6 Awesome Willie Mays Cards For Around $100

Willie Mays cards! Any baseball card collector worth his salt wants some, but not all of us can afford them, so what can we do!?! I’ve listed a handful of some great Willie Mays cards that any collector would be proud to have, still have great vintage feel, and are less than $100 in cost.

Why are Willie Mays cards so expensive to begin with? Along with Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente, they rank among the all-time most collectable players in sports card history.

Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays For the Win!

Mantle and Mays. Mays and Mantle. They both came up at the same time, got their rookie cards in the same set and their first Topps cards in the same set.

There were a lot of other similarities between Mantle and Mays, including the fact they were both center fielders on New York City-based baseball clubs, with one in each league.

Mays, a former Negro League player, became one of the greatest all-around players baseball has ever seen, from his legendary play in center field to his stroke at the plate that smashed 660 home runs over 23 years.

Mays’ career took a different bend than Mantle’s, in that the Giants left New York for San Francisco in the late ‘50s, right in the middle of Mays’ peak years. While that might sound like a problem, in many ways, it was a boon for his baseball cards, since he now had two coasts clamoring for his cardboard.

While Mantle’s career ended a little earlier, Mays’ career ran alongside Aaron and Clemente well into the early ‘70s.

“The Say Hey Kid” won the 1951 Rookie of the Year award, along with two National League MVP awards. He was also the first player to finish with 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases, and he was just the second player to hit 600 home runs!

Unfortunately, he played just 34 games in 1952 and 1953 during prime years at age 21 and 22, due to his military service. Had he played those seasons, it’s very possible he would have beaten Babe Ruth’s 714 home run record before Hank Aaron.

We found some cheap Mickey Mantle cards to consider, and we tracked down similarly cheap Willie Mays cards worth considering.

6 Budget-Friendly Willie Mays Cards For Around $100

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, as I am not a financial planner. These are my observations as a sports card collector. Please make your own decisions.

Raw cards will certainly come at a lower price, but ungraded Willie Mays cards are also susceptible to being trimmed or altered, so buyer beware. Pricing was taken in early 2025 from 130point.com.

Last Flagship Willie Mays Card: 1974 Topps World Series Game 2 Willie Mays #473 PSA 7 $25

Considering Mays retired after the 1973 MLB season, we should be happy we got another one of his cards in 1974, even though it’s just a 1973 World Series Game 2 highlight card. (Mays was a pinch-hitter in that game – one the Mets would end up winning in extra innings!)

1958 Topps “Rival Fence Busters” Willie Mays/Duke Snider #436 PSA 6 $85

Getting Willie Mays cards under $100 is great, but getting a Mays card alongside Duke Snider!?! From more than 65 years ago!?! The irony is they were rival fence busters who busted their New York fences and moved to California together to reinstall their new fences. (While the picture was taken in N.Y., when the card came out in packs, they were already on the West Coast.)

Legendary sportswriter Red Smith once said something interesting about Snider, Mantle and Mays, “You could get a fat lip in any saloon by starting an argument as to which was best. One point was beyond argument, though. Willie was by all odds the most exciting.”

“You could get a fat lip in any saloon by starting an argument as to which was best. One point was beyond argument, though. Willie was by all odds the most exciting.” – Red Smith

1959 Topps Mays’ Catch Makes Series History Mays #464 PSA 3 $95

This “Baseball Thrills” subset has some great cards in it, including Mickey Mantle hitting his 42nd HR to be the AL’s HR champ, Stan Musial getting his 3,000th hit, Hank Aaron homering in the World Series and Ernie Banks winning an MVP award. But the best of the “Baseball Thrills” is “The Catch,” which is the nickname for Mays’ amazing Game 2 over-the-shoulder catch made five years earlier during the 1954 World Series, which the Giants won over Cleveland.

1965 Topps Willie Mays #250 PSA 4 $100

This set design is just plain pretty, with the flying pennant on the bottom and the colorful name plates. Mays was starting the latter half of his career here, but he hit a career-high 52 homers in 1965, leading the league, and he was also tops in WAR with 11.2.

1962 Topps Willie Mays All-Star #395 PSA 6 $90

While this is an All-Star card, it’s still one of the coolest, as Mays finishes his big swing with a big smile, seemingly following his ball over the fence. Get this in a PSA 6 to match the decade, and you have a new gem in your collection for years.

1962 Topps Managers’ Dream – Mickey Mantle & Willie Mays #18 PSA 3 $100

Can you imagine checking off two boxes with one card? Getting Mantle and Mays on the same card is huge, and this 1962 card is a gem for a low-budget collector.

One of the coolest parts of this card is found in the background — Hank Aaron, according to Sports Collectors Daily, “Who’s that Milwaukee Brave standing behind Willie’s left shoulder? Yup. The Hammer. That’s 1,951 home runs on one piece of cardboard.  If you were to pick one card to represent a particular era of baseball, this might be it.”

We’ve also listed the Best Baseball Rookie Cards Ever from every Topps set if you are trying to fill out other spots in your collection.

Getting any Willie Mays cards should make you feel good, but getting some graded vintage cards of this Hall-of-Fame slugger at a nice price? That’s unbeatable.