Boston Red Sox Cards: Williams, Yaz, Boggs and Devers
A dozen cards trace the Red Sox from a 1939 Play Ball Ted Williams rookie through the long World Series drought and into the four-title modern era. Here are the twelve that define the franchise on cardboard, organized by era, with notes on who almost made the list and why franchise affiliation keeps a few obvious names (Ortiz, Pedro, Mookie) on the near-miss bench.
Quick answer. The twelve tentpole Red Sox cards, by era, are: 1939 Play Ball #92 Ted Williams rookie and 1941 Play Ball #14 Ted Williams (second slot, .406 season, full color stock) in the pre-war foundation, 1960 Topps #148 Carl Yastrzemski rookie for the 1960s Triple Crown bridge, 1972 Topps #79 Carlton Fisk rookie (shared with Cecil Cooper) for the 1970s Impossible Dream follow-on, 1975 Topps Jim Rice and 1975 Topps Fred Lynn (separate four-player rookie cards) for the 1975 pennant class, 1983 Topps #498 Wade Boggs rookie and 1985 Donruss #273 Roger Clemens rookie for the 1980s dynasty chase, 1991 Stadium Club Mo Vaughn rookie and 1993 SP Foil Nomar Garciaparra rookie for the 1990s AL East, and 2013 Bowman Chrome Xander Bogaerts plus 2017 Bowman Chrome Rafael Devers for the modern homegrown core.
At a glance: the twelve tentpole Red Sox cards
| Era | Player | Card | Why it leads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-war 1939-41 | Ted Williams | 1939 Play Ball #92 rookie | Franchise GOAT, first cardboard, black-and-white gum stock |
| Pre-war 1941 | Ted Williams (second slot) | 1941 Play Ball #14 | .406 season, full-color stock, premium over 1939 |
| 1960s | Carl Yastrzemski | 1960 Topps #148 rookie | 1967 Triple Crown bridge between Williams and modern era |
| 1970s | Carlton Fisk | 1972 Topps #79 rookie (with Cecil Cooper) | 1975 World Series walk-off Game 6 home run anchor |
| 1975 class | Jim Rice | 1975 Topps four-player rookie | 1978 AL MVP, 16 seasons, HOF 2009 |
| 1975 class | Fred Lynn | 1975 Topps four-player rookie | First player to win AL ROY and AL MVP in the same season |
| 1980s | Wade Boggs | 1983 Topps #498 rookie | Five batting titles in the decade, HOF 2005 |
| 1980s | Roger Clemens | 1985 Donruss #273 rookie | 1986 AL MVP plus Cy Young, 20 strikeouts in one game |
| 1990s | Mo Vaughn | 1991 Stadium Club rookie | 1995 AL MVP, Hit Dog era, premium chromium stock |
| 1990s | Nomar Garciaparra | 1993 SP Foil rookie | 1997 AL ROY, 1999 and 2000 batting titles, golden-age SS |
| Modern | Xander Bogaerts | 2013 Bowman Chrome rookie | Homegrown 2013 debut, 2018 WS title |
| Modern | Rafael Devers | 2017 Bowman Chrome rookie | 2021 and 2023 All-Star, signed 10-year extension 2023 |
Pre-war foundation: the Williams two-slot precedent
1. Ted Williams, 1939 Play Ball #92 rookie
The 1939 Play Ball set, printed on thin gum stock with black-and-white portraits and a simple white border, is the first cardboard issue that carries a Ted Williams card. Williams debuted that April, hit 31 home runs and drove in 145 as a 20-year-old rookie, and the 1939 Play Ball #92 is the card the hobby points to when it wants to name the start of the Red Sox modern catalog. The set is heavily condition-sensitive because of a soft paper stock that browned across decades of storage, centering drift from sheet cutting, and the standard pre-war combination of chipping on dark borders. High-grade copies are scarce, mid-grade copies are reasonably available, and the card carries the weight of being the only Williams rookie cardboard regardless of how the full-color follow-on in 1941 trades.
Bull case: Williams is consensus the best pure hitter of the 20th century, the card is the only real rookie card for that hitter, and Red Sox fandom plus hobby prestige stack on top of each other. Bear case: the Play Ball set has a thin print run at high grades, which concentrates demand at the PSA 7 and up tier, and soft stock means grade distribution punishes buyers who overpay at the mid-tier. Dated public comps: Goldin moved PSA 7 copies in the low six figures and PSA 8 copies at meaningful premiums during the 2020-2022 window, and pricing on the card has compressed with the broader pre-war market since then, consistent with the index pattern for 1930s gum issues.
2. Ted Williams, 1941 Play Ball #14 (second slot)
Red Sox collectors get a two-slot precedent here for the same reason Yankees collectors get it with Mantle (1951 Bowman and 1952 Topps) and the Lakers and Celtics got it with Kobe and Bird: the second card is a distinct comp set, not a duplicate. The 1941 Play Ball set traded to full-color lithography, and the #14 Williams card locks in the .406 season that has not been matched in the 85 years since. Modern collectors reward the combination of full-color stock plus the .406 narrative, which is why the 1941 can and often does trade at a premium over the 1939 depending on grade and buyer.
Bull case: the 1941 is the most visually striking pre-war Williams card, ties to the single hitting feat most often cited as untouchable, and is rarer in top grades than the 1939 because the color process was harder to keep clean on the press. Bear case: it is not technically a rookie card, which caps the upside for the rookie-card-only slice of the buyer base, and the 1941 Play Ball set has registry pressure that concentrates demand at the very top. The second slot is defensible inside a 12-card franchise list precisely because the gap between the 1939 and 1941 in set, stock and narrative is wider than the gap between most players and their nearest comp.
1960s bridge: the Triple Crown anchor
3. Carl Yastrzemski, 1960 Topps #148 rookie
Yastrzemski took over left field from Williams in 1961, and the 1960 Topps #148 is the card that connects the two eras. The 1960 Topps baseball design pairs a player portrait with an action shot on a horizontal format, and the high-number yellow border is part of what makes the set visually distinct. Yaz played 23 seasons in a Red Sox uniform, won the 1967 Triple Crown during the Impossible Dream pennant chase, and retired with 3,419 hits and 452 home runs. His rookie is the reference card for anyone who wants a single slot that bridges Williams to the modern catalog.
Bull case: longevity on one franchise is a rare card-market feature that keeps demand sticky for the Yaz rookie, and the 1967 Triple Crown plus the 1960 Topps set visual design give it independent hobby identity. Bear case: 1960 Topps is a mid-print-run set with a relatively large surviving population, so the PSA 9 and PSA 10 tier is where almost all of the financial compression has landed. Mid-grade copies at PSA 7 and PSA 8 trade on volume, not scarcity, which means the card reads closer to an index card than a ceiling card until you get into the top grades.
1970s: the Impossible Dream follow-on and the 1975 pennant class
4. Carlton Fisk, 1972 Topps #79 rookie (shared with Cecil Cooper)
Fisk debuted in 1969, became the primary Red Sox catcher in 1971, and his rookie card is the 1972 Topps #79 multi-player "Red Sox Rookies" card that he shares with Cecil Cooper. The 1972 Topps set has a psychedelic colored frame, a high-numbered second-series scarcity pattern, and a collector nickname (the "Seventy-Two tombstones" for some subsets) that keeps set-builder demand steady. Fisk hit the walk-off home run in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series that has his own NBC camera-pole origin story, and the card tracks him for his Boston years regardless of the later White Sox chapter.
Bull case: the 1972 Topps set is one of the most distinctive visual sets in the postwar period, the card carries a Game 6 cultural anchor that almost never gets dislodged, and Fisk spent his rookie years in Boston so the card sits inside the Red Sox tentpole without a franchise-affiliation argument. Bear case: shared rookie cards always trade at a discount to single-player cards, and Cecil Cooper on the same card does not meaningfully help the comp because Cooper is remembered as a Brewer, not a Red Sox. Registry pressure sits at the top two grades, and mid-grade copies trade on set-builder demand rather than player-collector demand.
5. Jim Rice, 1975 Topps four-player rookie
Rice arrived in September 1974, won the 1978 AL MVP with 46 home runs and 139 RBI, and his rookie is a multi-player 1975 Topps "Rookie Outfielders" card that shares real estate with three other names. The 1975 Topps set is the two-color frame set that hobby collectors have been chasing since it came off the shelf, and the Rice card is one of the two iconic Red Sox rookies from the set. Rice was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2009 on his fifteenth and final ballot year, which is an unusual ballot arc that has nothing to do with card pricing but shapes the narrative buyers carry in.
Bull case: the 1975 Topps set is a generational set-builder favorite, the Rice story is fully Boston, and the HOF plaque closes a long narrative loop. Bear case: multi-player rookies compress at both the top and the mid grade because the card has three other faces pulling attention, and 1975 Topps has a relatively deep surviving population, so the PSA 10 premium is where almost all of the upside sits. Mini versions of the 1975 set (the regular-Topps and Topps-mini parallel) trade at different multiples with the mini carrying a scarcity premium consistent with the 1975 Topps mini print-run mechanics.
6. Fred Lynn, 1975 Topps four-player rookie
Lynn was the first player in baseball history to win both AL Rookie of the Year and AL Most Valuable Player in the same season, and he did it as a Red Sox in 1975. His rookie card is a separate four-player 1975 Topps "Rookie Outfielders" card, which keeps it in the same set family as the Rice card without collapsing the two into a single slot. Lynn hit .331 with 21 home runs, 105 RBI and 103 runs in that rookie season, won a Gold Glove in center, and carried the Red Sox to the 1975 World Series against the Reds.
Bull case: the dual-award season is a single-season feat that has not been repeated in the 50 years since, the card sits inside the same iconic 1975 Topps set, and Lynn collectors and Red Sox collectors overlap tightly. Bear case: Lynn's Boston tenure ended in 1980 via trade to the California Angels, which clips the career-arc premium compared to players who stayed the full career in one uniform. Multi-player rookie compression is again the ceiling, and the comp set between the Rice and Lynn rookie cards is what most buyers use to calibrate either slot.
1980s: the dynasty-chase decade
7. Wade Boggs, 1983 Topps #498 rookie
Boggs won five AL batting titles in six seasons between 1983 and 1988, hit over .350 four times, and his rookie is the 1983 Topps #498 single-player card. The 1983 Topps set has a two-photo design (portrait plus action shot) inside a white frame, and the Boggs rookie is one of the cornerstone cards of the set along with Tony Gwynn and Ryne Sandberg rookies from the same 1983 Topps issue. Boggs was traded to the Yankees after 1992, which colors the modern narrative, but his 11 Boston seasons and his rookie card both sit firmly in the Red Sox ledger.
Bull case: five batting titles, Hall of Fame 2005, and a 1983 Topps set that collectors have been chasing at the high grades for decades. The card is one of three marquee rookies in a landmark set. Bear case: 1983 Topps is a heavy-print junk-wax-transition year, which means surviving population at PSA 9 is large and PSA 10 is where the only real premium sits. The 1983 Fleer #371 and 1983 Donruss #586 Boggs rookies exist as comp cards and trade at lower multiples than the Topps, which sets a natural floor on the set-specific Topps premium.
8. Roger Clemens, 1985 Donruss #273 rookie
Clemens debuted in May 1984, struck out 20 Mariners in a 1986 regular-season game, won the AL MVP and Cy Young that same year, and his primary rookie card is the 1985 Donruss #273. The 1985 Donruss set has a black border with a diagonal team-color stripe, and the #273 Clemens rookie sits in a set alongside the Eric Davis and Roger Clemens-era rookie class that collectors still card-show shop for. Clemens also has a 1984 Fleer Update card (#U-27) that predates the 1985 Donruss by a few months and is the true first Clemens card, so the 1985 Donruss is the more available reference card while the 1984 Fleer Update is the scarcer premium card.
Bull case: seven Cy Young awards (three with Boston), a Red Sox career that covers 13 seasons, and a 1985 Donruss set that holds up well because the black border forced condition discipline at grading. Bear case: the performance-enhancing-drug overhang weighs on Clemens pricing relative to peers at the same performance tier, and his 1984 Fleer Update card technically predates the 1985 Donruss, which splits buyer attention between the two. Collectors who want the true first-card tend toward the Fleer Update, and collectors who want the cleaner, cheaper, more available first-card tend toward the 1985 Donruss, so the tentpole is really the combined pair rather than either one alone.
1990s: AL East power at the corner and the shortstop golden age
9. Mo Vaughn, 1991 Stadium Club rookie
Vaughn was the 1991 first-round Boston pick out of Seton Hall, debuted that same season, and won the 1995 AL MVP during the Red Sox AL East title run. His 1991 Stadium Club rookie card uses the premium chromium stock that Topps built the Stadium Club brand on, and the rookie is typically the card collectors reach for when they want a single tentpole for the mid-1990s Red Sox offense. Vaughn played 8 seasons in Boston, hit .304 with 230 home runs in a Red Sox uniform, and left for the Angels after 1998 in one of the highest-profile free-agent departures of the era.
Bull case: an AL MVP, a long Boston peak, and a Stadium Club premium chrome stock that holds up visually decades later. Bear case: Vaughn is not in the Hall of Fame and is unlikely to be added on veterans-committee ballots, which caps the plaque-closure premium that other names on this list carry. The 1991 Stadium Club print run is larger than early-1990s premium-stock collectors sometimes assume, and high-grade copies survive in enough volume that the PSA 10 premium is the only real ceiling. The 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition and 1991 Bowman Vaughn rookies exist as comp cards and trade at similar or lower multiples than the Stadium Club.
10. Nomar Garciaparra, 1993 SP Foil rookie
Garciaparra was the 1992 first-round Red Sox pick, won the 1997 AL Rookie of the Year, and won AL batting titles in 1999 and 2000 as the Red Sox shortstop. His 1993 SP Foil rookie sits inside the original SP set that Upper Deck printed on condition-sensitive foil stock with sharp corners and a deep-blue background, which means PSA 10 copies are scarce relative to the surviving PSA 9 population. The SP Foil rookies from 1993 (Derek Jeter plus Garciaparra being the two most recognizable names) are the cards collectors reference when they want a pre-Bowman-Chrome premium-stock first-card from the 1993 draft class.
Bull case: two batting titles, a 1997 ROY, the Red Sox peak years at shortstop between Yaz's retirement and the modern era, and a 1993 SP Foil print-run mechanic that concentrates scarcity at the PSA 10 tier. Bear case: Nomar's career ended abruptly after a 2004 trade to the Cubs (the trade that preceded the 2004 World Series win he did not share in), which creates a complicated narrative that the card market has never fully resolved. Nomar did not reach the Hall of Fame, which caps the plaque-closure premium, and the 1993 SP Foil Jeter card sits in the same set at a much higher ceiling, which tends to pull set-collector attention to Jeter and compress Nomar by comparison.
Modern: the homegrown 2013-2017 core
11. Xander Bogaerts, 2013 Bowman Chrome rookie
Bogaerts signed as an international free agent out of Aruba in 2009, debuted in August 2013 in time to start at shortstop in the 2013 World Series, and his primary rookie card is the 2013 Bowman Chrome. Bowman Chrome is the canonical modern Red Sox rookie vehicle (as it is for almost every modern MLB rookie), and the color and refractor parallel ladder on the 2013 set runs the standard Topps chrome gradient from base through Gold, Orange, Red, Red Wave, SuperFractor 1/1. Bogaerts played 10 seasons in Boston before signing with the Padres in 2023, which clips the career-arc premium somewhat but does not push him off the tentpole because his debut, rookie card and 2018 World Series ring are all Red Sox.
Bull case: a homegrown shortstop with two World Series championships, four All-Star appearances and a full decade in one uniform. The 2013 Bowman Chrome set is a deep but well-understood parallel ladder, so comps are stable and liquid across grades. Bear case: the 2023 move to San Diego removes the career-arc-in-one-uniform premium, the 2013 Bowman Chrome base card is widely printed and trades in volume, and the Bogaerts parallel chase sits well below the Devers parallel chase because of age and contract length. Collectors who want modern Red Sox exposure tend to put more weight on the Devers rookie than the Bogaerts rookie for exactly that reason.
12. Rafael Devers, 2017 Bowman Chrome rookie
Devers signed as an international free agent at 16, debuted in July 2017, hit the tying home run off Aroldis Chapman in the 2017 ALDS, and signed a 10-year, 313.5 million extension in January 2023 that locks him to Boston through 2033. His primary rookie card is the 2017 Bowman Chrome, and the color and refractor parallel ladder follows the standard modern Topps chrome structure. Devers is the tentpole modern Red Sox slot at this point because the contract horizon is long, the productivity has been consistent (two All-Star selections, a 2023 Silver Slugger), and the franchise strategy has visibly centered on him as the long-term cornerstone after the Bogaerts departure.
Bull case: a 10-year contract that runs through age 36, a productive peak already on the ledger, and a 2017 Bowman Chrome set that has enough surviving population at the base level to keep liquidity intact but tight parallel scarcity at the Gold, Orange, Red and SuperFractor tiers. Bear case: Bowman Chrome rookie cards compress aggressively with any extended slump, and modern long-contract cornerstones carry a specific comp risk where one down season can reset the card for multiple years. The 2017 Bowman Chrome Devers is a condition-sensitive refractor card at the PSA 10 tier, and grade distribution at the paid refractor levels punishes buyers who stretch on raw copies.
Four patterns that show up across the twelve Red Sox tentpoles
Looking at the twelve cards together, four patterns are visible and hold up under cross-franchise comparison.
1. The Williams two-slot precedent fits the same shape as Mantle, Kobe, Bird and Jordan. Every team-level tentpole list the hobby has built tends to give the franchise anchor a second slot because the second card is a distinct comp set, not a duplicate. Williams gets it for the same reason Mantle gets 1951 Bowman plus 1952 Topps, Kobe gets 1996-97 Topps Chrome plus 1996-97 E-X2000 Credentials, Bird gets 1980-81 Topps plus 1983-84 Star, and Jordan gets 1986-87 Fleer plus 1986-87 Fleer Stickers. The 1939 Play Ball plus 1941 Play Ball pair is the oldest version of that structure on this site.
2. Shared multi-player rookie cards are the 1970s norm and they compress differently. The 1972 Topps Fisk rookie is shared with Cecil Cooper, the 1975 Topps Rice rookie is shared with three other outfielders, and the 1975 Topps Lynn rookie is shared with three different outfielders. Multi-player rookies compress at the PSA 10 tier more aggressively than single-player rookies because buyer attention splits across the faces on the card, but the 1972 and 1975 Topps sets also carry set-builder demand that partially offsets the compression. Collectors who are Red Sox-only tend to pay a premium for the single-player Topps rookie tier (Boggs 1983, Clemens 1985 Donruss, Vaughn 1991 Stadium Club) precisely because there is no split attention.
3. The franchise-affiliation rule tracks rookie cards, not career trajectory. This is the rule that keeps David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez and Mookie Betts off the tentpole list even though all three won rings in Boston and all three shaped how the hobby thinks about the franchise. Ortiz has a 1997 Bowman Chrome rookie as a Twins prospect (he came to Boston in 2003 via free agency after Minnesota released him). Pedro's rookie cards are as a 1991 Los Angeles Dodgers prospect (he was traded to Montreal in 1993 and to Boston in 1997). Mookie Betts is the complicated case: his rookie card (2014 Bowman Chrome Draft) is a homegrown Red Sox card, so by the strict rookie-card rule he belongs on the tentpole, but his MVP seasons and two of his three World Series rings have come in a Dodgers uniform since 2020, and the hobby has visibly reweighted his card-market identity toward Los Angeles in the five seasons since. The near-miss section below handles all three.
4. The modern Bowman Chrome rookie is the canonical vehicle, and the older the set the less canonical any single card is. Bogaerts 2013 Bowman Chrome and Devers 2017 Bowman Chrome are the two cards that define the modern Red Sox rookie-card format, and there is effectively no argument about which card is the tentpole for each player. Going backward, the Vaughn 1991 Stadium Club is the canonical pick but collectors also argue for 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition or 1991 Bowman. The Nomar 1993 SP Foil is canonical but the 1993 Bowman Chrome (refractor variant) and 1994 SP also have buyer bases. The Boggs 1983 Topps is canonical but the 1983 Fleer and 1983 Donruss issue the same rookie year at different price points. The farther back you look, the less canonical any single card is, which is why the pre-war foundation leans on Play Ball as the only set issuing Williams cards and the tentpole conversation simplifies.
Cards that almost made the list
Three of the most famous names in modern Red Sox history sit outside the twelve tentpoles, and the reasons are worth naming because they are the reasons the hobby talks about franchise-affiliation the way it does.
David Ortiz, 1997 Bowman Chrome rookie (as a Twin). Ortiz came up through the Mariners farm system, was traded to Minnesota in 1996, debuted with the Twins in 1997 and was released after the 2002 season. Boston signed him as a 27-year-old free agent in January 2003, and the rest is the three rings, the 541 career home runs, the walk-off Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS and the HOF plaque in 2022. But his rookie card is a Twin. That keeps him off the tentpole list by the same franchise-affiliation rule that keeps Robert Parish off the Celtics tentpole (Warriors rookie), Kevin Garnett off the Celtics tentpole (Timberwolves rookie) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar off the Lakers tentpole (Bucks rookie).
Pedro Martinez, 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition rookie (as a Dodger). Pedro debuted with the Dodgers in September 1992, was traded to Montreal for Delino DeShields in November 1993, and then to Boston for Carl Pavano and Tony Armas Jr. in November 1997. Pedro's seven Boston seasons produced two Cy Young awards (1999, 2000), a third Cy Young-caliber season that lost out to the Clemens protege in New York, and the 2004 World Series ring. His HOF plaque in 2015 shows a Red Sox cap. But his rookie cards are as a Dodger, which again sits on the wrong side of the franchise-affiliation rule.
Mookie Betts, 2014 Bowman Chrome Draft rookie (Red Sox homegrown, traded to LA). Mookie is the complicated case. He was a 2011 Red Sox draft pick, debuted in June 2014, won AL MVP in 2018, took home the 2018 World Series ring with Boston, and was traded to the Dodgers in February 2020 along with David Price in one of the most criticized trades in recent Red Sox history. By the rookie-card rule, Mookie's 2014 Bowman Chrome Draft is a Red Sox card and he should be on the tentpole list. By the hobby-attention rule, the five Dodgers seasons since 2020 (plus the 2020 and 2024 World Series championships with LA) have reweighted his card-market identity toward Los Angeles, and both his 2018 and 2020 MVP-tier seasons now trade partially in LA hands. The tentpole here defers to the hobby-attention read and keeps Mookie in the near-miss slot with the note that he is the single most defensible swap onto the main list for collectors who hold the strict rookie-card rule.
Era-specific near-misses, briefly: Tony Conigliaro 1964 Topps #287 rookie is the mid-1960s near-miss (20-year-old with 32 home runs in 1965, August 18, 1967 beanball injury that reshaped his career) who would sit at slot 13 before any other name. Jim Lonborg 1966 Topps #93 rookie as the 1967 Cy Young and Impossible Dream pitching anchor is next. Dwight Evans 1973 Topps four-player rookie is the Gold-Glove right-fielder bridge between the Fisk-Rice-Lynn core and the Boggs-Clemens era. Dustin Pedroia 2005 Bowman Chrome Draft rookie (2007 AL ROY, 2008 AL MVP, two rings, career Red Sox) is the strongest late-2000s near-miss and another defensible swap on the main list for buyers who want a homegrown-career-in-one-uniform slot. Jon Lester 2006 Bowman Chrome Draft is the pitching-bridge near-miss. Jacoby Ellsbury 2007 Bowman Chrome Draft is the center-fielder near-miss whose Boston tenure ended in the 2013 offseason. Dennis Eckersley 1976 Topps #98 rookie (as a Cleveland Indian, traded to Boston in 1978, later traded to the Cubs then to Oakland where his HOF run really started) is a franchise-affiliation near-miss similar to the Ortiz and Pedro structures.
How to use this list
These twelve are candidates, not recommendations, and anyone buying any of them should do three things before a trigger-pull.
- Pull 90-day sold comps by grade on eBay, Goldin, Heritage and PWCC for the specific set and grade you are targeting. Pre-war Play Ball comps move slowly and a 12-month pull is often more useful than 90 days. Modern Bowman Chrome comps move quickly and a 30-day pull is usually enough.
- Separate base rookie comps from parallel-ladder comps. A 1993 SP Foil Nomar base, a 2013 Bowman Chrome Bogaerts base and a 2017 Bowman Chrome Devers base all have distinct refractor, Gold, Orange and Red parallel comp tables. Do not let a PSA 10 base sale calibrate your read on a Gold parallel, or vice versa. The ratios are set-specific.
- Apply the franchise-affiliation rule before paying a Red-Sox premium. An Ortiz 1997 Bowman Chrome, a Pedro 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition or a Mookie 2014 Bowman Chrome Draft will sometimes appear in a Red Sox-themed listing or a PC-sale context at a price that assumes the card belongs on this list. It does not, by the rule, and the franchise-of-rookie-card premium sits on the tentpole cards above, not the near-misses.