Rickey Henderson's rookie card very rarely found in mint condition

Odds of finding Henderson's 1980 Topps card in PSA 10 grade are one in 1,581

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Rickey Henderson's 1980 card ranks as the single highest-priced PSA 10 rookie for any player in the last 45 years.

When Rickey Henderson died Saturday at age 65, collectors flocked to eBay to buy memorabilia of the greatest leadoff hitter in baseball history.

The Hall of Fame outfielder ranks as MLB's all-time leader in stolen bases (1,406) and amassed 3,055 hits and 297 homers in a 25-year career for nine different teams.

In the first eight hours after confirmed reports of Henderson's death, more than 600 of his 1980 Topps rookie cards were sold. In case you were wondering, the 1980 Topps Henderson is hardly a rare card.

However, there is a good argument Henderson's 1980 Topps rookie is the most baffling graded card of all time.

Henderson was surely one of the game's all-time greats, but why, with a $180,000 sale in August, is his 1980 card the single highest-priced PSA 10 rookie for any player in the last 45 years?

The answer is obvious. It's scarcity.

It's harder to get a Rickey Henderson PSA 10 rookie than almost any other baseball card. But the "why" is completely mysterious.

First, let's take a look at the stars of the 1980 set and the likelihood of scoring a PSA gem-mint 10 based on current percentages among graded cards.

  • Rod Carew: One in every 14
  • Mike Schmidt: One in 17
  • Johnny Bench: One in 20
  • Reggie Jackson: One in 20
  • Eddie Murray: One in 29
  • Gary Carter: One in 33
  • George Brett: One in 36
  • Pete Rose: One in 36
  • Ozzie Smith: One in 43
  • Nolan Ryan: One in 197
  • Steve Carlton: One in 575

The odds of submitting Henderson's 1980 Topps card to PSA and getting a 10? A nearly unfathomable chance of one in 1,581.

You might think the Carlton odds make it reasonable for Henderson's odds to be so astronomical, but then consider this: The Carlton card is the next rarest gem in the entire set behind Henderson.

What's strange about the Henderson rookie is there's really no reason why the gem-mint grade should be difficult.

It is not on the edge of a sheet, which is the most common reason why a card grades badly. There are also no coloring, conditioning or centering issues in the cards around Henderson.

Let's take a look at the odds of getting a PSA 10 from the cards around Henderson on the sheet.

  • Mario Soto: One in four
  • Mike Lum: One in two
  • Ken Holtzman: One in four
  • Manny Sarmiento: One in three
  • Greg Minton: One in three

So, based on those numbers, the Henderson rookie card is, at the very least, 395 times harder to get in a PSA 10 than the cards surrounding it on the sheet.

Even more inexplicable, it has gotten much harder over the last four years, which also doesn't make much sense. Henderson rookies are less likely to be hanging out raw in cardboard boxes than in sheets or cases.

A PSA 10 version of the Henderson rookie is extremely tough to find.
A PSA 10 version of the Henderson rookie is extremely tough to find.

In the last four years, the Henderson graded population has nearly doubled from 20,809 to 41,107. Of the 20,298 that have been submitted since the first week of January 2020, only two have gotten a 10.

So your odds, up until four years ago, of getting a Henderson PSA 10 were one- in every 867 submitted. Since then, it has been one out of every 10,149.

How is it possible the odds would be nearly 12 times worse over the last four years than the entire previous history? That certainly doesn't appear to be a natural evolution.

In past years, Henderson number crunchers have pointed to the fact the odds of getting a PSA 9 on a Henderson were actually pretty good, something that isn't true of other cards with known condition sensitivity. Since both 9s and 10s are technically considered mint, it should follow that if it's hard to get a 10, it should be hard to get a 9.

But that isn't true with Henderson, suggesting there is grading bias to make more a 9 than a 10.

Up until the first week of Jan. 2020, your odds of getting a PSA 9 was one out of 11. But that also, inexplicably, drastically changed.

Despite nearly the same amount of total cards submitted up until January 2020 (compared to the number since then), the odds of getting a PSA 9 over the last four years, are now one out of every 65.

So, to review, the PSA 9 market, up until four years ago, did not act as other rare cards did, and now it does. Over the past four years, a PSA 10 has gotten nearly 12 times harder. A 9 has gotten nearly six times harder.

Simply put, there is no possible way the grading of the Henderson 1980 Topps has operated naturally. The motivation for that is unknown, but it's reality.

For whatever reason, PSA 10 Henderson rookies are the most protected 10 in the industry.

Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.