In the sports card hobby, much of the discussion surrounds what is new.  What will be the next hot product?  Which rookies will have seasons to remember?  Who will win the league MVP this year?  To be fair, much of what I have written about in the last year has related to these questions, and it can be loads of fun to think about and make card purchases based on these answers.  However, in the past few months, I have been thinking more about the historical context of sports and buying some of the legends from the past.  

Below you will see 10 baseball cards of players who can make a reasonable case for being one of the top 50 Major Leaguers of all-time.  In creating this list, I tried to find graded cards that had an eBay buy it now price of $100 or less.  I wanted to stick with graded items, as raw cards for the players and eras with which we are dealing in this exercise can vary wildly.  As a result, the list includes lower grade cards and no rookies.  Obviously, high graded rookies of the fabled players we are talking about can get cost prohibitive in a hurry.  The goal is to identify options for acquiring a card of one of the all-time greats without spending the equivalent of a mortgage payment or raiding your kid’s college fund.

Willie Mays

1966 Topps #1

Grade: PSA 3

eBay Buy It Now Cost: $99

Most experts consider Mays one of the five greatest players to ever set foot on a baseball field.  Between 1954 and 1966 he averaged 40 home runs a season.  For his career, Mays won 12 Gold Gloves for his sterling defensive work as a center fielder, was selected as an All-Star 24 times, and won the 1954 World Series as a member of the New York Giants.

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