The 1988 Cubs Cards in the 2023 Set

Topps is again celebrating a 35th year anniversary for a sets release.  They have been doing that since 2018.  I've always thought it odd to be doing a 35 year celebration.  35 is not a very round number.  I could see 25 or 50, but 35? 

I've also come up with my theory as to doing 35.  Heritage goes back 49 years.  So Topps can't go back 50 years because that would be too close to Heritage.  25 years isn't going back far enough.  So they settled on 35 years.  

Want to see what Heritage will look like in 14 years?  Look at this year's inserts.

The two 1988 sets are the base cards and the silver pack chrome cards.  Each set has 100 cards.

 

Three Cubs are among the 100 cards.  It looks like Topps is jumping on the Christopher Morel bandwagon.  I think we will see a lot of him.  Its nice to see Ryno, too.

 

 

The silver pack set includes four Cubs.  I was very surprised to see Suzuki not included.  Towards the end of last year Topps put him in just about every set.  I assume they are saving him for series two.  Also note that the silver pack set is not a parallel to the base set.  The picture has been changed on the cards of any player in both sets.

Topps 2023 Series One Cubs Cards!

 I have my Cubs from 2023 Topps!

The 330 card first series came out a couple of weeks ago.  I preordered a team set and it arrived last week.  

The Cubs have 11 cards in the set.  That is a bring improvement over the five in last year's first series.  In fact, 330 cards divided equally between 30 teams would mean 11 cards per team.  So the Cubs came out right on track.

The team card says on it "Team Card."  Thanks Topps.  We couldn't have figured that out by ourselves!  The card shows the celebration after a sacrifice fly by Christopher Morel brought in the winning run against the Brewers on June 1.

Of the ten player cards, just one is not with the Cubs any longer.  That is a surprisingly good result by Topps, considering the early print deadline for series one.

 

 

 

Frank Schwindel, released on September 18, 2022, is the only ex-Cub.  You'd think Topps could have done something about that.  September 18 seems early enough for a change.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 20,942 Cubs cards from 316 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1909 T206 Orval Overall (Hands T Waist)  I showed two of my T206 cards in a post last week.  Those were actual cards.  I have just three real T206s.  All the rest of mine, including this one, are reprints.

1980s: 1988 Panini #253 Cubs Logo This sticker is from Panini's first baseball sticker set.  Back then Panini was known as the company from Italy with crummy stickers.  At least back then they had an MLB license so they could show logos.

1990s: 1990 Starting Lineup Rick Sutcliffe This is not a very good looking card, with that ugly-colored background and a plain-looking card design.

2000s: 2002 Team Issued Vine Line Postcards George Brace Ernie Banks  That has to be the longest title of a card that I've ever had doing the random Cubs!  Mr. Cub looks really young. The card comes from a set that was given to anyone that renewed their Vine Line subscription for one year.

2010s: 2014 Topps Upper Class #39 Greg Maddux I always appreciate it when Maddux is shown as a Cub in a Topps insert set.

Sixties Saturday - 1969 O-Pee-Chee

 The 1969 O-Pee-Chee set consists of the first 218 Topps cards.  That means we get Ernie Banks and Glenn Beckert, but none of the other big stars of the '69 team.  OPC also did 24 of the 33 Topps Deckle edge cards, so that added Ron Santo.

 

 

 

 

Topps Complete Set Prices 1969 - 2022

 It's been about a month since I looked at the Topps complete set prices, so let's see what has happened over the past 30 days.  The prices are an average of the five most recent eBay auctions for the sets.

• the 1969 set had a huge bump while the set from 1971 saw a decrease by almost the same amount.
• there was a price drop of nearly 50% on the 2018 set.  The current average seems to be more in line with the other nearest years.
• it will cost you $11,795.74 to buy a set from each year. That $526.72 less than last month.

YEAR	2/22/23	1/22/23	Change
1969	$2,329.17	$1,729.81	$599.36
1970	$1,634.71	$1,625.99	$8.72
1971	$1,263.50	$1,782.90	-$519.40
1972	$1,927.40	$1,916.20	$11.20
1973	$612.96	$816.80	-$203.84
1974	$430.00	$346.30	$83.70
1975	$653.21	$786.91	-$133.70
1976	$299.35	$369.20	-$69.85
1977	$226.20	$264.69	-$38.49
1978	$204.00	$171.91	$32.09
1979	$140.49	$157.35	-$16.85
1980	$173.30	$213.20	-$39.90
1981	$63.80	$68.18	-$4.38
1982	$57.85	$62.95	-$5.10
1983	$75.97	$85.50	-$9.53
1984	$35.99	$36.30	-$0.30
1985	$46.15	$28.30	$17.85
1986	$19.60	$22.40	-$2.80
1987	$10.41	$10.50	-$0.08
1988	$6.20	$18.53	-$12.34
1989	$10.65	$14.09	-$3.45
1990	$11.95	$16.98	-$5.04
1991	$9.25	$9.47	-$0.23
1992	$6.70	$11.60	-$4.89
1993	$39.97	$52.48	-$12.52
1994	$25.67	$23.10	$2.57
1995	$41.20	$24.90	$16.30
1996	$22.78	$19.58	$3.20
1997	$32.46	$32.30	$0.16
1998	$29.24	$31.70	-$2.46
1999	$28.63	$26.30	$2.33
2000	$24.23	$25.88	-$1.64
2001	$90.93	$68.00	$22.93
2002	$48.95	$41.33	$7.62
2003	$42.30	$34.85	$7.45
2004	$45.57	$46.00	-$0.43
2005	$50.40	$40.40	$10.00
2006	$26.03	$45.93	-$19.90
2007	$28.07	$31.32	-$3.26
2008	$59.50	$50.98	$8.53
2009	$47.95	$75.40	-$27.45
2010	$29.82	$43.80	-$13.98
2011	$58.00	$110.80	-$52.80
2012	$69.02	$52.58	$16.44
2013	$54.94	$70.66	-$15.72
2014	$155.60	$174.71	-$19.11
2015	$42.25	$47.50	-$5.25
2016	$74.47	$69.59	$4.88
2017	$94.00	$136.20	-$42.20
2018	$108.65	$197.80	-$89.15
2019	$94.15	$94.23	-$0.08
2020	$21.20	$37.12	-$15.92
2021	$25.75	$22.16	$3.59
2022	$35.20	$28.80	$6.39

My Most Valuable Modern Cards

 Most of my most valuable cards come from the 1950's - 1970's.  That makes sense since they are the oldest cards.  The big exception is the Mike Trout rookie card.

But I was curious about my more modern cards and their value.  So I found my most valuable cards, both Cub and non-Cub, from each decade, stating with the 1980s.  Here's what I found:

1980s:  Cub card: 1982 Team Issued Ryne Sandberg - $86.00

              Non-Cub: 1989 Upper Deck #1 Ken Griffey, Jr. - $165.00

The Sandberg card is what I consider to be his rookie card.  It is the only card that was issued during his rookie season and it shows him as a third baseman.  It has limited distribution as it was in a set that was given away on one day at Wrigley Field.

 

1990s:  Cub card: 1999 Sports Illustrated Greats of the Game Auto Ron Santo - $24.99

              Non-Cub: 1997 Fleer #512 David Arias - $102.59

I didn't realize that Big Papi's rookie card was so expensive.

 

2000s: Cub card: 2002 Topps 206 relic #TR-JEV1 Johnny Evers - $37.69

             Non-Cub: 2001 Topps Traded #247 Albert Pujols - $139.99

You'd think that a card with a relic that is over 100 years old would be worth a bit more and a card that has hundreds of thousands of copies wouldn't be so expensive.

2010s: Cub card: 2015 Topps Finest #111 Kris Bryant - $75.00

             Non-Cub 2011 Topps Update #175 Mike Trout - $710.00

I bet the Bryant card doesn't hold its value.  I'd sell it now if I was in the hobby for just the cash.

 

2020s:  Cub card: 2022 Topps #490 Ernie Banks variation - $49.99

              Non-Cub: 2022 Topps Update #44 Julio Rodriguez - $7.94

I now question the value of this entire post, along with those from the past three days.  I did a quick check on the Banks variation card and found several copies sold on eBay recently for $5 to $8.  The TCDB value of $49.99 must have been from when the set was first sold.  So how about all of their other card value listings?  How accurate are they?

My Top Ten Most Valuable Cards

Today, lets put together the previous two posts and come up with my ten most valuable cards. 

I really thought that there would be more non-Cubs on the list.  But nope, there are just three.  And if I had a price for the T206 Joe Tinker, it would be down to just two.

There are ten player among the ten cards.  Five of the ten are in the Hall of Fame. One is still active.  The other four are on the list because the price of high-numbered 1952 cards has gone through the roof.  I am so thankful that I picked mine up year ago.  Otherwise I would have not been able to complete the 1952 Cubs set.  There is on way I could justify paying $1,200 for Turk Lown, Randy Jackson, Bill Serena, and Hal Jeffcoat.

#10 - 1969 Topps #500 Mickey Mantle - $206.37

#9 - 1971 Topps #400 Hank Aaron - $281

#5 - 1952 Topps #341 Hal Jeffcoat - $300

#5 - 1952 Topps #330 Turk Lown - $300

#5 - 1952 Topps #325 Bill Serena - $300

#5 - 1952 Topps #322 Randy Jackson - $300

#4 - 1909-1911 American Tobacco T206 Johnny Evers bat on shoulder - $420

#3 - 1909-1911 American Tobacco T206 Frank Chance batting - $630

#2 - 2011 Topps Update #175 Mike Trout - $710

#1 - 1954 Topps #94 Ernie Banks - $886