89 Donruss Griffey come back at a 10. Under 5% for the 89 UD. Fleer around 7% and Bowman around 8%. These stats were from last fall... when I last pulled their pop reports.

And there's 2,000 more UD 10s than Donruss 10s and yet the UD still outsells it 3:1. You can't kill iconography.

Arthur

miwlvrn

@ReggieCleveland said:

@NGS428 said:

@rcmb3220 said:
I know there are about 1,400 of them, but 9 out of every 10 1989 donruss Griffey psa 10’s aren’t that great.

About 5% of the 89 Donruss Griffey come back at a 10. Under 5% for the 89 UD. Fleer around 7% and Bowman around 8%. These stats were from last fall... when I last pulled their pop reports.

And there's 2,000 more UD 10s than Donruss 10s and yet the UD still outsells it 3:1. You can't kill iconography.

Arthur

Agreed. I think it is a combination of iconography as well as perceived relative scarcity (though if we ever saw the official print run comparisons, it would probably be a whole lot closer than we thought in 1989-90).

NGS428

@miwlvrn said:

@ReggieCleveland said:

@NGS428 said:

@rcmb3220 said:
I know there are about 1,400 of them, but 9 out of every 10 1989 donruss Griffey psa 10’s aren’t that great.

About 5% of the 89 Donruss Griffey come back at a 10. Under 5% for the 89 UD. Fleer around 7% and Bowman around 8%. These stats were from last fall... when I last pulled their pop reports.

And there's 2,000 more UD 10s than Donruss 10s and yet the UD still outsells it 3:1. You can't kill iconography.

Arthur

Agreed. I think it is a combination of iconography as well as perceived relative scarcity (though if we ever saw the official print run comparisons, it would probably be a whole lot closer than we thought in 1989-90).

Yes, for the Griffey specifically. When you could request a replacement and they printed them by the sheet. Perceived scarcity for sure.

ReggieCleveland

It's like the '51 Bowman/'52 Topps Mantle thing. The Bowman may be the rookie but the Topps has all the cachet. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Arthur

countdouglas

@NGS428 said:

Yes, for the Griffey specifically. When you could request a replacement and they printed them by the sheet. Perceived scarcity for sure.

I'm always surprised at how little mention this gets. People love that 89 UD card, but hardly ever discuss that the population of mint and gems were artificially manipulated in that manner.

ReggieCleveland

It's literally why I don't own one. I mean, by now it's obvious that demand for it will hold but I just can't bring myself to pay its price for something that there's that many off.

Arthur

countdouglas

@ReggieCleveland said:
It's literally why I don't own one. I mean, by now it's obvious that demand for it will hold but I just can't bring myself to pay its price for something that there's that many off.

Arthur

Same here. While I do still own a couple raw Griffeys that I pulled out of UD packs back in 89, I've never once considered that purchasing a graded one would be a worthwhile pick-up.

rcmb3220

@NGS428 said:

@rcmb3220 said:
I know there are about 1,400 of them, but 9 out of every 10 1989 donruss Griffey psa 10’s aren’t that great.

About 5% of the 89 Donruss Griffey come back at a 10. Under 5% for the 89 UD. Fleer around 7% and Bowman around 8%. These stats were from last fall... when I last pulled their pop reports.

Yeah, I’m not disagreeing that it isn’t hard to land a donruss 10, but I don’t like most of the ones I see.

NGS428

@rcmb3220 said:

@NGS428 said:

@rcmb3220 said:
I know there are about 1,400 of them, but 9 out of every 10 1989 donruss Griffey psa 10’s aren’t that great.

About 5% of the 89 Donruss Griffey come back at a 10. Under 5% for the 89 UD. Fleer around 7% and Bowman around 8%. These stats were from last fall... when I last pulled their pop reports.

Yeah, I’m not disagreeing that it isn’t hard to land a donruss 10, but I don’t like most of the ones I see.

Once I reread your post I followed it. And I do agree.