Ryan Barone (@ballcardgenius, Card Expert) is a lifelong member of the hobby. He has been quoted in PSA Magazine, and his content has regularly been mentioned in “Quick Rips” (the Topps RIPPED Newsletter) and across other hobby publications. hello@ballcardgenius.com; Last Time Ago LLC dba Ballcard Genius.
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You know the sight—a box of 1987 Topps baseball cards is as recognizable as any of the junk wax era.
But what if I told you that, while familiar looking, this box actually sells for $400-$500?
That’s because it’s not 1987 Topps, but 1987 O-Pee-Chee, and while you can walk into any baseball card store and find a sealed 1987 Topps box, its “Northern cousin” (per Geoff in the video below) is much more rare.
Since we know rare means valuable in sports card industry, let’s compare boxes of 1987 Topps and 1987 O-Pee-Chee:
Huge discrepancy, right?
On 11/21/23, a box of each was sold—the 1987 O-Pee-Chee box went for $550 while the Topps counterpart fell just under $42. And as you can see from the top blue line remaining consistently (high) above the 1987 sales points, the value disparity has been present for some time now.
“It is the northern cousin of Topps baseball, and it is the much more rare and valuable variety of Topps baseball. You see, Topps for many years produced cards in the United States, and then they had a marketing deal with O-Pee-Chee, where O-Pee-Chee distributed cards in Canada. Now, in many ways, the designs of the cards look similar, but there are some differences.”
Mainly, the O-Pee-Chee cards include French, and are part of a much smaller checklist. (1987 Topps contained 792 cards, while O-Pee-Chee’s total checklist is 396). Thus, many of the Topps cards didn’t make their way to the O-Pee-Chee release, but many of the most valuable did.
Which brings us to the whole point of Sports Card Investor opening the box—Barry Bonds, Will Clark, Nolan Ryan, Rickey Henderson, George Brett, and others are among the most valuable. (Notable O-Pee-Chee absences include Bo Jackson, Mark McGwire, and Barry Larkin.)
As you can imagine, the Barry Bonds is the most valuable of the 1987 O-Pee-Chee set, and has the potential to reach into the tens of thousands if graded gem mint:
- Barry Bonds 1987 O-Pee-Chee #320 Base PSA 10, $13,200
- Barry Bonds 1987 O-Pee-Chee #320 Base SGC 9, $500
- Barry Bonds 1987 O-Pee-Chee #320 Base SGC 9.5, $464.99
- Barry Bonds 1987 O-Pee-Chee #320 Base PSA 9, $424.03
All of this is easily findable and trackable using Market Movers.
Read More: Most Valuable 70s and 80s Baseball Cards
All in all, spoiler alert, Geoff does in fact find a Barry Bonds. Question is, does it have PSA 10 potential?
