Think your old sports cards are worthless if they are not in perfect condition?
Think again.
The Athletic reports a curious trend has emerged recently in the card market, which has enjoyed a resurgence over the past few years after falling out of favor decades ago.
In some cases, cards with the lowest condition grades are going for more than those in the higher range.
Let’s examine a recent example of this phenomenon. A PSA 1 (Poor) rookie Score Barry Sanders #257 sold in June for $208.05 in an auction, according to CardLadder, an app that tracks sales and card populations. That’s 66 percent more than the last sale of a PSA 9 ($124.99). Remember, these are auctions, meaning someone else bid just below that $208.05.
What’s up with that?
It turns out the practice of collecting the “grading rainbow” is driving the fluctuation in demand.
So for well under $10,000, a collector could get something pretty unique with iconic modern-era stars like Griffey and Sanders — a complete run of their rookie card in every grade. And it doesn’t stop there. Players like Cal Ripken Jr. Gem Mint rookie card costs about $2,000) and Mike Piazza (eight rookie card types ranging in price from $100 to $2,500), to name just a couple of Hall of Famers, can have their graded rainbow completed for comparable prices.
That means finding a card that is in each grade category from 1 to 10, a pursuit that can get pricy because the same rule of supply and demand applies to cards on the low end as the high end of quality.
Of course, there are only so many 10s and 9s, but the 1s and 2s are also limited — presumably because few (if any) collectors would have judged them worth keeping (at least until recently).
So whether your 1989 Fleer Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card is dog-eared or your 1976 Walter Payton card from Topps has seen better days, don’t despair: You might be sitting on more value than you know!
