10 Raw Cards Under $100 Everyone Should Own

Most lists like this one bet on prospects. Mine bets on ten cards that already proved themselves, from a 1999 Pikachu to a 1977 Darth Vader. Every one of them still sells raw for under $100.

These are established cards tied to cultural icons, foundational sets and collecting categories with decades of demand behind them. The market has already decided that these cards matter.

Raw copies of all ten are easy to find. Each card also has a collector base that already exists and a PSA 10 market that sells for hundreds or thousands of dollars more than the raw card.

I priced the list again in October. Buying all ten raw costs about $381 at October prices against about $350 when this list ran in September.

No. 1: Base Set Pikachu

1999 Pokémon Base Set #58 · Unlimited

The mascot of Pokémon for the price of lunch.

The card carries Mitsuhiro Arita's original Pikachu artwork from the first English Pokémon Trading Card Game set. Raw Unlimited Yellow Cheeks copies sold for around $6 across 95 sales from late June to Oct. 19. A PSA 10 sells for around $564, with 3,110 graded.¹

Pokémon can print new Pikachu cards forever. It cannot print another Base Set.

Buy: Unlimited Yellow Cheeks. Prioritize clean surfaces and corners, and confirm the print run. For Base Set cards, just look for the shadow on the right side of the frame. 1st Edition and Shadowless copies cost far more than Unlimited. You can also look for the rarer Red Cheeks Pikachu across Unlimited, Shadowless, 1st Edition, and E3 Promo variants.

No. 2: Michael Jordan SP1

1991 Upper Deck Baseball · SP1

A Michael Jordan card for about $23.

Upper Deck made the card in 1991, years before Jordan left basketball for baseball. It shows him taking batting practice with the White Sox at Comiskey Park.

Beckett calls it one of the memorable chase cards of the hobby's biggest era.² Raw copies sold 99 times in the week to Oct. 19 alone, for around $23. A PSA 10 sells for around $1,475, with 3,188 graded.³

Buy: Sharp white borders, clean foil, strong centering. Copies are plentiful, so there is no reason to settle for an ugly copy.

No. 3: Darth Vader #7

1977 Topps Star Wars Series 1

A Darth Vader from the first Star Wars set, still under $100 raw.

A PSA 10 Darth Vader #7 sold for $206,250 at Heritage Auctions in May 2026. A comparable PSA 10 had sold for $48,000 three years earlier.⁴

Lower quality raw copies sat in a buy zone near $40-$110 in October 2026, because 1977 Topps Star Wars was never produced as a luxury collectible. PSA has graded 1,154 copies of the card and only three came back 10s.⁵

Darth Vader is the villain of the original Star Wars. This is his card from the first Topps set in 1977, printed the year the film came out.

Buy: Clean blue borders. Edge wear is obvious on this design and is exactly what separates ordinary copies from the condition market above them. You'll pay a premium for raw cards in good condition.

No. 4: Lewis Hamilton Chrome #1

2020 Topps Chrome Formula 1 · #1

The first card in Topps Chrome's first Formula 1 set belongs to Lewis Hamilton.

PSA describes 2020 Topps Chrome Formula 1 as the inaugural Topps Chrome Formula 1 set and notes that Hamilton's card #1 helped make the product popular immediately.⁶

Hamilton was already a global star before Formula 1 got its first Topps Chrome set.

Raw copies sold for around $70 from July to October 2026, PSA 10's went for around $337 over the same months. A patient buyer can still land a clean copy below $100.⁷

Buy: Base #1 rather than the image variation or the Refractor. Inspect raw copies closely because Chrome surfaces scratch easily.

No. 5: Blue-Eyes White Dragon

2002 Yu-Gi-Oh! Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon · LOB-001 Unlimited

The Charizard of Yu-Gi-Oh! still sells under $100 raw if you give up the 1st Edition stamp.

PSA calls Blue-Eyes the most important card from Yu-Gi-Oh!'s first English set and compares its collector status directly to Charizard.⁸

The 1st Edition version sits far outside this list at around $1,300 in eBay sales. Unlimited is the compromise: 26 completed sales from June to October 2026 came in around $82, though stronger Near Mint examples can push past $100. Only 143 Unlimited copies have earned a PSA 10. The five that sold since June went for around $5,000.⁹

Buy: Original LOB-001 Unlimited. Avoid modern 25th Anniversary reprints to position yourself for higher upside.

No. 6: Barry Sanders Rookie

1989 Score Football · #257

A true rookie of an all-time player, from one of the strongest football sets of the junk-wax era.

Raw copies sold 101 times from Oct. 1 to Oct. 19, for around $50. A PSA 10 sells for around $2,160. PSA has graded 37,997 copies of the card and 2,704 of them are 10s.¹⁰

Buy: Centering first. The green border makes corner and edge flaws easy to spot.

No. 7: Demonic Tutor

1994 Magic: The Gathering Revised Edition · #105

One of Magic's most influential cards, with original-era art, still trades like a game piece.

Demonic Tutor debuted in Alpha, but the Revised printing preserves Douglas Shuler's original art and the 1993-era frame at a fraction of Alpha and Beta prices.

Wizards of the Coast says the card was influential enough that "tutor" became the game's generic slang for searching a library for a card.¹¹ Revised raw copies will take $40 to $55 in October 2026.¹²

The card has been reprinted many times, but the bet here is historical identity over mechanical scarcity.

Buy: The 1994 Revised printing with Douglas Shuler art. Clean white borders and dark surfaces are worth paying a little more for.

No. 8: Luka Dončić Rated Rookie

2018 Donruss Basketball · #177

A rookie of a generational player for around $25.

Luka's Prizm #280 is the stronger canon card, but Donruss #177 is the obvious under-$100 substitute.

Raw copies sold for around $25 from late June to mid-October. A PSA 10 sells for around $113. With 12,858 PSA 10s out there, I wouldn't pay a premium for any one copy.¹³

Rated Rookie is a logo collectors have known since the 1980s. Luka is one of the defining players of his generation. His rookie still costs less than many current-year hobby packs.

Buy: Base Rated Rookie #177. Confirm the exact card before paying, because Donruss made parallel versions of it.

No. 9: Spider-Man #29

1990 Impel Marvel Universe · #29

The flagship Spider-Man card from the 1990 set carries a cited comp near $8 raw in October 2026.

Raw copies sold 98 times from late July to Oct. 18. Of the 250 copies PSA has graded as 10s, four sold in October for $1,950 to $2,750.¹⁴

The card comes from the 1990 Impel Marvel Universe Series 1 set, the product that established the modern mass-market Marvel card category.¹⁵

There are better-looking Spider-Man cards, and far rarer ones. Few are 8 bucks and carry this much hobby history.

Buy: Clean raw copies, in quantity if you like the thesis. At around $8, pay up for the sharpest copy you can find.

No. 10: Ken Griffey Jr. Rated Rookie

1989 Donruss Baseball · #33

A real 1989 Griffey rookie for about $4.

Griffey's 1989 Upper Deck #1 is the rookie everyone knows. Raw copies of it sold for around $95 in October, against around $4 for Donruss #33 across 98 sales in the week to Oct. 19.¹⁶

Donruss #33 carries the Rated Rookie logo. A PSA 10 sells for around $1,150, with 2,249 graded.

Buy: The base #33 with sharp corners. If the Upper Deck #1 is out of your budget, this is the Griffey rookie to own.

Where I'd start with $100

I'd start with the Jordan SP1, the Sanders rookie and the Griffey Donruss because each one sold at least 98 times in October. Those three cost about $77 raw together. Add a clean Pikachu at around $6 and you're still under $100.

The card I'd save up for is the Vader. A clean raw copy is the closest most collectors will get to the PSA 10 that sold for $206,250 in May.