Sports Cards

Cards aren't really where it's at anymore. It appears that they're making a comeback, but memorabilia is still the mainstay of sports collectibles. You can sell some of the complete sets from the 70s/80s/early 90s for $250-$500 but it really depends on the series (Topps, Donruss, Fleer, etc.) and what rookie cards were a part of that set.

Memorabilia can't be beat though. It's so much more presentable for the sake of display - signed and game used equipment, seats from old torn down stadiums, advertising pieces, etc.

I used to collect baseball cards. Should probably look for my old binders and see if I can get a couple bucks for the "collection". The three cards I had that I remember being somewhat valuable when I was still collecting them were a Ben Macdonald Upper Deck rookie card(not the error one), Mark McGwire second year Topps card, and Randy Johnson Donruss "Rated Rookie" card.

First two appear to be worth $1-5 now. And the Randy Johnson anywhere from $1-20. I'd wager all mine are at the very low end by now since I didn't exactly stick them in lucite=P

It wasn't something I was in to for a very long time.

Porkchop_sl said:

Is anybody collecting any more? I recently pulled out a few thousand cards from storage from the late 80s, early 90s and got the bug again to collect.. but damn, it's hard to figure out what to buy. I mostly did baseball before, but baseball players seem so fucking boring now, like there arent any super stars to really collect. So maybe football cards would be more fun? idk.

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I restarted collecting about the same time. All my baseball cards from the 70's had disappeared, but I did find my old football cards. I stopped when, I believe around '92, when tons of new cards were flooding into the market.

The only cards I really look for now is filling up my Chiefs team sets from around '78 and older. The later years until '92 are complete, I think.

The old single cards are pretty hard to find in decent condition (60's).

I wasn't being facetious when I said a couple bucks. The huge crash happened not long after I stopped, and I just pointed out my best cards are awful and near worthless=P Fairly confident my 1988 Topps Jose Lind card isn't gonna buy me a new hot tub=)

I worked in a card shop for about 2 years. The problem most people fail to realize is that the reason the old cards are worth a lot has to do with scarcity more than anything else. They didn't have the huge print runs cards do now and the kids of the era beat them up and played with them. From the flipping game to putting them in their bike spokes to any number of other things. These days they produce so many cards and so many people hold on to them hoping they become valuable they just don't.

I collected baseball and football cards all through the mid to late 80s as a kid, and still have them all in a box somewhere...I got back into the hobby briefly as a teenager in the early 90s when I got my first job and had disposable income to waste on stuff like that. Seems like the early to mid 90s is when card values really peaked. At that point, a lot of my cards from the 80s (Canseco and McGwire rookies, Marino and Elways rookies, etc) were actually worth a lot of money(the football ones $50-$100 a pop). The football cards have held their value or increased slightly, but a lot of the baseball card values went to total shit after the steroid scandals.

Do Beckett pricing guides still exist for cards these days? I used to grab one every couple years when I was a kid and glance over the cards I had. I feel like every kid had late 80's, early 90's baseball cards. Have a chest full of mid 90's basketball cards with a few Jordan's that were supposedly worth maybe $100. My baseball cards were absolute shit, but thought it was fun nonetheless to try to get my favorite team or players.

One of my dad's best friends had/has a treasure trove of baseball cards. Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, the whole gambit of biggest of big names and I checked the guides at the time and they were worth $1-2k each. They were just hiding in a little box.

Beckett still exists, and they have a website too but you have to pay to get access to the website and it's ridiculously expensive. Like $31 for a one-month pass for all sports.

eBay is solid, but the real money making spots are sports collecting conventions and trade shows. You'll find people looking for that one piece to fulfill their collection and will spend a lot of cash to get it.

My dad owns a sports memorabilia business and he sets up shop at theNational Sports Collectors Conventionevery year. There's this one guy who is a hardcore Crosley Field Reds era collector and he would always stop by my dad's stand and pay stupid prices for ticket stubs, game programs, pocket schedules - all that kind of stuff - every year. Dude would spend at least $1,000 a year on random memorabilia like that.

This may tangent the thread a tad, but memorabilia (I'm mainly referring to autographed items) seems incredibly rife with fakes/forgeries/etc...

The only autographed material that I collect are ones I've managed to get myself. And since I'm pretty damned lazy, that's not very many. But I did get to meet Buck Buchanon, Chiefs/NFL Hall of Famer, and he signed a couple cards for me. A great experience.

Gankak_sl said:

I worked in a card shop for about 2 years. The problem most people fail to realize is that the reason the old cards are worth a lot has to do with scarcity more than anything else. They didn't have the huge print runs cards do now and the kids of the era beat them up and played with them. From the flipping game to putting them in their bike spokes to any number of other things. These days they produce so many cards and so many people hold on to them hoping they become valuable they just don't.

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Pretty much this. Same goes for comics. Basically the 90's ruined it for everyone. People saw how much you could get and so everyone became a collector. But if everyone's a collector, it means no one wants it because it's not rare. So you've pretty much missed out on it being worth a damn.

Apparently at some point there was a Heisman winner collector card set. I have one of them autographed by Vic Janowicz. That's probably my only card that is potentially worth something. Even then, it would have to be to the right collector of course.