Football Cards of the Awesome80s

By Patrick Mondout

While Topps football card sets in the Super70s got larger in size and gained somewhat in popularity, the Awesome80s saw a decline in interest to the point where a 1984 Dan Marino (or John Elway) rookie could still be had for well under $5 in early 1989.

The cases did not sell out year after year and that is why you can find so many wax boxes from this era today that have large black Xs written on the top of them. In fact, the only sets of football cards that generated any real interest up to that point was the 1986 McDonald's set, although interest in the initial USFL set started after the league folded.

Things started to change dramatically in 1989 when two other companies entered the market. The marketplace of one vendor making largely ignored sets of football cards year after year was unimaginable by the mid 1990s.

Football cards of the Awesome80s may have been underappreciated in their time, but they can bring in hundreds of dollars today. Rookie cards of NFL legends Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Eric Dickerson, Lawrence Taylor, Marcus Allen, Warren Moon, Barry Sanders, Deion Sanders, Troy Aikman, and the aforementioned Elway and Marino were all released during the decade.

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