Are my old football cards worth anything?
If you still have your old football card collection sitting around, you came to the right place! (Click here for your old baseball cards or here for your old basketball cards.)
The 1980s and 1990s were an amazing time to be a fan of the NFL. Has there even been a more unstoppable duo than Joe Montana to Jerry Rice? Or if you like the ground game, how about Barry Sanders, a video game cheat code before video games had cheat codes? And speaking of video games (Tecmo Bowl, anyone?), the 1980s saw the debut of the greatest video game athlete of all-time, Bo Jackson!
Meanwhile, down in Dallas, it was all about the Triplets: Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin! Of course, it didn't even matter how stacked your offense was if defensive game-changers like Reggie White, Lawrence Taylor, or Rod Woodson were on the other side of the ball.
Fast forward to the present where NFL cards are selling for prices that are downright insane! "How insane?" you ask. How about $39K for a Justin Fields card? That's almost as much as the Bears got from the Steelers for the actual Justin Fields, as in the quarterback himself, not simply his cardboard likeness!
This Justin Fields Flawless NFL Shield Auto last sold in August of 2023 for $39,621. How much do you believe it’s currently worth??📈 pic.twitter.com/vbwy0Xk9Jb
— Best Cards Ever 🏆 (@CardsBoulevard) September 28, 2024
With today's NFL cards regularly selling for four or even five digits, it's only natural to wonder what those Brett Favre and Eric Dickerson cards you saved from back in the day might be worth. Well, I've got good news and bad news. Let's start with the bad news.
The bad news is that most of those old football cards you've saved for decades aren't worth much. Scan the "sold" listings on eBay, for example, and you'll find entire collections that sold recently for under $100. Not a great return for something that at one time cost you all your lawnmowing money and whatever you managed to skim from your mom's stash of parking meter change.
The good news is there are definitely some cards from the era that have done quite well. Jerry Rice's rookie card, for example, from the 1986 Topps set has sold for an incredible $82,100!
That said, there's a catch, no pun intended. This particular sale involved a copy graded as "gem mint," essentially pristine condition. Most cards from that era, even fresh out of the pack, would be lucky to earn a grade of "near mint," which in the case of the Rice card would knock a whopping $81,875 off the price!
Another card from the 1980s that has done well, provided condition is immaculate, is the Joe Montana rookie card, found in the 1981 Topps set.
The situation is largely similar to that of Rice. In gem mint, the card has commanded north of $70,000. In near mint, a seller would be lucky to see $400. As for the well loved one you took back and forth to school, the one with a little ding in the corner, you might be looking at $100 on a good day.
There are no shortage of websites that highlight the other top cards of the 1980s and 1990s. For the most part, there will be few surprises. Rookie cards of Hall of Famers will dominate the lists, though you may also see a jolly old fellow whose main claim to fame is delivering presents by sleigh. However, as the examples of Montana and Rice illustrate, condition is almost everything when it comes to the value of these cards today.
The result, then, is this. If you were the type of collector who handled your cards frequently (sorting them, trading them, taking your best ones to football practice), there is very little chance you're sitting on any kind of gold mine. On the other hand, if you were the type of collector who donned Isotoners when opening packs—or better yet, still hasn't opened the packs!—and carefully encased your "hits" straight into Lucite, then you may just have something.
Either way, you can consider yourself rich, at least in memories, if you were lucky enough to have witnessed Bo or Barry, much less Joe and Jerry, in their primes, and have a stash of trading cards that lets you relive those memories as often as you like. You may not have a million dollar collection, but you can have all the million dollar recollections you like, and maybe that's even better!
Jason A. Schwartz is a collectibles expert whose work can be found regularly at SABR Baseball Cards, Hobby News Daily, and 1939Bruins.com. His collection of Hank Aaron baseball cards and memorabilia is currently on exhibit at the Atlanta History Center, and his collectibles-themed artwork is on display at the Honus Wagner Museum and PNC Park.