Little wonder, then, that the Man of Steal still lights up the hobby, or that his 1988 Topps Yankees card remains pretty darn popular.Ĭheck prices on Amazon (affiliate link) Honorable Mention He also won the 1990 AL MVP award and pretty much played forever.Īnd, if you like your stats with a more sabermetrics bent, Henderson’s 111.2 WAR currently ranks 14th among all position players EVER. The SB and runs totals are all-time records, and Henderson also owns the single-season steals mark with 130 in 1982. I’ll bet Rickey himself would say no one topped him on the excitement meter, and he backed all the bluster and fireworks with plenty of meat: 3000+ hits, nearly 300 home runs, 1406 stolen bases, 2295 runs. I mean, aside from Buddy Biancalana in his prime? Was there ever a more exciting player than Rickey Henderson? ( Note: The following sections contains affiliate links to listings for the cards being discussed.) 25) 1988 Topps Ken Caminiti (#64)

Now, lets dig in - starting with the least valuable card and working up - and see where the little white triangle ends up (you’ll understand later). Generally speaking, you can expect those more limited cards (about 25,000 of each were produced) to sell for 8-10 times their matte counterparts (again, in PSA 10).

What follows is a list of the most valuable 1988 Topps baseball cards, based on actual selling prices for PSA 10 copies, as listed in the PSA Auction Prices Realized tool.Īnd, while we won’t talk about them explicitly below, you should know there is a super-glossy “Tiffany” version of almost every card on this list. What we’re left with, then, is a 30-plus-year-old set that looks great and is affordable in most grades, but that can pop some decent prices when slabbed in “perfect” condition. There was plenty of variety, too - subsets, packaging options, parallels … read all the gory details in our 1988 Topps Ultimate Guide. Still, there were plenty of superstars and future Hall of Famers in the 792-card checklist, and there were also some surprises and add-ons - more on that later.Īnd, as often happens, some young players eventually emerged to make this set look a bit better than it appeared to be for awhile there. They came out of the gate strong, though, with a clean, classic design that combined elements of the 1957, 1966, and 1967 Topps issues, as well as arguably the best photography of the decade up to that point (OK, 1983 Topps and 1988 Score, and maybe some others could take up that argument, too).īut it quickly became clear that the 1988 set was lacking in impact rookie cards, at least compared to the ’87s.Īnd it didn’t take too long for something else to emerge - these things were everywhere, even if Topps’ everywhere was somewhat less expansive than Donruss’ own everywhere. So, yeah, the 1988s had a hard row to hoe. To say that 1988 Topps baseball cards had a lot to live up to may be the understatement of the entire Junk Wax Era.Īfter all, not only was the 1987 Topps set jam-packed with more rookie cards than the next ten Bowman monster boxes combined, but the woodgrain design is also a stone-cold classic - love them or hate them, you’ll never forget them.

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