Legendary 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie card is hot

Only 26 PSA 10 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie cards exist. His card is the most graded in the 1980 Topps baseball set, by far.

Sep 5, 2018; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics hall of fame inductee Rickey Henderson before the game against the New York Yankees at Oakland Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images | Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

There are only 26 PSA 10 Rickey Henderson rookie cards. A shockingly low number considering the card has been graded over 46,400 times by PSA, yielding a .056% Gem Rate. The card continues to be graded at high levels. According to the website Gem Rate, PSA has graded 613 Henderson rookie cards in the past 30 days. That's about 20 a day.

RELATED: 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson: Behind the Card

Card Ladder

The result of all those submissions, of people hoping to get a 10 but willing to settle for a 9, is that there are 2,273 PSA 9s and a whopping 13,401 PSA 8s. How many of the submissions are cracked PSA 9s or 8s from collectors hoping for a higher grade?

The rewards of a higher grade can be tremendous. According to Card Ladder, the Henderson PSA 9 has averaged $2,100 over the past three months. A PSA 8 has averaged $275 in the past three months. Making the jump from an eight to a nine can mean a $2,000 increase.

A copy of the mythical PSA 10 last sold in May for $126,000. But the chances of getting a 10, as previously mentioned, are pretty slim. One Gem Mint grade is given for every 1,784 submissions. PSA hasn't given a Gem Mint 10 grade in at least two years.

Heritage Auctions

The Henderson rookie is the eighth-most graded baseball card. And it won't stop being among the most graded cards any time soon. The 1980 Topps baseball set has an estimated print run between 350,000 and 850,000. That's a wide estimate, but assuming the print run was 500,000, it means that less than 9% of all Henderson cards have been graded.

Mark McGwire's 1985 Topps rookie was graded 379 times by PSA in the past 30 days. Barry Bonds' 1986 Topps Traded rookie was graded 188 times in the past 30 days. Henderson's rookie is outpacing every Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card in grading, except for the 1989 Upper Deck Star rookie.

As more Henderson cards in near-mint condition are found and sent for grading, there's a race to be the first. The first buyers who can get a card with a PSA 9 or PSA 8 grade will benefit from higher prices before supply begins to outpace demand.

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