Football
Football Error Cards: What They Sell For
If you want to learn football error cards, start with 1990 Pro Set. The company kept revising the set while it was still being printed — fixing stats, swapping photos, pulling cards — so many cards exist in two or more versions. Most of those versions sell for the same few dollars. A few do not, and the difference is often something you can see in five seconds.
Below are three Pro Set cards that show the three outcomes you will run into. Prices are SportsCardsPro sold-price figures in US dollars, read on September 28, 2026. SportsCardsPro is the sports-card side of PriceCharting.
Fred Marion #204: an error worth far more than its fix
The first version of Marion’s card shows another player’s loose belt hanging in the photo in a way that looked like something else entirely. Pro Set airbrushed the belt out of later printings.
- With the belt — $58.40 ungraded.
- Belt removed — $1.50 ungraded.
That is close to forty times the price for a card that is otherwise identical. It also shows how messy the listings are: the same page records a $150.00 sale on May 18, 2026 and a $75.00 sale on July 4, both sold as the belt version — and a $1.00 sale on May 2 titled “No Hanging Belt”, filed in with them.
Check yours: look over the photo for the hanging belt. If it is there, you have the early version. Photograph that part of the card close up when you list it — that detail is the whole price.
Joe Montana #2: an error that adds nothing
One line of text on Montana’s card mentions Jim Kelly. The first version credits Kelly with 3,521 yards; the corrected version says 3,130.
- “3,521 yards” version — $1.67 ungraded, $67.00 in a PSA 10. PSA has graded 41 a 10.
- “3,130 yards” version — $1.23 ungraded, $113.85 in a PSA 10 (built on only six PSA 10 sales).
Same player, a genuine mistake, and no premium: ungraded, the two sell for about the same, and in a PSA 10 the corrected card is the dearer one on the sales recorded. A number buried in the small print is not what buyers are paying for. Keep it in mind before paying extra for any card sold as an “error”.
Barry Sanders #1: a version that only pays once graded
Sanders’s Rookie of the Year card came in packs, and a separate promo version was handed out at a trade show in Hawaii.
- Hawaii trade show version — $3.63 ungraded, $583.32 in a PSA 10. PSA has graded 56 a 10.
- Pack version — $2.25 ungraded, $263.57 in a PSA 10. PSA has graded 176 a 10.
Ungraded, the two sit within a couple of dollars of each other. In a PSA 10 — where the promo is about a third as common — it sells for more than twice as much. Scarcity only shows up in the price once condition is locked in.
Check yours: compare both sides against pictures of the two versions on a checklist site before you grade it. If you are paying to grade a card, you want to know which version it will come back as.
The pattern
- Visible beats hidden. A change you can see on the front (the belt) carries money. A number in the small print (the yardage) did not.
- When it was fixed decides which version is scarce. A correction made early leaves the error rare. A correction made late leaves the fix rare. Check a checklist before assuming the error is the prize.
- Read the sale, not the title. Sellers mislabel versions. Look at the photo in every sale you use to price your card.
More on spotting versions of any card, including fakes and altered cards, in card errors and variations: how to spot them. For planned versions, see football card parallels.
What this looks like on Waffles
Every football pack we sell is four real cards we physically hold, and the value we show for each card carries the date it was last set — so you can check any card you pull against a price guide yourself. See what is in the football packs right now and the published odds.