Baseball Cards

[HeinekenMan]

On impulse, I checked the card section at the local Target and spotted 2007 Topps. I snagged a box and opened them. I guess I'm nostalgic for those long-ago days when I'd drop $10 on three separate trips to the store so that I could build a set.

I sold my collection several years ago so I could make a car payment during a brief period of unemployment. I got shafted by my friend, and it still hurts to think about it. But I've slowly rebuilt my collection, primarily with older rookie cards. I tried to do a Sweet Shot collection and fell a few autographed cards short. I'm hoping for better luck with the 2007 Topps baseball, but there are tons of parallels, etc.

Any other collectors/former collectors out there with stories to tell or memories to share?

 

[Write-brained]

I used to collect in the mid to late 80s when I was in middle and high school. I stopped when one of my friends ... not sure which one it was ... stole my book containing my best ones ...

What's sad is I think of those cards now and realize they wouldn't have near the value they did then ... Mattingly, Boggs, Gwynn rookies ... can't remember the others

I still have some of the 82, 83 and 84 sets ...

 

[MartinEnigmatica]

I remember taking my collection out almost every weekend as a kid, reorganizing them in plastic sheets, often just looking at them. In one particularly memorable incident, I took them all out to sort, and my brother kicked them into a pile and started dancing on them. He bent my Ken Griffey Jr. rookie, which I tried to make him pay for physically...but he was and still is much, much bigger. I still have the bent card, too.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

All 5,000 or so of the cards I have hold little or no value today. I tried to sell a bunch of them a few months ago in Lexington and the dealer I went to said they were pretty much worthless.

 

[Norman Stansfield]

I sold my entire collection for $6,000 two summers ago.

The majority of the money, though, came from the countless autographs I had gotten over the years when I was a kid and used to stake out the stadiums and such.

The baseball cards were largely a throw-in by myself to make the deal work, I'm sad to say. Because it was a blast collecting them.

 

[Cadet]

My dad used to buy us wax packs every so often, just because. It was great to get them.

I've got a specific player that I collect, and if I see a card show in the mall or pass by one of the few card stores remaining, I can't help but stop and see if they've got any I don't have.

 

[Chef]

Does Gretzky (I think) still own the infamous Honus Wagner card?

 

[SilvioDante]

I was really, really into it. My dad would walk to 7-11 for a pack of smokes every day and bring me with him, and I'd get a pack of Topps baseball cards. I have an enormous collection that's still housed at my mom and dad's place, including a 1980 Topps complete set (though not in mint condition, not by a long shot) that was assembled simply through the daily stroll to 7-11 plus purchasing a few cards (like 14 or 15 of them) from a card dealer a few years later for a dime apiece or so.

One of the things I most look forward to having a child - if it's a boy - is getting him hooked on the hobby, as well. I actually had a dream the other night about having a young son and participating in his card collection with him and I woke up wanting to have a baby more than I ever have before.

 

[Cadet]

Silvio, you don't have to wait for a boy. Girls like collecting baseball cards, too. I was more into it than my brother was. :)

 

[SilvioDante]

Silvio, you don't have to wait for a boy. Girls like collecting baseball cards, too. I was more into it than my brother was. :)

Hope so. I just don't want to seem like I'm trying to turn a daughter into the son I never had, you know? Hope she comes by it naturally.

 

[John]

There a couple of boxes in my old room at my parents' house. I'm not sure how much stuff I have is worth anything - I know I have a Mark McGwire rookie card and some unopened packs of Upper Deck cards from the first year they were printed -- but written all over the boxes is "Do Not Throw Away."

Next time I'm home, though that might be until July, I might go through them to see what's worth saving.

 

[playthrough]

I too was big into baseball cards probably around ages 10-15, which for me was the mid-80s. My favorite uncle gave me a complete Topps set for every birthday and the smaller "traded" set for Christmas. The biggest purchase of my life at the time was the $150 or so I spent on a big case of plastic sheets to bind and catalog them all. I was spectacularly anal about them.

Now they just take up basement space. I'd seriously consider unloading them for a few grand, if they're worth that much (maybe not given the predominance of mid-80s cards, seems like those were the glut years?). My nostalgia for baseball is all but gone.

 

[Norman Stansfield]

Does Gretzky (I think) still own the infamous Honus Wagner card?

Nope. He and Bruce McNall sold that years ago, before McNall went to prison.

 

[buckweaver]

I collected from 1987 to ~1995.

After the strike, prices on packs quickly rose from the $0.25 on which I built my collection ... to $2, then $2.75, then close to $4 and $5. ... And instead of the Big Three/Four, putting out 700 cards apiece, one set per company (and maybe a Topps Traded set, too) -- there suddenly were about 50 different "premium" sets to look for every year, and it was all too overwhelming ... and expensive.

Most of my cards -- the ones that are still left in my parents' basement -- are probably worthless now.

I still have one set that I've kept with me -- my first and only one, 1987 Topps. It was the least valuable Topps set ever made, but it was my first and it was my favorite. Love those wood grains. :D

But I never collected for money anyway, and wouldn't have sold them even when they were worth something.

Now, I collect funky cards of one player (Glavine) when they catch my eye -- I like retro-looking cards like the 2004 Topps Cracker Jacks and the '05 Turkey Reds.

But I don't think I'll ever get into collecting like I did when I was a kid. ... Still nothing like the thrill of opening a pack (Toys 'R' Us sometimes sells a box of like 20 random packs for $10, and sometimes I'll buy a box just to feel like a kid again)

 

[HeinekenMan]

I started collecting hockey cards when Gretzky was a rookie. I'm almost sure I had his rookie. From that, I transitioned into baseball and football with the occasional pack of basketball cards. I remember putting together a hand-collated 1981 Topps set after buying pack after pack at the local IGA store.

In '84 and '85, my parents bought me complete sets. I was a big collector by then. I had almost three complete 1985 Topps sets. By 1990, I had turned it into a business. I bought and sold like a day-trader. I had a knack for knowing who was going to make it big and who was a flash in the pan. I bought the cheaper rookies for 5 cents a pop and snatched up hot rookie cards like Jerry Rice a few months before the price went soaring. I worked and lived in a card shop for a year before it closed.

Prior to my senior year, I made about $500 at a card show. I bought a $130 pair of Air Jordans and some clothes. I was the coolest guy in school. After high school, though, the collection just sat and collected dust. Within a year, none of my cards were the hot items that collectors wanted. My Cal Ripkens and George Bretts got old and stale. The kids werent' even sure who these guys were.

Then the card industry went crazy with inserts and multiple sets and rookie cards were being printed as soon as a guy got drafted. I went from collecting maybe six different cards of my favorite player to collecting 50 in a single year and then still not having special insert cards that were priced at hundreds of dollars.

Today, I don't buy many packs. I spent $25 today, and I could probably by a nice Curt Flood rookie or something for that price. And that's really what I prefer. Some of the older cards have more signfiicance to me in the larger realm of baseball's story. We argue constantly about who is "the greatest ever." I hardly care. I like to collect the rookies of those guys who were the first greats. Lou Brook on the basepaths, Sandy Koufax on the mound.

Anyway, if you just want to give your cards to charity, let me know. ;-)

 

[Martin_Lane]

I collected them like crazy when I was a kid, back in the 1960's. We're talking thousands of cards. It's surprising I have any teeth left now, considering the bubble gum. I bought some sets in the late 1960's when they first started coming out in ads in the Sporting News. I believe they all went into a big box.

Eventually, I got rid of them them all -- gave them away or threw them out. To be fair, they weren't in great shape because of getting bounced around, and there were all sorts of doubles of the early 1960's cards (how many Doc Edwards cards did I need?). I think if they had plastic sheets back then in the Stone Age, I would have kept them.

Then I bought sets in the late 70's and 80's once I started earning money, and went back to the 1973 set with my buying (before that, the cards got really expensive). Sold some of them here and there in the early 90's. Then I got to the point a few years ago where I had the collection sitting in my closet, and I figured they would be happier being in a more appreciative home. So, I sold them on eBay. Got enough to buy new golf clubs, which was fine.

It was kind of a charming hobby back in the 1960's, because there was no rookie card-mania or thought that it was an investment. I used to love the little cartoons that went on the back of the cards ("Jhonny plays the guitar in his spare time"). I still stop and stare at them in the store once in a while, though.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

All 5,000 or so of the cards I have hold little or no value today. I tried to sell a bunch of them a few months ago in Lexington and the dealer I went to said they were pretty much worthless.

Could be, but dealers always tell you what you have is worthless.

 

[HeinekenMan]

All 5,000 or so of the cards I have hold little or no value today. I tried to sell a bunch of them a few months ago in Lexington and the dealer I went to said they were pretty much worthless.

Could be, but dealers always tell you what you have is worthless.

Yes, and having been a dealer, it's generally true. The reality is that there are a select few cards that customers will buy. If you don't have those cards on your table, you might as well be selling blank pieces of paper.

Many cards may have value, but few people want to buy a card unless they believe it will be worth more in the future. I know this because, when someone approached me with a collection, I generally looked through it to find the same kinds of cards I have in my own collection. And I knew from my own experience that those cards wouldn't sell. So the issue becomes a matter of overhead. You might sell every card you buy for a profit, but if it's only a 4 percent profit and it takes 20 years to make, it's not worth the trouble.

That said, there are a few dealers who want you to believe that what you have sucks. Then they'll convince you to sell your thing for next to nothing. These types are willing to do this to little kids. They're scumbags.

The reality is that card collecting isn't really a good business. It's nickel and dime stuff. If you want to make money with cards, you only need to buy a few a week. I had a friend who tripled his money on a Nolan Ryan rookie toward the end of Ryan's career. His source was a sixth grade teacher who was just happy to be talking about baseball cards with a younger generation. He sold cards for what the price guide valued them at. Then my friend, ever the businessman, would find someone who wanted this hot card. A guy walked in one day buying on consignment for a collector. He paid $800 for a Ryan my friend bought for $250.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I was really, really into it. My dad would walk to 7-11 for a pack of smokes every day and bring me with him, and I'd get a pack of Topps baseball cards. I have an enormous collection that's still housed at my mom and dad's place, including a 1980 Topps complete set (though not in mint condition, not by a long shot) that was assembled simply through the daily stroll to 7-11 plus purchasing a few cards (like 14 or 15 of them) from a card dealer a few years later for a dime apiece or so.

One of the things I most look forward to having a child - if it's a boy - is getting him hooked on the hobby, as well. I actually had a dream the other night about having a young son and participating in his card collection with him and I woke up wanting to have a baby more than I ever have before.

Sounds a lot like me. Any change I could scrounge up went to Topps packs from a local store. Mostly wax packs, but if I had the money, I loved the three-packs wrapped in plastic, because you could see the front and back cards in each of the compartments.

My prime years were the late 70s, early 80s, but I go back to the early and mid 70s, too. I have that 1980 set too, compiled pretty much the same way. I used to flip cards in school. I still have all of my cards (along with various other sports-related things from when I was a kid; never was into autographs, though. Still don't get it). Wouldn't think of selling them, not for all the money in the world. It's a part of my childhood I want to hold onto.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

Ah, baseball cards. Like legal lottery tickets for the young set. But I actually got into a card-buying binge around the time I graduated high school in 1991, and stayed in it until about 1994. A lot of my friends have that same time frame. I actually really dug the Fleer Ultra and (to a lesser degree) Topps Stadium Club lines. They had a nice slick finish and some cool rare cards before they went overboard with the specialty cards.

I think I still have them at my mom's house -- a bunch of basketball, a few baseball and football and, my prize catch, a scattering of Fleer Ultra Beavis and Butt-head cards. Those were the days.