Roger Staubach rookie card, 1963 Life magazine cover attract high bids
Today’s NFL pinball-machine passing numbers dwarf the statistics of the past. As such, quarterback legends like Roger Staubach continually get pushed further and further down among all-time passing leaders.
No matter: Roger the Dodger’s impact on the game is safe for the ages, from his standout college career (he won the Heisman Trophy as a junior in 1963, leading Navy to a No. 2 national ranking) to his stellar work as the Dallas Cowboys’ leader in the 1970s. During that illustrious decade, he led Dallas to six NFC championship games and four Super Bowl appearances, winning two. Staubach retired in 1980 with 22,700 passing yards, 153 touchdowns, and a .746 winning percentage (85–29) as a starter.
In the hobby, Staubach remains a revered figure. And not surprisingly, it’s his 1972 Topps rookie card that inspires the most activity. A recent eBay seller listed a Mint-condition example, graded PSA 9, and watched it draw 57 bids, soaring to a realized price of $18,920.
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Lesser-condition examples of Staubach’s rookie become far more budget-friendly. To wit: An ungraded but top-condition specimen drew 39 bids and sold for $2,151. (The listing’s photo showed it to be well-centered, with a clean print job and impressive corners.) Still another Staubach rookie, this one graded SGC 8, sold for $1,255 on 37 bids.
Staubach’s second-year card is one of the hobby’s great values. On eBay, we spotted a slew of 7-grade examples that sold for prices of just $65, $60, $51 and $50.
Also See: Former Cowboys star Dennis Thurman has fond memories of career, collecting Willie Mays card
THAT'S LIFE: THE RAREST ROGER
Speaking of Staubach, if you’re a magazine collector, you’ll love this. A single lot of two Life magazine issues dated Nov. 29, 1963 sold on eBay for $3,453. The catch:
• One featured the originally scheduled cover—a Staubach action shot from a Navy game accompanied by the line, “The Greatest College Quarterback.”
• The other featured fallen President John F. Kennedy, whose assassination happened seven days prior to the cover date.
It might surprise you, but the bulk of the value behind that two-magazine lot’s four-figure price isn’t the JFK issue. It’s the Staubach variation. The enormity of the JFK assassination story prompted Life’s editors to bump the Staubach cover and rush together a tribute to Kennedy.
However, a few hundred thousand copies of the Staubach cover supposedly were printed before the JFK event occurred. Most were scrapped, but a few copies have survived, one of them turning up in the eBay lot featured here. It’s commonly called “The Lost Staubach issue,” and it’s a real rarity. In fact, another copy recently sold for nearly $4,000 at Goldin’s Auctions.