A 1952 Topps Mantle rookie for $850? A look back at 1983
- Mark Potash
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
The baseball card boom was still a few years away in 1983, but that wasn't exactly the stone age of collecting. Fleer and Donruss breaking Topps' monopoly on baseball cards was in its third year. The National Sports Collectors Convention was in its fourth year. You didn't have to be Warren Buffett to see that the baseball card market was heading in the right direction.
So it is with some chagrin to leaf through a copy of "Baseball Cards" magazine spring edition from 1983 and look at some of the investment opportunities missed. It's a bit of an exaggeration, but businesses that were selling baseball cards might have been better off not selling them — if only you didn't have to make money to live back then!
Rotman Collectables, a well-known outfit in those days, was selling a 1952 Topps set in mint condition (whatever that meant at the time) for $7,200. The Mickey Mantle rookie alone would sell for more than $100,000 today. Rotman Collectables, in fact, was selling several 1950s and 1960s Topps sets in their 1983 ad — 1953 ($1,450), 1954 ($750), 1955 ($630), 1956 ($540), 1957 (650), etc., etc. For a mere $17,140, you could buy every Topps set from 1952-74.
Of course, those were market prices at the time. And it was 1983 — $17,140 was more than I made in a year (and almost the average salary in the U.S. — $21,000). Gas was $1.17 a gallon. A dozen eggs was 55 cents. A new car cost less than $10,000. A year's tuition at Harvard was $8,195. (It's $57,328 today). Still, a sound investment.
And in the days before the junk wax era, even the 1983 sets were still a good investment. You could buy all three sets (Topps, Fleer and Donruss) for $36.95. Today those three sets go for round $500. The $36.95 is worth $118.64 today, according to inflation calculators.
Condition is the x-factor. That was in the pre-grading days, when baseball cards were sold in Mint, Near Mint-Mint or Excellent-Mint condition (or Very Good or Good). But by my own experience, cards that were sold as "mint" or even "NM-Mint" in those days were pretty sharp cards. One huge difference: Centering was a minor factor back then. You didn't want a clearly off-center card, but perfect centering or 55/45 or generally wasn't a big consideration. Today, centering that we took for granted 40 years ago can be the difference between a PSA 4 and a PSA 8. Or a PSA 7 and a PSA 10.
A perusal of those 1983 advertisements yields some interesting opportunities. Rotman Collectables was selling 1980 wax packs for $1, and 1972 wax packs for $8.50 (10 for $85.00.). Today, the 1980 wax pack costs around $100 ungraded. The 1972 wax pack costs around $300 ungraded — just the 1972 empty display box sells for $70!
Other items of note:
A random 1910 tobacco card (presumably a T-205 or T-206) for $2.95 each.
100 1976 Topps Robin Yount cards (his second year card) for $3.65 each.
A 1980-81 Topps basketball set (with the Magic/Bird rookie card) for $7.50.
1978, 1979 and 1980 Topps wax packs for $1.20 each>
A 1948 Bowman set in Ex-Mt condition fo $375.
Baseball Cards magazine had a contest in that edition for a "Gem Mint" 1963 Topps Pete Rose rookie card ("valued up to $250" — Wow!). Second place was a Mint 1964 Topps Rose second-year card. And interestingly, condition mattered — "We pored over dozens of specimens to pick out one Gem Mint example — an unimprovable specimen worthy of being a first prize." If the cards pictured in the magazine are the cards they gave to the winners, it confirms that centering in those days wasn't the consideration it is today.
Those were the days. This magazine also included a price guide, which is always interesting to look back on. Here are a couple of pages from that guide.
That was also in the early days of The National Sports Collectors Convention, which began in 1980 in Los Angeles. It was held in Chicago for the first time in 1983 — with 250 dealer tables, 24,000 square feet of conventional space and a $1.00 entrance fee. The National will be in Chicago again in 2025, but the site is about the only thing that's the same as the National in in 1983. This year there will be 600+ dealers, 500,000 square feet of convention space and a $25.00 entrance fee.