Baseball Cards

The oversaturation was also spiked with mania for special ("special") and rare cards called "inserts" that could be found in only a small percentage of packs, which was supposed to justify their double-digit Beckett valuations.

So oversaturation + artificial scarcity = a lot of kids getting ripped off and eventually giving up on the whole deal as a sunk cost of adolescence = my story.

This nails it.

The last thing I remember about collecting cards was buying four or five packs of super ultra ltd edition rare upper deck baseball cards, I think they were 5 dollars a pack for 3 cards, and one out of every 1000 or something would have a card with a REAL BASEBALL JERSEY sewn into the card!!!!! Of course, I probably got nothing but Pedro Guererro and Chris Sabo cards, and gave up the hobby for good.

I still have around 12,000 or so cards in my parent's basement, neatly organized by team. So many people have the same situation that I doubt they'll ever substantially increase in value.

Just before the big bust in prices, I tried to convince my parents to let me sell all my cards, but they wouldn't let me. Their reasoning was that since the value of cards increased so much from the pre-1970s to now, they would continue to increase at a similar pace during the next few decades (RONG). Also, they thought that I'd just blow all of the money I made from selling the cards on videogames (RITE).

oh man my best card was a 1960 Topps Nellie Fox and i bought one of the thick plastic holder things with bolts in the corners

it's pretty amazing how much cards devalued. i have a shitload of griffey rookie cards which were worth $10 a pop in the early 90s and now they're worth a nickel.

my best card was some 1971 nolan ryan topps card. i think it's in my closet back at my parents' house.

know what was cool was that 1992 Score (i think) Bo Jackson card where he had the shoulder pads AND the bat

It's not the most valuable I have by any means, but aesthetically this was always my favorite:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a193/ironsij0287/osmith.jpg

Man, I remember writing an essay in 4th grade about how my hero in life was Ozzie Smith. Then it turned out that my best friend at the time had written about how his best friend was me, and things got really awkward when I said I had chosen Ozzie Smith.

how uncomfortable for Ozzie, too

hahahahahaha
I think I'm going to start an Ozzie Smith thread.

who else had a Beckett subscription? god that was a thrill checking to see if the little arrows went up or down on your top 10

^^^^yes

^^^^

My very first pack of baseball cards were Donruss 88's, I opened it up and this was the first card:

http://www.baseballcardproject.com/Donruss/R/1988/443.jpg

It was at this point that I decided that the Mets were my favorite team and Strawberry was my favorite player. I really enjoyed collecting the cards and never really card about value. Good thing about that.

it's pretty awesome to think about the players everyone was creaming over during the baseball card collecting peak! omg gregg jeffries! steve avery!! jose canseco!! doc gooooden!! future hall of famers WILL CLARK and DON MATTINGLY!!! DAVID JUSTICE and KEVIN MAAS!!!

Results 1 - 10 of about 278 for "jim abbott" "def leppard". (0.35 seconds)

Remember the Score Dream Team cards? Those were hot:

http://www.stonekitty.net/%7Elucyscloset/061607/Image001.jpg

Full bleeds ruined baseball cards. I really liked the wood grain borders of the 87 Topps:

http://www.flapa.com/baseball/cards/KevinMitchell1987_653.jpg

The 1987 Topps set is one of the few that I own all of, and of course there were no noteworthy cards, rookie cards or anything from that series.

Somewhere I have an uncut sheet of 1994 Score cards.

This one kills me, stick figure Barry:

http://www.homeruncards.com/imagesrc/bondstp.jpg

Awesome:

http://www.johnstoncrew.com/GregMadduxRC.jpg

I had this exact same binder:

http://i11.ebayimg.com/03/i/000/b8/ag/a7b7_1.JPG

Oh the lols:

http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/4/8/5/6/9/8/webimg/69023815_tp.jpg

http://images.collectors.com/Articles/b&bhull2.jpg

All these baseball card auctions on ebay with no bids are depressing.

http://tigerwoodsfistpump.blogspot.com/2007/08/when-baseball-cards-mattered_19.html

Holy shit, remember Brien Taylor?!
http://www.checkoutmycards.com/CardImages/Original/008/989/04F.jpg

I remember reading the entire cover story on the guy, who was basically some high school kid who could throw really, really fast. Never even made it to the majors, but in my mind he was a legend.

Never even made it to the majors,

injured himself in a bar brawl while in the minors and his career was over.

How much do you think 12,000 cards would be worth now? Discounting the "good" cards in them, how much would that many common cards be worth? $300?

I have Orel Hershiser's RC somewhere. I also have a signed Mike Richter (G, NYR) RC at home in CA.

good luck selling that to anyone, Z S

i think most people are too attached to their own collections, and that buying someone else's would kinda be like using their toothbrush

Ha, you're probably right. I guess I was thinking more of selling all of them to some small card shop. I'm sure people in that business get sick of clueless people walking in everyday trying to unload thousands of worthless cards.

this seems like a good place to mention this:

i have a ton of jeff bagwell cards that im irrationally inexplicably attached to
there's a good chance he's going to the hall of fame, at which time his cards would be at peak value (around induction time, if it happens)
i gotta sell all of them at that time, but im anticipating being all.. 'man, i CANT sell ALL of them...' or something
has anyone else dealt with this before?

Yep, with McGwire's cards during the season that he and Sosa were chasing 70.
In retrospect, I made the completely wrong decision.

dude, you're only going to get like 25¢ more for it anyways.

The card worth anything these days is a Bonds card with a signed confession on it.

here's a dumb question, but where do you buy baseball cards these days? i was looking to get some for my son because he's just at that age where he would probably dig them, and i couldn't find them. looked mainly in supermarkets and the big chain drugstores.

this was at the start of the season, wouldn't expect to find them now

I'm pretty sure Target sells baseball cards -- packets or boxes (no more wax boxes these days I reckon)

x-post . yea
Target sells them. 7 11 did years ago.

Sports Authority and Toys R Us sometimes sell 'em

thanx!

asshole card dealers took the fun out of card collecting.

"hey i've got a mint bonds card here, man!"

"ah but is it gem mint?"

"..."

http://www.snopes.com/sports/graphics/ripken.jpg

http://tigerwoodsfistpump.blogspot.com/2008/01/dealing-with-agony-of-once-valuable.html

it's pretty awesome to think about the players everyone was creaming over during the baseball card collecting peak! omg gregg jeffries! steve avery!! jose canseco!! doc gooooden!! future hall of famers WILL CLARK and DON MATTINGLY!!! DAVID JUSTICE and KEVIN MAAS!!!

Kent Hrbek!

Andy Van Slyke!

Glenallen Hill!

I'm gonna be RICH!!

I never got into this kind of collecting, cert not as an investment.

yeah i think the monthly price guides starting getting popular around the mid-80s, it was like the jr. stock market

by the way, the actual baseball card link for sir weeze's article is this: http://tigerwoodsfistpump.blogspot.com/2007/08/when-baseball-cards-mattered_19.html

come with us to 1971...

http://thebaseballchronicle.com/personal_stories/1971_topps_baseball

my dad's collection is at about 40,000. i used to catalog them for him!

i have a mark mcgwire rookie card that he gave me...somewhere...

yr grandma didn't throw them out? xp

The antichrist of card design, marginally less garish than Las Vegas:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3c/Topps_1993_refractor_card.jpg/170px-Topps_1993_refractor_card.jpg

See I love that but I love holographic anything (my nails have holographic glitter right now), spare a thought for those of us who are magpies please

They were definitely all the craze for a while--not sure if they've maintained their value.

my favorite card sets might be the 1971 and 1973 Topps, both vv aesthetically of their specific moment in time and in the case of the '71s, notoriously difficult to find in top condition (the black gets dinged more noticeably.)

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/yvcAAOSw0UNjfDml/s-l1600.png

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.iKKAV4Y29GFIv4z7dbJ6eQHaJ2?rs=1&pid=ImgDetMain

Love that '71 design (don't have any myself). The '92 Bowman set is nice, with at least one famous rookie card:

https://i.postimg.cc/B6syzNnz/mariano.jpg

https://sportscardinfo.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/ss88f.jpg

Thanks again to gyac for more great cards. Can't picture them all, but highlights include my first Trout, Betts, and Arreaz cards, and I think my first Acuna too. Also: Adley Rutschman, Corey Seager, J-Rod, Adolis Garcia, Altuve, and Davis Schneider, cornerstone of any serious collection.

https://i.postimg.cc/Bbqc09z4/acuna.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/jd36G14Y/betts.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/q7y86vVp/davis.jpg

(Should have taken a photograph...postimages is very useful, but they don't always resize in a uniform manner like they say they will.)

Davis Schneider, cornerstone of any serious collection

On a whim yesterday I ordered a 2024 Topps hobby box. I haven't opened a pack of cards since I was in hs (c.1998), and for years I've rued the amount of money I pumped into what had become a form of gambling aimed at 10-year-olds. But I've recently become obsessed with videos of people opening junk wax. It's funny how many of those old cards I immediately recognize...

The modern sets seem pretty confusing (tons of parallels?), but I'm giddy about opening up some packs again.

Yes but what did you get? Show us!

Insert culture is kind of a drag (it thwarts my twitchy collectivitis - you literally cant get them all) and many of them are stupid looking! That said when they hit they hit

Are they still tearing off little jersey shards or have they moved on to DNA samples?

Yeah its wack

Are they still tearing off little jersey shards or have they moved on to DNA samples?

Going to buy a magnifying glass so can check that!

No no, it’s a special big card, yours is just a normal one sorry 😭 I’d keep a card with a piece of a base for myself, sorry

The worst are the ones where there is a “player worn” swatch, not even game used

Not baseball, but I think I'm going to buy my friend's son a basketball box for an upcoming birthday. There are a couple, Panini or Donruss, and both are $40 for 90 cards. I guess that's not bad.

https://www.mlb.com/news/fan-beau-thompson-collects-million-cubs-cards

Really? "ONE MILLION unique Chicago Cubs cards"--even with the glut, that doesn't sound right. For the first 70 years of baseball cards, you've basically got one or two companies producing them. 70 years x 30 cards x 2 companies = 4,200 unique cards. Double that to account for promotional cards locally produced: 8,400. Round that up to 10,000. Which leaves...another 990,000 cards since 1980.

Best rookie cards I own. I eliminated PED guys (A-Rod, Manny, etc...except one) and Alomar. None are authenticated, but I think they're all near-mint. Drives me up the wall that that matters.

https://i.postimg.cc/W3Ch8k4p/01.jpg

Arenado - 2013 Topps
Bagwell - 1991 Stadium Club
Beltre - 1997 Topps
Bonds - 1987 Donruss (seems to have retained some value)

https://i.postimg.cc/N00Fw49f/02.jpg

Freeman - 2011 Topps
Griffey - 1989 Donruss
Jeter - 1993 Topps
Jones - 1991 Bowman

https://i.postimg.cc/0yk2pfCd/03.jpg

Johnson - 1989 Topps
Kershaw - 2008 Topps
Maddux - 1987 Leaf
Pedro - 1991 Upper Deck

https://i.postimg.cc/fWCPVfJh/04.jpg

Piazza - 1993 Topps
Scherzer - 2008 Topps
Thomas - 1990 Topps
Verlander - 2006 Topps

Wish I'd bought a dozen Kershaws when I could have--$4 or $5 online.

No Betts or Trout or Pujols or Cabrera, unfortunately.

Card show! Toronto has a big one at the International Centre twice a year--made the drive in today to meet my collector friend for dinner (he helps one of the vendors there) and buy lots of junk. First one I've gone to in a few years.

Should have brought my camera; there really is kind of a Hunter S. Thompson in Las Vegas feeling when you step inside, a universe unto itself. The three most expensive things I saw, all the same vendor: game-worn jerseys from Tim Horton and Rocket Richard, both $150,000 (I'd say half to three-quarters of what's in there was hockey-related), and a Nolan Ryan rookie card for $130,000. I know it would require a miracle for someone to steal this stuff, but why would you even risk that? Are you hoping for a walk-up sale on such items? ("$130,000? Sure--is there an ATM in here?")

Gretzky rookie cards everywhere, graded from 1 ($500) to 9 ($30,000--except I swear it didn't look like it was in that great shape...do people counterfeit grading?). In the scoundrel department, an O.J. rookie card (5.5) for $750, and an issue of Playboy with Trump on the cover for $450. Every booth had its name displayed. Best one: Vandelay Industries.

And then there are people like me who are there to buy cheap stuff no one wants (often found in boxes under the tables with the expensive stuff). Some of these were $5, some 2/$5:

1) Blue Jay sets (30 or 40 cards each) put out by Oh Henry! Bought seven, from 1995 to 2001. Not sure if that's all of them--if not, I know I'll start obsessively looking for the others.

2) A nice Blue Jay set put out in 2002, can't figure out by who. Halladay and Delgado are in there.

3) Minor league sets: 1987 Bakersfield Dodgers (best player: Juan Guzman), 1995 Charleston River Dogs (Fernando Tatis), 1992 Calgary Cannons (Bret Boone, Andy Hawkins, pitching coach Ross Grimsley), 1993 Ottawa Lynx (Matt Stairs, Blue Jay broadcaster Joe Siddall!), 1985 Utica Blue Sox (literally no one...Ken Brett was manager, though), and a 50-card Southern League All-Star set from '91 (three Frank Thomas cards, also Luis Gonzalez).

4) Two K-Mart sets: 1990 Super Stars and 1982 20th Anniversary AL & NL MVPs.

5) Other stuff: two Barry Colla sets, Frank Thomas and the 1992 All-Star Game (Colla's a photographer who used to put out his own specialty sets); 1994 Topps Stadium Club "Members Only" (it's embarrassing to even type that...); a McDonald's/Donruss MVP set from '92.

6) 10 loose Topps Heritage cards, including Cabrera on the Marlins, Maddux on the Padres, Beltre on the Mariners and Red Sox, and Rogers Hornsby and Mel Ott.

7) Two unopened decks of Toronto Maple Leafs playing cards. That one's really mysterious.

Also two books, $10 each: Sayonara Home Run! The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card and The Card (about the Honus Wagner T206).

Somewhere in the building, today or tomorrow: Dennis Rodman, William Shatner, and some wrestler (couldn't tell you who).

Good thing I'm two hours away, else I'd probably be back Saturday.