Baseball Cards

[expendable]

I collected from middle school up until sometime in high school when I discovered how much fun beer and smokes were. Quit the smokes years ago, I don't drink as much, but I haven't picked back up the cardboard habit.

 

[BYH]

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.

My greatest feat in card collecting was snapping up five Mark McGwire 1985 US Olympic cards for a quarter apiece in the middle of May 1987. My buddies laughed at me. He homered about 10 times in the subsequent week and that card was worth $10 or $20. All of a sudden they wanted to trade me their entire collections for McGwire. I turned 'em all down. Glorious, glorious days.

It's funny this is a topic today. I was telling a fellow SportsJournalists.com friend last night that baseball cards were my first great distraction. I bought cards as far back as 1980, but I didn't really collect until 1986, when a buddy and I got hooked on collecting via the 1986 Topps mini "League Leaders" cards. Those cards weren't worth the paper they were printed on back then, never mind now, and it was only a 66-card set. But my buddy and I each needed one card to complete the set, and we got it at the same time in separate packs. I gave him Floyd Bannister, he gave me Britt Burns, we high-fived and life was never any better.

For the next three years, I spent every dime I made on baseball cards. My first real set was the 1986 Topps, which I completed when I spent about five bucks on wax packs in search of Joel friggin Youngblood. At one point, I traded all the commons I had in the stack (of course, every 1986 Topps card is a common now) for another pack.

I went particularly crazy in 1987, when I put together six Topps sets. These are gonna be worth a fortune! They're just like the 1952 cards! Look at the wood panels! Uhh, no. I was so obsessive back then I even put together a full set of 1987 Sportflics and 1986 and 1987 Fleer All-Star Stickers. Do you know how many damn packs of Sportflics I had to buy to get all 200 cards? A lot.

I still remember my greatest day of card collecting. One Friday after school in eighth grade, I went to the local card shop and bought a lot of Star Stickers and Donruss cards. I got the Jose Canseco Star Sticker AND the Donruss Rated Rookie. I floated home.

I started to fall out of the habit in 1989 and was pretty much finished by 1991. By that point I had other things to spend my money on, and the hobby was beginning to lose its innocence. I had a little nostalgic spurt right after I graduated college--I bought like three boxes of 1991 Fleer and put together a whole set--and I still get my wife a couple packs of cards every Christmas as a stocking stuffer.

As noted earlier in this thread, the cards from the industry's most popular era probably aren't worth the paper on which they're printed. But that's OK. They're good nostalgia that hopefully I can share someday with my nephew or (gasp) my own child (gasp). I still have them all in a closet in my old bedroom, and my mother, who throws out everything, has apparently remembered my 20-year-old orders not to throw out any of my cards.

Good times.

 

[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.

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.

I had one of my card books with me that day. He said he'd pay me $10 for the whole thing when I knew I had some damn good cards in it. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't sell them.

 

[Write-brained]

The best part about collecting cards was trading with friends.

I wasn't very shrewd when it came to card shows and the like ... I always bought the cards I coveted for near or at the cost they were worth ...

I still have a few sets, all in near-mint condition. A dealer once offered me about $15 for about $80 worth of sets ... so I still have 'em. Wonder if I'd have better luck on EBay.

 

[buckweaver]

They're good nostalgia that hopefully I can share someday with my nephew or (gasp) my own child (gasp). I still have them all in a closet in my old bedroom, and my mother, who throws out everything, has apparently remembered my 20-year-old orders not to throw out any of my cards.

And make sure she doesn't either.

I grew up my entire life listening to my father lament about his sheet of Pete Rose rookie cards getting thrown out by my grandmother because he wouldn't clean up his room.

My mother learned verrrrry quickly not to throw away mine.

 

[CapeCodder]

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.

They just sold that a couple of weeks ago for $2.35M.

 

[Write-brained]

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.

They just sold that a couple of weeks ago for $2.35M.

I know it's because of market saturation but it's still a little odd that even though the baseball card boom has died the value of the Wagner cards keep rising exponentially ... millionaires :

 

[buckweaver]

It's because there are only like nine of them still existing, and this one's the only one anywhere close to mint (it's PSA 8, I believe.) Only about 25 authentic Wagner cards still around, in any condition.

Has nothing to do with the baseball card boom or fall.

 

[JBHawkEye]

In my hometown, the old-timer at the corner grocery store would always give us an update on when the new cards were coming in. He would always put a box aside for my brother and me, because he knew we would be in that day.

Got some great cards out of those boxes. Most are still in near-mint shape.

I miss the old Topps gum. Great stuff.

 

[pallister]

Somewhere I have a book of autographs I got when my dad worked at Wrigley Field in the late 70-early 80s. Unfortunately, the Cubs absolutely sucked then (even by Cubs standards), so I don't think autographs by Barry Foote, Tim Blackwell, Lynn McLaughlin, Miguel DeLeon, Rick Reuschel, etc. are worth much. Probably the biggest name in that book is Bill Buckner. Or possibly the late Donnie Moore.

Also, my Pete Rose autographed baseball ain't worth what it used to be.

 

[RayKinsella]

My father, who is around 60, used to collect when he was a kid. So did his 9 older brothers and one younger brother.

When every one of them left the nest, they passed their collection down to the youngest, who got them all after more than a decade and then sold them all and bought a house.

I started collecting back in 1985 and was pretty hot and heavy with it because for 50 cents I could buy an ice cream and a pack of Topps at Thrifty. I collected until about 1994 when pack prices jumped (as previously stated). I, like everyone else, have a ton of 1986 and 1987 Topps. By the way, those are worth a lot more money now because of the rookies.

I dropped collecting during my high school years, then picked it up again after I joined the Navy (Like my Dad, I gave all my cards to my younger brother when I enlisted). I didn't collect as much when I was in the service though. After I got out, I worked at a card shop for about a year and a half. It was a blast, I got a ton of good cards off of customers that just needed some cash. However, all I did was spend my paycheck on $75 dollar boxes and I would get about $30 worth of cards. I was tired of only getting rookie cards that were worth $5 one day and 5 cents the next because he wasn't the next big thing. It was then, that I realized I was wasting money on pieces of cardboard. I then got into autographs, because they actually held their value.

I still buy a few packs here and there, but nothing serious. I have about 5,000 cards sitting in my closet, but nothing worth much. I think the best card I have is worth like $80 bucks. At least it was 5 years ago.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

1987-89 Topps were way, way oversupplied. In contrast, 1984 Donruss, a nice set, was undersupplied. 1984 Fleer Update even more so.

 

[pallister]

If only Don Mattingly had stayed healthy, that '84 Donruss rookie would have been worth some cash.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

I loved that card.

One of the new hot error cards is a Randy Johnson rookie from 1989 Fleer (the **** Face set). In the original printing he's shot with a Marlboro sign in the distant background (looks like the Vet to me, could be wrong). Subsequent versions have the sign blacked out.

 

[rpmmutant]

I found a bunch of old cards in the garage. My wife and I moved a couple times in recent years, and didn't quite know where they were. There are cards in there that are probably worth more to me than anyone else. Fernando Valenzuela rookie card, Kirk Gibson rookie card. I managed to get a Magic Johnson and Larry Bird rookie card, but it has Jan Van Bredokoff in the middle, not Dr. J. I think that's worth something. I'm just glad I found them. Now I can give them to my sons one day and try to explain to them why Valenzuela, Gibson and Magic are important to me.

 

[RayKinsella]

1987-89 Topps were way, way oversupplied. In contrast, 1984 Donruss, a nice set, was undersupplied. 1984 Fleer Update even more so.

They were, but thanks to kids not giving a **** about them, i.e. using them to turn their Schwin into a Harley Davidson, they are worth a little bit more now. Lots of good rookie cards in 1987.

 

[Herky_Jerky]

Finally, a topic I can get into.

I remember the first (or one of the first) card I ever owned was a 1988 Topps Mitch Williams card. When we moved to Illinois that year I got into collecting pretty hot and heavy. Of course 1988-1994 was one of the biggest slumps in baseball cards in terms of value.

The one set I was always after was the 1989 Topps. I bought so many packs and boxes of packs but I was never able to complete it. I may have finally bought the complete set, but I can't remember.

Even though I wasn't born until 1982, I had a mammoth amount of cards from the 70s and early 80s, because the guy who'd lived in my house before me gave all his cards to a younger neighbor kid, who then subsequently passed them on to me.

I remember being little and, instead of having lemonade stands, my friend and I would have a baseball card stand. Yeah, I don't think I ever actually sold a card, but whatever.

Like a lot of people apparently, I stopped buying packs in the mid-90s when they jacked up the prices. Through high school, I would occasionally go to a local store and buy boxes of packs from the late 80s. I never had any cards that worth anything, but I was always trying to make complete sets.

My mom always bought me and my older sister complete sets for our birthdays. My sister still has all her cards, and when I moved across the country about a year ago, I didn't want to lug my cards with me, so I gave them all to her. At least they're in a safe place.

Hopefully she'll pass down all of the cards to her son. He should have an incredible collection when he's ready to inherit them. I already know my mom has been buying him complete sets for his birthday ever since he was born.

 

[kingcreole]

I remember when I thought my 1987 Fleer Will Clark was untouchable for trade. Now it's worth about a buck.

Upper Deck ruined baseball card collecting. Neat cards for sure, but once they came out, gone were the cardboard-stock, gum-stained, wax-pack baseball card packs.

I still have a handful of cards I keep a pretty close tab on. I have a 1960 Mickey Mantle as my prized card.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

One of the girls in our office just came in to show me some "old" baseball cards she discovered while remodeling her house.
She was pulling out old baseboard and found five or six cards behind them.
She has a 1952 Topps Billy Martin rookie card, and a '52 Topps Minnie Minnoso rookie card. She also has a 1955 Ray Boone card.
They are all in pretty good condition too.

She about flipped when I told her the two '52 Topps were worth about $1,300.

Few of my cards are that old. I quit collecting in 1989. I don't own a single card older than 1992. I have about 45,000 cards in boxes and books sitting in my closet, next to my old comic book collection.

I was thinking about those cards the other day. I don't think I'll get rid of them. Maybe one day, I'll get back into collecting them.

Aside from the '87 Topps and '84 Donruss cards, I loved the Score brand cards. I have about three complete sets of their first run of cards. One factory set and two hand-built sets.

 

[expendable]

Aside from the '87 Topps and '84 Donruss cards, I loved the Score brand cards. I have about three complete sets of their first run of cards. One factory set and two hand-built sets.

My favorite card out of the early Score series, and one of my favorites all time, was the Bo Jackson football/baseball card.