Top 3 Most Iconic and Valuable Basketball Cards of the 70s and 80s
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With the hobby continuing to grow, more and more collectors have found themselves digging through their own childhood collections or boxes tucked away in a relative's attic or basement. When that happens, the first question is almost always the same: "What's this collection worth?" Not far behind is another important question: "Which cards should I be looking for?"
A massive childhood sports card collection, that was nearly THROWN AWAY 42 years ago, is now hitting the auction block.
— The Collectibles Guru (@gurucollects) July 18, 2025
Collected by twin brothers in 1960s Michigan, the stash includes around 20,000 baseball, football, and hockey cards featuring legends like Mickey Mantle, Hank… pic.twitter.com/Zg6yD68S35
In this piece, we'll take a look at three of the most iconic yet still valuable basketball cards from the 1970s and 1980s worth keeping an eye out for. To keep things interesting, we'll limit each player to a single appearance, since most collectors already know to pay attention to a Michael Jordan card when they see one. So rather than filling this list with multiple Jordan cards, we'll explore three cards that helped define an era of basketball collecting and remain quite valuable today.
3. 1970 Topps Pete Maravich Rookie Card #123
At number three, we have the rookie card of "Pistol" Pete Maravich. Among the greatest college basketball players of all time, Maravich averaged a whopping 44.2 points per game at LSU. Maravich was a showman well ahead of his time who tragically passed away at the age of 40 after suffering heart failure during a pickup basketball game.
Pete Maravich played 83 games during his career at LSU. He averaged 44.2 points per game. I said AVERAGED. pic.twitter.com/NTU0fswmqQ
— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) October 31, 2022
This particular card is known as a "tall boy" due to its dimensions and can become increasingly valuable depending on the grade. While a PSA 4 sells for close to $400, a PSA 9 sells for over $20,000. A PSA 10, of which there are only two examples, last sold for just shy of $800,000.
2. 1980 Topps Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Julius Erving
Second on the list is the famous Magic Johnson and Larry Bird rookie card featuring NBA legend Julius Erving. It's not every day that arguably the greatest rivalry in basketball history shares a rookie card. Pair that with the fact that the card was printed with perforated lines that many kids chose to separate, and you have a card bound to evoke nostalgia, as well as significant value when kept intact.
A PSA 8, of which there are more than 3,000 examples, sells for around $5,000, while a PSA 9, of which there are 620, sells for over $20,000. Despite being graded more than 27,000 times, there are only 24 PSA 10s in existence, with many of them fetching more than half a million dollars.
1. 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan Rookie Card #57
As alluded to earlier, Michael Jordan has several cards that could easily make this list, but at number one, we have easily the most iconic basketball card ever and one of the most iconic sports cards of all time, the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie card. To some, this card is one of the most confusing cards in the hobby, as cards with such a large population are rarely, if ever, as valuable as this one. But that's what you get when the demand is just that high.
Despite there being more than 3,000 PSA 9s in circulation, they still sell for around $40,000, while the last of the 334 PSA 10s sold for just under $350,000.
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Jason is an experienced basketball card collector with a focus on writing and educating others about the sports card industry. Find him on Instagram @jeancardz