Chasing Down the Best Rickey Henderson Cards (Rookies and Autos)

Summary

Rickey Henderson's 1980 Topps rookie card is quite scarce in the best grades. There is a reason, and a reason collectors want this card in all of the highest grades.

Rickey Henderson was an incredible baseball player. His stats are sometimes underestimated and this journeyman played in the majors well into his forties. With “only” one MVP award, missing many All-Star games, and being on so many different teams (including multiple residencies for Oakland), Henderson’s greatness is sometimes overlooked. And a career batting average of .279 just doesn’t quite represent what “The Man of Steal” achieved in his long career.

Rickey Henderson’s baseball cards are quite collected by those in the hobby as well. Surprisingly, only a few of Henderson’s cards are very valuable. Even then, these cards have to be in the best condition or have to have Rickey’s signature on them to command high prices. And many of Henderson’s cards were during the Junk Wax Era of the hobby when cards were printed almost as if it was mechanized warfare with Topps, Donruss, Fleer and then Upper Deck and others all trying to drive the supply into infinity.

The Baseball Hall of Fame tells just how Henderson’s career took off. In his first full big-league season of 1980, he broke Ty Cobb’s American League record of 96 stolen bases with 100 steals. And in 1982, Henderson’s 130 stolen bases broke Lou Brock’s single-season record of 118 steals. He broke the 3,000 hit milestone, managed a .401 on-base percentage and managed to hit 297 home runs.

Over 25 major league seasons, Henderson wore the uniform for the Athletics, Yankees, Padres, Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, Mariners and Blue Jays. His record of 2,295 runs scored and record 2,129 unintentional walks are impressive enough. But the “Man of Steal” nickname was after leading the American League in steals for 12 different seasons and ultimately setting a record of 1,406 career steals. Henderson’s record is far above the next three it is not even close — Lou Brock (938); Billy Hamilton from the 1800s; and Ty Cobb (897).

The one baseball card of Rickey Henderson that commands the highest premium is the 1980 Topps rookie. This card is easy enough to find. PSA’s total 1980 Topps set graded population of 127,783 cards for the entire set is dominated by more than 31,000 graded examples of Henderson’s #482 card. It was not until 1981 when Fleer and Donruss entered the scene to end Topps’ MLB card monopoly.

The 1980 Topps card is easy to find under $1000 if ungraded and up to a PSA 6 grade. As of March-2023, the last PSA 7 sold for $118.50 and the last PSA 8 sold for $211.16. The scarcity comes into play in the highest grades as the paper quality and centering issues are notorious for the late 1970s and early 1980s Topps cards. Here is how scarce these 1980 Topps rookie Henderson cards are in the best grades:

• 11,452 at PSA 8;
• 200 at PSA 8.5;
• 2,136 at PSA 9;
• and only 25 at the Gem Mint PSA 10.

The last PSA 9 sold for $2,325.00 in March and $1,800.00 in February. The prized Gem Mint PSA 10 examples rarely come up for sale, but the last examples commanded $120,000.00 in April-2022, preceded by $111,000.00 in February-2022 and $126,000.00 in July-2021.

A pre-rookie Rickey Henderson card from the Ogden A’s has only 1,024 graded examples by PSA. Despite that low population, the highest grades of PSA 10 at 40 examples and PSA 9 at 396 examples show how difficult the Topps cards are to find in pristine condition. These are the prices listed by PSA in 2023 for the top grades:

• 2/23/2023 at $152.50 for PSA 8
• 2/12/2023 at $250.00 for PSA 9
• 1/30/2023 at $2,200.00 for PSA 10

The last three autograph prices of the pre-rookie cards counted at PSA’s CardFacts database range from $325.00 to $404.99.

One last warning about the condition after bad images, print defects, rough cuts, blunt corners, poor centering — this card has also been counterfeited with many fakes meant to trick unaware buyers into buying “mint condition” cards that are in fact worthless.

Get ready for more Henderson graded cards being available for the hobby of sports collectibles. They will be available here in the next month or so!