The mysterious case of George Bush's 1990 Topps card

Meant for the president, the card has become a coveted card for collectors

Cover Image for The mysterious case of George Bush's 1990 Topps card
Only 128 of the 1990 Topps George Bush cards have been graded by PSA.

More than three decades ago, controversy arose over a baseball card “no one was supposed to have in the first place.”

Unlike most error cards or test issues that have become collector favorites over the years due to their scarcity, this card was no mistake — and it didn’t feature an MLB player.

Instead, leaning against a railing and donning a Yale University jersey, the subject was a youthful George H.W. Bush, who had a two-season NCAA career in 1947 and 1948.

Tuesday night that card from the 1990 Topps set, graded a PSA 8, sold for $14,999.99, an all-time record for the grade and the second-highest sale in the card’s history.

So, how did the card become more valuable than any other card from the set other than the infamous Frank Thomas "No Name On Front" card? Though it might be impressive to note Bush captained the team during its trips to the first two College World Series, losing both, it doesn't quite explain why collectors are paying top dollar.

It started with an innocent question from President Bush’s grandson: Why was his presidential grandfather never on a baseball card?

As Newsday reported in March 1990, “Rather than allow the president to wallow in embarrassment, Topps came up with a plan to put Bush on cardboard.”

Topps representative Ken Liss told the paper only 100 cards were made, all of which were presented to Bush.

Apparently not all.

A civil lawsuit over the card, produced by Topps in 1990, spawned national headlines due to a dispute between two friends and a 15-cent deal. The plaintiff, Jim Danner, asserted Lee Hull, the owner of a memorabilia shop in Illinois, had offered to sell him a 1990 Topps George Bush card for 15 cents.

“Hull, who isn’t supposed to have the card in the first place, says that Danner is dreaming,” Newsday reported in the article titled, “Bush in hand: a baseball card whodunnit.”

Hull claimed to have found the card in a wax box purchased from a woman the previous December. “I never offered the card to him for 15 cents,” Hull said. “It’s never been offered for sale. The thing is, even if I had offered it to him for 15 cents, why didn’t he buy it? Didn’t he have the cash in hand?”

Topps, which was not named in the suit, was confused as to how the card made its way to Illinois in the first place. Liss said the cards were printed separately from the normal set’s production facility in Pennsylvania, instead manufactured in New York. Topps demanded Hull return the card to the company, which he refused.

But truthfully, it wasn’t up to him, as the Champaign County clerk had him turn the card over and post a $25,000 commercial bond. Presented with the idea of making “the whole stink disappear by running off a few million of the Bush cards” and selling them via mail-in offer or an update set, Liss was resolute: “Absolutely not … The whole idea was to make these special cards for the president. There’s no chance that we would make any more.”

The supposedly air-tight chain of custody of the card was further disproven in the following months.

In July 1990, a Utah man named John Casey, the owner of Salt Lake City’s Baseball Cards Etc., who had also uncovered the card in a wax pack, was asking $25,000 for the card.

“This card is the only one of its kind for sale in the country …. The other is tied up in a legal battle in Illinois, and George Bush owns the rest.”

It should come as little surprise to learn Casey was not the last to find the now-coveted and mysterious Bush card. The same month, a teenager in New Jersey uncovered another.

The card’s intrigue and perceived rarity drove surging prices in the following years. By 2011. A BGS 8.5 copy sold for $4,517.

Finally, in 2013, with assistance from former Topps CEO Arthur Shorin and a former White House official, PSA got to the bottom of the now-decades old mystery.

The third-party authenticator confirmed the card was produced in two types, one issued to Bush and one “that merely escaped the manufacturer.”

Everything became clear after Bush’s chief of staff and former governor of New Hampshire John Sununu submitted one of his cards to PSA, allowing the company to compare it to examples known to have reached the public. Sununu had received his card directly from Bush, who he claimed handed out copies to family, friends and members of the staff.

“Since I was sure that few, if any, of us would ever part with such a personal memento, I was surprised to see so many cards beginning to show up in auctions in recent years, although Topps' original intent was to distribute only the 100, which were given to the president," said Sununu, a self-described lifetime collector.

This was the missing puzzle piece.

“We now know the White House-issued cards have an almost laminated, reflective look to the front, while the other George Bush cards look and feel just like the regular Topps cards produced for their 1990 baseball card set," PSA president and industry veteran Joe Orlando said. “While there has been some dispute over the years as to exactly how many were manufactured, as a result of this study we are now certain that more than 100 were produced.”

Still, with the added clarity and newly defined differentiation between the two types, a mere 128 have been graded in total by PSA: 113 of the standard issue and 15 of the “White House Issue.”

BGS has graded a total of 12, with only two coming from the special presidential issue, one of which is autographed. SGC has graded 18, listed in the population report without an option for the two types.

The most expensive sale of the card to date came in January 2019, when one of the rare glossy versions (presented to Bush), graded BGS 9, sold for nearly $25,700. The card appears to be trending upward, as less than two weeks ago, another PSA 8 sold for $14,640.

Sununu recalled to PSA how Bush, a career .251 hitter during his collegiate career, initially felt upon receiving the cards:

"The president was proud to have his two years as captain of the Yale baseball team commemorated by Topps, though he was less eager to have his batting average displayed on the back of the card."

Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.