9 Amazing Facts About 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson Rookie Card

Can you imagine pulling a 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie card from a pack 45 years ago? Would you have realized what a treasured piece of cardboard that would soon become?

We’re celebrating Rickey Henderson, likely the greatest leadoff man in baseball history, by looking back at his 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie card.

Rickey’s prowess is legendary, both at the plate and on the basepaths, as he would become a Fantasy Baseball player’s dream because of his power and speed.

Henderson died at 65 years old on December 20, 2024, which re-ignited the already red-hot interest in his cards. This article is meant to both honor the player and celebrate one of the greatest sports cards of the past 50 years.

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How Great Was Rickey?

Rickey would tell you how great he was if you asked him, but let’s look over some of his standout stats:

• Rickey’s 130 stolen bases in 1982 is still an MLB record.
• With 1,406 career stolen bases, he’s the all-time king – by a lot. Second place is Lou Brock – with nearly 500 fewer SBs! MLB did a great article on Rickey’s great stats, pointing out that the active Steals leader is Starling Marte – and he’s 1,000 steals behind Rickey with 354 SBs!
• An 18-year-old Rickey Henderson stole seven bases in one game for minor-league Modesto in 1977!
• Rickey’s 81 leadoff homers is a Major League Record.
• Nobody touched home plate as much as Rickey. He scored a record 2,295 runs over his 25 MLB seasons, topping Ty Cobb (2,246).
• Henderson runs fast, but he also walks a lot! His 2,129 unintentional walks is an MLB record!

9 Facts You Didn’t Know About the 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson Rookie Card

You might know some of these interesting Rickey Henderson rookie card facts, but we think you’ll also learn quite a bit! 

Check out current prices on eBay for this 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie card! 

1. 1980 Topps Baseball: One Tough Grade!

Most sports card collectors understand that a card grader is checking out the centering, corners, edges and surface of a card to subjectively determine its grade. Unfortunately, the 1980 Topps Baseball set had problems with three of those four criteria, according to SI.com.

Remember that Topps was the only manufacturer in town at this point, after nearly a quarter century, which could imply that quality control wasn’t as important as their bottom line. From centering issues to print dots and ink smudges, the eye appeal wasn’t their priority. Plus, the soft card stock they used that year made it easier to get soft corners and chipped edges.

Add to this fact that penny sleeves and toploaders weren’t really a thing yet. Collectors were jamming cards into binder pages in binders and using rubber bands [gasp!]! It’s easy to see how a PSA 10 from 1980 would be tough to come by.

2. Just 25 Rickey RCs Graded as PSA 10s!

Over 42,000 of these 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie cards have been sent to PSA for grading as of February, 2025, but there have been only 25 graded with a glorious PSA 10 gem-mint grade! That’s a gem rate of just 0.059%! Less than one percent!

If you check out SGC to see if things are better for Rickey rookies over there, they’ve had 10,127 Rickey rookies sent to them, but they’ve only given out eight SGC 10s! That’s a 0.079% gem rate, which is better, but still quite rare! There are also five PSA 9.5s, which brings up that number that’s graded greater than 9.

3. Rickey’s RC Ranks as the Best in the ‘80s!

From the 1980 to 1989, including only base cards from Bowman, Donruss, Fleer, Score, Topps and Upper Deck, the 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie card is the most valuable in PSA 10 form. One PSA 10 copy sold in 2021 for $180,000 according to Topps! In January of 2025, another PSA 10 copy sold for $150,000, just over a month since his death in December of 2024. Sports Collectors Digests notes that sale was the fourth-highest sale all-time for this card.

While Ken Griffey Jr.’s 1989 Upper Deck rookie card might be more iconic, the Henderson card wins the MVC Award (Most Valuable Card) of the ‘80s!

4. Don’t Be Bummed If You “Only” Have a PSA 9!

This card is tough to grade on all accounts! Many times, a baseball card collector will turn their nose up at a PSA 9, but a Rickey Henderson rookie card with a PSA 9 grade still sells for about $2,000!

The most common grade given by PSA for a 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie card is a PSA 8, with about 13,000 of those 40K sent in getting a PSA 8. But with SGC, the grading has been a little tougher, as they have more SGC 7s (1,874) than SGC 8s (1,396).

5. Donruss and Fleer Just Missed 1980

Since Donruss and Fleer couldn’t get an MLB license to produce cards until 1981, they were unable to produce a true Rickey Henderson rookie card.

Henderson’s first Donruss card is a beauty in 1981, but he has a pair of 1981 Fleer cards that look awfully similar. The guess is they were from the same photo shoot, and they just gave them a couple different titles, with one of them being his base card (#574) and the other serving as a record breaker card (#351).

But considering Henderson is the most collectable hitter from the ‘80s, much like Ken Griffey Jr. was a decade later in the ‘90s, getting two more Rickey RCs would have been magnificent!

Then again …

6. 2002 Donruss Originals Rickey Henderson What If? #1

In 2002, Donruss created a “Donruss Originals” set, which featured active 2002 MLB players in Donruss designs from the years 1982, 1984, 1986 and 1988. Rickey’s base card shows him in the 1982 Donruss design, which is a classic, and it shows him in a Red Sox uniform, as 2002 was the only season he played with Boston. That makes this card a must-have for Red Sox fans.

More importantly, that 2002 Donruss Originals set had a “What If” insert series, available in 1:12 hobby packs (1:24 retail packs). This Rickey Henderson “Rated Rookie” card shows him in an imaginary 1980 Donruss set… and it’s glorious!

Note the back of the card mentioning that Henderson finished seventh in the AL with 33 stolen bases – despite playing in just 89 games that season after his call-up on June 24, 1979. Every MLB player who had more steals in 1979 played over 105 games.

And yet…

7. No Topps All-Star Rookie Cup For Rickey!

It’s true that Topps inexplicably didn’t print their famous All-Star Rookie Cup logos on cards from 1979 through 1985. But the more egregious error is that Rickey Henderson wouldn’t have had an All-Star Rookie Cup logo on his card, since he wasn’t chosen for the 1979 Topps All-Star Rookie Team! Can you imagine Jeff Leonard (HOU), Billy Sample (TEX) and Scot Thompson (CHC) landed the top three rookie OF spots on the 1979 team ahead of Rickey? Even with Rickey tallying 33 steals and 49 runs scored in just over a half-season!?!

8. 1980 Topps Baseball Marks the End of the Vintage Era!

Since many collectors look at the junk wax era as beginning in the early ‘80s, with 1981 packs available at reasonable prices still, this 1980 Topps set is tied closer to the sets from the ‘60s than the ‘80s.

If 1980 Topps Baseball is vintage, then the Rickey Henderson rookie card ranks as the last great vintage card ever produced!

9. PSA Purposely Suppresses Rickey’s PSA 10s Down To PSA 9?

YouTuber Vintage Card Curator did an awesome video five years ago taking PSA to task for their low gem-mint grades on the 40,000 Rickey Henderson rookie cards submitted to them. He points out a few things that make a lot of sense.

If a card is notorious for centering issues, it most often is because it’s on the corner of a full uncut sheet from Topps. PSA claims centering on Henderson cards as one of the main reasons for the low PSA 10 population. But Henderson’s card was in the fourth row, ninth column on his uncut sheet.

The four cards closest to his, above, below, to the right and to the left, all have much higher PSA 10 counts. He also looked at the other cards in the 4/9 position on other uncut sheets, and they all got PSA 10s in a much higher clip of 3.1:1 (one PSA 10 for every 3.1 PSA 9s). Henderson’s ratio of PSA 10s to PSA 9s is a ridiculous 81:1 (one PSA 10 for every 81.1 PSA 9s). What the heck!?!

This article is part of a series of articles where we break down nine amazing things you didn’t know about a particular sports card.

• 1986 Topps Jerry Rice Rookie Card #161
• 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan Rookie Card #57
• 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie Card #1

Let us know what you thought about these 9 Amazing Facts About 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson Rookie Card! Did you know all of them? Some of them? None of them!?! Let’s hear it in the comments, and tell us what grade yours is, if you have on!