Mike Ditka's Rookie Card Sales Soar After His Death Announcement

Mike Ditka's family announced his death on Friday, Oct. 9. He was 86.1 In 1988 the Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted him as its first tight end. He coached the 1985 Bears to a 15-1 season and a 46-10 win over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX.2 He was NFL Rookie of the Year in 1961. His rookie card is the 1962 Topps #17. We reported his auction sales immediately after his death on our Oct. 9 wire.

The morning collectors found Ditka

The news broke on a Friday morning, and collectors did what they usually do when a legend dies. They went shopping.

In a normal month, cards and memorabilia with Ditka's name sold about nine times a day. That Friday, they sold 847 times.3

His nine most-traded cards did nearly two months of business by midnight, and almost half of it came in the first two hours.4

Almost nobody waited for an auction. Only 12 of those 299 sales were auctions. Everyone else paid the Buy It Now price or sent an offer and moved on.

Nostalgia bought the Pro Set. Money bought the rookie.

Of his nine most-traded cards, the one that jumped furthest costs about $2 USD. His 1990 Pro Set #59 shows him on the Bears sideline in a team sweater and aviators. On the morning of Oct. 11, 16 copies sold from separate listings in 36 minutes.

Its price barely moved. Pro Set printed its 1990 cards in the junk wax era. A raw copy still sells for about $2 USD. The Pro Set is how a fan says goodbye for the price of a coffee. After shipping fees, of course.

Mike Ditka Rookie Card | Graded Breakdown

The rookie is where the smart money went. His 1962 Topps #17 sold about as often as the Pro Set, but its median PSA 4 price jumped 54 percent on Oct. 9 over the year before.

When we checked late on Oct. 10, sellers wanted $2,750 USD for a PSA 6, about $950 USD more than any PSA 6 had sold for since Oct. 9.

Most of his other playing-days cards came along for the ride. His 1963 Topps and 1966 Philadelphia cards have risen by more than 40 percent at their most traded PSA grades.

The news of the death for a prominent sports figure drove all-time highs in sales and volume for the late Hall of Famer. Nostalgia mixed with a bit of speculation.

Kobe broke the other way

When Kobe Bryant died in 2020, the cheap card exploded. His raw 1996 Fleer Metal sold for 40 to 70 times its old price, while his PSA 10 Topps Chrome Refractor rose 74 percent, as our Sept. 1 piece laid out.

Kobe's new buyers wanted a Kobe rookie, not the best one. They bid up the cheapest. Ditka's buyers wanted any Ditka card, too.

One likely reason the results split is surprise. Kobe died suddenly at 41, setting off a rush that swamped even a common 1996 card. Ditka was 86. Sellers kept filling Pro Set orders at about $2 USD. The premium landed on his scarcer playing-days cards instead.

History says the bump won't last

The rush faded as fast as it came. Sales with his name fell to 174 by Sunday. That was still about 18 times his usual pace but a fifth of Friday's. Our Sept. 1 piece argued that a death creates attention, not scarcity.

When Jim Brown, Dick Butkus and Pete Rose died, their rookies jumped about as much in their first week as Ditka's has in his first days. Three months later, most of that jump was gone.5

Rose's junk wax cards played out the Pro Set story, too. After he died in September 2024, his 1989 Topps manager card sold more often and kept selling for about $1.50 USD.

If Ditka follows Brown, Butkus and Rose, his rookie will be close to its old price by early next year.

What to watch this week

Three rookie auctions closing from Oct. 15 to 17 are the first real test of the new prices. Most bidding action happens right before the auction closes. We'll add the results next week.

Notes

1. Chicago Bears, "Bears legend Mike Ditka passes away at 86," Oct. 9, 2026; NFL.com, "Mike Ditka dies at age 86," Oct. 9, 2026. Neither gives a cause of death. ↩
2. Chicago Bears, Oct. 9, 2026, for the 1988 enshrinement, the 1985 season, Super Bowl XX and the 1961 Rookie of the Year season; Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 1988. ↩
3. Card Hedge's daily count of completed sales whose records mention Mike Ditka, by UTC day, read at 9:50 a.m. Pacific on Oct. 12. A UTC day ends at 5 p.m. Pacific. The 30-day average covers Sept. 9 to Oct. 8. ↩
4. Completed sales recorded by Card Hedge at every grade of the 1962 Topps #17, 1963 Topps #62, 1964 Philadelphia #17, 1965 Philadelphia #19, 1966 Philadelphia #32, 1967 Philadelphia #29, 1968 Topps #162, 1989 Pro Set #53 and 1990 Pro Set #59, read from 9:50 to 9:54 a.m. Pacific on Oct. 12, when the newest sale on file was from 7:59 a.m. Times are Pacific. Counts and prices since Oct. 9 use only sales whose own page CardWire opened: 299 of 325 records. CardWire left out 13 listings the seller ended without a sale, one copy of a different card, 11 records whose page showed no sale or could not be read, and one altered copy whose two records give different sale dates. The 30-day and year-before counts are Card Hedge's records. "The year before" runs from Oct. 9, 2025 to 8 a.m. Pacific on Oct. 9, 2026. ↩
5. Card Hedge's recorded sales by PSA certificate for each card, read Oct. 12, 2026. "First week" compares the median of days 0 to 6 after each death with the 90 days before; "three months later" uses days 60 to 120. Sales per window: Brown PSA 4, 11, 13 and 5; Butkus PSA 4, 3, 3 and 6; Rose PSA 4, 14, 9 and 9; Rose PSA 6, 8, 6 and 8. Ditka's PSA 4 uses the same base: his six Oct. 9 sales (median $525 USD) against the four in the 90 days before (median $395 USD), a 33 percent rise. Against the year before, it is 54 percent. Rose's 1989 Topps #505 raw sold at a $1.64 USD median in the 90 days before his death and $1.49 USD in the first week after. ↩

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