Same Bird, different neighbours

One picture, two cards

We explained in Topps wanted children to tear Larry Bird's rookie card apart how the 1980-81 set works. Every card is three small panels joined by perforations, and the famous one puts Bird's rookie panel, number 34, beside Erving and Magic Johnson.

What that article did not go into is how the set was printed. Topps used two sheets, and across half of each sheet only the left-hand panel of a card changed while the other two stayed together. So the same small panel can turn up on two different cards with different partners.

That is what happened to Bird's rookie panel. The same photograph, the same number 34, appears on the Bird, Erving and Magic card and on a card with the Knicks' Bill Cartwright and John Drew of the Hawks.

Bird is also on four more cards, not with his rookie panel but with his two Celtics team-leader panels, numbers 30 and 31, alongside Jack Sikma, Marques Johnson, Scott May, Fred Brown, Ron Brewer and Junior Bridgeman.

What each one sells for

Because ECI's Bird pages track only the Bird, Erving and Magic card, we went back through every 1980-81 Topps Bird listing the index has seen and sorted them by who else is on the card. Then we compared each card with the famous one at the same PSA grade.

Bird, Cartwright and Drew, with the same Bird rookie panel: roughly a twentieth to a twenty-fifth of the Bird, Erving and Magic card in PSA 7 and PSA 8, the two grades with the most copies to compare.

The four team-leader cards: roughly a fortieth to a sixtieth of the famous card at the same grades. The one with Scott May and Jack Sikma, the most often listed of them, came in at about a fortieth in PSA 7 and a sixtieth in PSA 8.

Ungraded: the gaps are narrower but still wide. The Cartwright card asked about a seventh of an ungraded Bird, Erving and Magic, and the team-leader cards about a twentieth.

The top grades tell the same story from the other end. A PSA 10 of the card with Marques Johnson and Jack Sikma, as perfect as that card gets, was offered for less than an ordinary PSA 8 of the Bird, Erving and Magic card.

Some of these comparisons rest on a handful of copies, and the ratios move as listings come and go. But they all point the same way, and they point there by a long distance.

So what is the buyer paying for?

Start with the Cartwright card. It has Bird's rookie panel, the identical picture, from the same year, printed on the same sheets. If collectors were paying for Larry Bird's rookie, it would sell close to the famous card. It sells for a few per cent of it.

What the famous card has that the Cartwright card lacks is Magic Johnson's rookie panel and Julius Erving. The hobby long ago settled on the Bird, Erving and Magic card as the rookie card of both men, the one that gets graded, catalogued and talked about. The Cartwright card, with the same Bird on it, is collected as a lesser cousin, helped along by being Bill Cartwright's rookie too.

So the price of the famous card is mostly three things that are not Bird's panel: Magic's rookie, Erving in the middle, and the name the card has earned. Bird's own picture, on its own, is worth at most what the Cartwright card sells for.

Separating the panels makes the point again. A Bird, Erving and Magic card with its panels pulled apart was priced, ungraded, at about a sixth of an intact one. Same three pictures, no longer one card.

What it means for a buyer

Know which card you are looking at. A listing that says "1980 Topps Larry Bird rookie" can be any of these. Look at the other two players. If they are not Erving and Magic, it is a different card, however good the Bird panel looks.

Do not be fooled by the right number. A Bird, Cartwright and Drew card still shows Bird's rookie panel and still carries the number 34. That is exactly why sellers can describe it as a Bird rookie without lying.

The cheap way to own the picture. If what you want is Larry Bird's rookie photograph on an intact, graded 1980-81 Topps card, the Cartwright card gives you that for a small fraction of the price. Just do not expect it to behave like the famous card when you sell.

Grade matters less than neighbours. On these cards, moving from one panel to another changes the price far more than moving from one grade to the next. A top-grade team-leader card is still a team-leader card.

The thing worth sitting with

Larry Bird is one of the greatest players the game has seen, and his rookie card is one of the most valuable in basketball. But put the same picture of him next to two other players and almost all of that value disappears.

Collectors are not really buying a Larry Bird rookie. They are buying a particular piece of cardboard that happens to hold two rookies and a legend, and that the hobby agreed, a long time ago, was the one that counts.

This index tracks the Bird, Erving and Magic card across every grade and every way it gets described. You can read how we work the numbers out.

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