If there is one trend growing in the hobby, its the collecting and extreme selling of signed vintage rookie cards from before the 1980’s boom. Personally, I love this trend, as long as the cards are done right. The rookie cards themselves are usually iconic in their own right, and as an autograph collector, I cant see anything wrong with having some amazing looking autographs on some amazing looking cards.

Here is what I am talking about:

1981 Joe Montana Topps RC Signed PSA

1976 Walter Payton Topps RC Signed PSA

1984 John Elway Topps RC Signed PSA

I mean, when you look at these cards, they are ridiculously cool. These cards have made collections what they are for years and years, and yet we are just starting to see the dividends of having signed copies of the cards. Because some of the cards were during the big booms of the 80s, they arent worth half as much as their baseball counterparts. In football, many of the greatest players ever played during times where many of us were already collecting full time, instead of baseball when the cards were sold as secondary items.

Some of the card companies have tried to get in on this trend in past years, especially Topps and their archive hard signed rookie cards. Because Topps is really one of the only companies out there with a long history of iconic rookie cards, they have revisited some of those cards over the years. Some of them have been extremely successful, others have not. I think we need hard signed signatures from the companies to make them a positive re-imagining of the cards, as I dont think the stickers do them justice.

These two are the quintessential reprint auto RCs that have been produced in football:

1998 Walter Payton Reprint RC Auto

2001 Johnny Unitas Topps Reprint RC Auto

If collectors are obtaining the cards on their own, many of them need to be graded, and from what I have seen, PSA has the best reputation of these types of cards. When I attend the national this year, I am going to try to find some for my own collection, as long as they dont achieve the usual extreme prices that they have for some of the baseball HOFers.

When you look at some of the disturbing design trends coming out of Panini’s camp, this is something that I think Topps should use as a nuclear weapon in sets like Five Star. Buybacks would be amazing, as would hard signed cards of players like Favre, Elway, Rice, Montana, Marino, etc. It would be crazy to get cards like that in some of the highest end ways available to collectors. Panini wouldnt be able to compete because they dont have the library to do it.