High-dollar sports card sales always make headlines. But when it comes to raw post-war cards, those kinds of sales just don’t happen anymore. Like it or not, grading, or at the very least, authentication, has become a foundational part of the hobby (a conversation for another day). In today’s post-war sports card market, a PSA Gem Mint 10 grade carries serious weight. And for a handful of iconic cards, that elusive PSA 10 doesn’t even exist yet. Here are six cards that, if one ever surfaced in a PSA 10 slab, would become a Pop 1 monster, setting off shockwaves across the market and commanding astronomical prices.
1948 Bowman #18 Warren Spahn
Over the entire release, there are only 25 PSA 10 1948 Bowman baseball cards. But none of them are the Warren Spahn, even after over 1200 submissions. The PSA 9 Spahn is a >$18k card.
1951 Bowman #305 Willie Mays
This incredible card of the center fielding GOAT has over 2,000 cards in the population report, but no perfect 10s. I haven’t seen a sale of a 9 in over a decade, and even then, they were $70k cards.
1952 Topps #407 Ed Mathews
The last card in the most iconic post-war set is hard enough to find in a grade over 7. Zero 10s exist after nearly 1,000 submissions. In February 2022, SCP sold a PSA 8 for $161k. Imagine what a ten would sell for!
1954 Bowman #66 Ted Williams
The 1954 Bowman Ted Williams is already a famous card in the hobby. Since Williams was under an exclusive contract with Topps, this card was pulled from production. And over 1,500 have been graded, again with no 10s. PSA 8s are $15k cards.
1969 Topps #85 Lou Brock
There are a few 1969 Topps cards that haven’t even received a grade of 9 yet. And while there are eight 9s out of the 1000 Brock’s graded, there have been zero 10s. Those 9s aren’t readily available either; Memory Lane Inc. sold one of those for $48,364 in February 2022.
1981 Topps #302 Perconte/Scioscia/Valenzuela
Over 3,500 Dodger Future Star cards have been submitted to PSA for grading, but there isn’t a single PSA 10. PSA 9s are going for around $250. But this card has become so iconically challenging to get a high grade on that I think the price for a ten would be insane.
There are a bunch of vintage commons that PSA Set Registry competitors would go crazy over that may still be “out there” that haven’t popped a 10 yet. But it’s unlikely any of the cards I listed will be among future 10s. The best odds are for perhaps the 1981 Topps Dodgers Future Stars.
What zero PSA 10 population baseball cards did I miss? Let me know in the comments, and happy collecting!
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