Sports Card Collecting

[LooneyPlatoons]

Any of you into it?  Any hits you are stoked on?  Pride of your collection? Any places or websites you would recommend?

 

I pulled a Corey Seager auto from Bowman Chrome the other day.

[gotbeer]

I used to collect a lot.  But got rid of most of it.  But I still have a few that I really like.

91-92 Topps Hockey gold parallel set.  This is before short printed cards.  And was the first parallel set.  Took me forever to complete, since A) I'm in southern California and nobody had hockey cards.  B ) It's like a 500+ card set. 

I also have a 94 signature rookies set of signed cards.  I believe it was 94.  Notable signatures in the set were Derek Jeter and Garret Anderson.  This is one of those sets I forgot about, till about 3 years ago when I decided all this crap was taking up too much room so just sell the shit.  I think the Jeter came back a bgs 8.5 or something like that.  And I spent a few bucks to complete the set full of signatures.

So back in the day when emailing got popular, I was talking with a chick in Canada.  She was telling me about how this one kid was coming up in the junior hockey circuit and he might be good some day.  She mailed me a card, signed by him.  Again, 3 years ago, looking through crap of what to get rid of and what to keep.  Turns out that hockey player was Jaret Stoll of Kings fame/MGM pool fame/bonking Erin Andrews fame.  Cards probably not worth much.  And I should send it to Beckett to get it slabbed.  But it's one of those cool conversation pieces.

[Adam]

I have a whole bunch of empty copenhagen tins from the Ersty days

[mrwicked]

the story behind that honus wagner card is crazy.

the one dude finally admitting to cutting the edges like 30 years ago. which is why it was so freakishly perfect and sold for millions.

he's in jail now.

http://keitholbermann.mlblogs.com/2012/07/26/fbi-the-honus-wagner-was-trimmed/

[ten ocho recon scout]

7 hours ago, mrwicked said:

the story behind that honus wagner card is crazy.

the one dude finally admitting to cutting the edges like 30 years ago. which is why it was so freakishly perfect and sold for millions.

he's in jail now.

http://keitholbermann.mlblogs.com/2012/07/26/fbi-the-honus-wagner-was-trimmed/

Damn!

Was really into it as a kid. Briefly (like a minth or so) got back into it when i was maybe 17/18.

Have some stuff in shoeboxes i knew i coukd sell someday when i was older and buy a house....then it turned out my jose canseco rated rookie, walley joyner rookie and mcgwire usa card are worth something like $3.00 combined. 

Could never sell my devon white collection, even though im sure its worth a mint...

[Angel Dog and Beer]

I have those same exact cards, plus a few other rookie gems like Greg Jeffries, Mike Greenwell and Lee Stevens.  I plan on retiring after cashing in those babies.

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

Me and a couple friends collected until we were 15 or 16 going to local card stores, card shows at the mall, Frank n Sons and so on.  Rookie cards were fun to collect until they came out with more and more sets then even when you got into the "best" set the rookie cards (notably for NFL and NBA) were terribly overpriced for guys who had yet to play a game.  Around the time we got out of it card grading was about at it's peak which made it even more ridiculous.  I remember some years back when reading about bubbles over the years (starting with Dutch tulip, mortgage, etc.) they noted the sports card grading bubble and validated the fact that I thought it was a joke back then.  

I still have some complete box sets that were never opened and cards in cases but the last time I looked at them a lot of the guys never panned out.  Even the one's that did some of the cards are worth less now than they were when I was collecting because collectors mostly want new shiny rookie cards and not one from 15+ years ago.  One of my friends hocked a bunch of his cards for weed back in the day and I think he made out better than I ever will as far as what we got out of all the money we spent on sports cards. 

[mrwicked]

yeah cards were a big deal back in the day. then once they became big, all kinds of companies starting getting into it and it just flooded the market.

all that $$ we had in cards as kids, i had a zillion, complete sets and rookie cards and of course "insert" cards which were big $$. now probably not worth a $5 footlong.

remember that show on late night "shop at home" TV of those guys with heavy southern accents that would sell boxes, and open up the insert cards?

"alright let's see here, this is gonna be big. Doug from Maryland, let's see what you got. it's..... PAUL MOLITOR! omg you got the molitor, Doug can you believe it?!"

then once the card show was over they would switch to selling knives. but not just one knife.

"today we have the holy grail of knife sets. this set includes not one, not two, but 1600 beautiful knives! everything you need for your starter knife collection!"

 

[Tank]

1600 knives in a starter kit sounds just about right.

[ten ocho recon scout]

I know the market got flooded. When i was a kid there was only tops, fleer and donruss. Last i saw there were like 15 brands at least it seemed, and they all came out sith a couple sets a year (versus 1 when i was a kid). Didnt realize thats what dumped the value on them.

Funny to read greg jeffries and mike greenwell cards, definetely remember those being "next big deal" cards. Like benito santiago, and pete incaviglia.

The don mattingly rookie was the one everyone wanted (and that donruss canseco). Later that upper deck griffey. Is that one still pretty valuable?

[Brandon]

Was literally just talking about this because I ran into some kind of sports memorabilia pro. I literally have about 5-7 big ass Rubbermaid tubs full of cards that I have kept since I was a kid. I started with basketball cards in the early 90's and then it seemed out of the blue that my dad got into them and somehow convinced my family to invest in sports cards. They used to bring home boxes of cards and I'd have to put them all in their sleeves, it beyond sucked and ruined it for me.

Mostly NBA and NFL cards from the early 90's. Problem is I have no idea what to do with them all. Talking to the pro dude, it sounds like everything is different than it used to be and you have to pay someone to verify and cert your sets, etc......fuck that. That shit would take forever. I feel like I just want to throw them all up on Craigslist and say make an offer, but I know once I do that some dude is going to make a couple grand on some of the special cards in there that I forgot about.

I'd love to get rid of them somehow.

[ten ocho recon scout]

I mentioned above that i briefly got back into it when i was like 18, for about a month or two. Didnt know how big it had gotten, wss just bored at target one night and randomly bought a box. I opened it and got a pudge rodriguez autographed card....threw it in the pile of other cards that werent tim dalmon or darin erstad...few weeks later i bought a beckett to check the prices on my old cards and saw the pudge wss worth like $150...think it was all bent when i saw that...

Same time frame i bought a pack from the store and got an erstsd autograph that i guess was super rare (at that time). Guy at the store eent ape shit and offered me like $200....i was like no way man!!!!!!

Fuck

[gotbeer]

1 hour ago, Harriet said:

Was literally just talking about this because I ran into some kind of sports memorabilia pro. I literally have about 5-7 big ass Rubbermaid tubs full of cards that I have kept since I was a kid. I started with basketball cards in the early 90's and then it seemed out of the blue that my dad got into them and somehow convinced my family to invest in sports cards. They used to bring home boxes of cards and I'd have to put them all in their sleeves, it beyond sucked and ruined it for me.

Mostly NBA and NFL cards from the early 90's. Problem is I have no idea what to do with them all. Talking to the pro dude, it sounds like everything is different than it used to be and you have to pay someone to verify and cert your sets, etc......fuck that. That shit would take forever. I feel like I just want to throw them all up on Craigslist and say make an offer, but I know once I do that some dude is going to make a couple grand on some of the special cards in there that I forgot about.

I'd love to get rid of them somehow.

 

Yeah, unless it's certified, by either BGS or PSA, then the value isn't really there.  And in order to get top dollar, they have to be a PSA 10 or a BGS 9.5.  On top of that, I know for BGS, it costs about $10-15 a card to get it certified.  So in most cases, not worth it.  Really, only top dollar cards in great shape are worth it. 

Bad news is, late 80's to even current, the cards were just mass produced.  So it just killed the value on most cards.  Rumors I heard were the McGwire rookies for instance, after the value shot up, they "found" a warehouse full of those sets, and the value plummetted. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

^makes sense. 

That mcgwire usa card was "it" when i was a kid. I always assumed the price dropped because the steroid thing. Same as that canseco rated rookie.

I think i have a ripkin rookie, geynn and a few guys like that from when i was a kid...doubt theyre worth much. The ripkin rookie is probably worth less tban the billy ripkin fuckface card...

[ten ocho recon scout]

Remember beanie babies? I got one when i went to an all star game back when they were big. Right after i got, some guy offered me 50 bucks for it. I laughed at him and said sure. My friend was smarter and got like 250 for it a few innings later.

Id say we both did far better than the people who bought them off us

[ABC]

 

[Brandon]

I'm having PTSD when he started stacking the card box sets.

[mrwicked]

15 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Remember beanie babies? I got one when i went to an all star game back when they were big. Right after i got, some guy offered me 50 bucks for it. I laughed at him and said sure. My friend was smarter and got like 250 for it a few innings later.

Id say we both did far better than the people who bought them off us

this is a famous photo, a divorcing couple separating their beanie baby collection in court:

[ABC]

[mtangelsfan]

14 hours ago, #CF8 said:

 

The wavy screen on that video is giving me a migraine.

[Tank]

back in the 60s baseball cards were for fun, and no one thought of them as collectibles, so we played with them and did all kinds of things to them. my friends and i liked to draw stuff on the faces of the players, like beards, mustaches, glasses, stitches, and black eyes. it was hilarious for us.

fast forward 30+ years. i'm going through my card collection and discover i have a johnny bench rookie card. it was one of those old topps cards that showed two players, side by side. at some point in my childhood i decided that johnny needed a pair of glasses and some stitches, so i obliged. in ink. and did i do anything to ron tompkins, the no-name that shared the card with him? of course not.

$400 right down the drain on that one. still have it.

[mrwicked]

4 hours ago, Tank said:

back in the 60s baseball cards were for fun, and no one thought of them as collectibles, so we played with them and did all kinds of things to them. my friends and i liked to draw stuff on the faces of the players, like beards, mustaches, glasses, stitches, and black eyes. it was hilarious for us.

fast forward 30+ years. i'm going through my card collection and discover i have a johnny bench rookie card. it was one of those old topps cards that showed two players, side by side. at some point in my childhood i decided that johnny needed a pair of glasses and some stitches, so i obliged. in ink. and did i do anything to ron tompkins, the no-name that shared the card with him? of course not.

$400 right down the drain on that one. still have it.

nice dude.

#alleyesmatter

[maximus p]

5 hours ago, Tank said:

back in the 60s baseball cards were for fun, and no one thought of them as collectibles, so we played with them and did all kinds of things to them. my friends and i liked to draw stuff on the faces of the players, like beards, mustaches, glasses, stitches, and black eyes. it was hilarious for us.

fast forward 30+ years. i'm going through my card collection and discover i have a johnny bench rookie card. it was one of those old topps cards that showed two players, side by side. at some point in my childhood i decided that johnny needed a pair of glasses and some stitches, so i obliged. in ink. and did i do anything to ron tompkins, the no-name that shared the card with him? of course not.

$400 right down the drain on that one. still have it.

I did something similar.  I have a 1972 Topps Willie Mays.  I traded him to the Angels, with ink on the back.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

If I still had all of the cards that my mother threw away years ago, I would have paid cash for my house and had a huge nest egg in the bank.

[ten ocho recon scout]

6 hours ago, mrwicked said:

this is a famous photo, a divorcing couple separating their beanie baby collection in court:

Damn....we are a weird people to the rest of the world i bet