Baseball Cards...what the heck do I do with these things?

[Jets80]

So I go to visit my parents last month and my mom mentions to me about all these boxes of baseball cards I have in the basement. She asks me if I still want them or else she is going to toss them out. My dad steps in and says "hell no!" cause he thinks there worth a million bucks or something...he's still probably having regretes from when my grandma tossed out all his cards from the 50's and 60's.

But seriously what the hell should I do with all these things. I probably have about 20-30,000 cards from 1985-1990 down there in the basement. I know I have a bunch of HOF players from my time....Bonds, McGwire, Boggs, Gwynn, ect...ect.....

I recently went to a card show with a friend and got the impression nobody wants these cards. There all selling A.Rod, Jeter, Vladdy and all the guys from this day and age.

Crap.. What am I goping to do with all these cards. Right now its not worth the space to even keep them. I hurts to think of all the lawns I mowed as a kid to finance my collection.

I'm sure I'll keep some HOF guys so I can show my son someday but what the hell do I need with 12 of each card for. Someone better lend some suggestions or else you better be 1st in line out at my curb come trash day.

[clintl]

Keep them. I wish I hadn't given my cards away.

[panerd]

You're right. I remember holding onto my Cal Ripken and Ozzie Smith rookie cards like they were going to be worth thousands one day. I went on Ebay last year and they were going for like $5. I know they were worth more about 15 years ago. Any idea on what a Bonds rookie is worth? I was in my peek collecting stage around 86/87 and probably have about 50 of them. I could look it up on ebay, but that seems like a lot of trouble. (Plus is this really a good gauge of what cards are worth or will card shows pay more?)

[Philliesfan980]

Got any good rookies? I'l buy a few off of you for a reasonable price, assuming they are in good condition.

[Jets80]

Originally Posted by panerd

You're right. I remember holding onto my Cal Ripken and Ozzie Smith rookie cards like they were going to be worth thousands one day. I went on Ebay last year and they were going for like $5. I know they were worth more about 15 years ago. Any idea on what a Bonds rookie is worth? I was in my peek collecting stage around 86/87 and probably have about 50 of them. I could look it up on ebay, but that seems like a lot of trouble. (Plus is this really a good gauge of what cards are worth or will card shows pay more?)

As much as I hate to admit it and as much as I hate the guy, I did look on ebay and Bonds cards are actualy selling. They will prolly sell for even more once he hits 700HR and then/If he breaks Hanks Aaron's record.. But its said that a Cal Ripken, Tony Gywnn and the rest of those guys is worth toilet paper.

[Philliesfan980]

Yeah, don't expect to get rich off these things. I think they are just nice if you're a real baseball fan to throw them in a nice case or something for display in your "office" at home or whatever.

[SunDevil]

I would say to hold onto them. They might not be worth anything right now, but you never know what they might be worth in the future.

[hukarez]

Hmm. I used to collect a few baseball cards back in the heyday (Topps, I think), then Garbage Pail Kids came about.

[bronconick]

I'm holding onto them. But I don't expect them to be worth as much as the ones from the 60's are now, simply because they printed so much more in the 80's comparitively.

[bbor]

Throw them out........what's your address again?

[amdaily]

I saw a graph of the number of baseball cards traded per year for the last decade. Suffice it to say, they will not be gaining value anytime soon.

[MacroGuru]

They are a long term investment, like 40 or 50 years.

What makes them even more valuable is to have a legitimate autograph on the card as well.

I have maintained quite a collection from my young years (8 years old, and I am turning 30 this year) but I do plan on holding onto these for at least 20 more. (Deion and Barry Sanders rookie cards, Aikmans Rookie Card, Steve Young Rookie Card Autographed, Derek Thomas Rookie and a few more hall of famers rookies as well).

Anyways, if you don't want them, lets discuss a price, and shipping and I would be willing to assist you in getting rid of them, right into my collection

[SplitPersonality1]

Being the big Brewers fan that I am, I bought a stack of about 20 Dan Plesac rookie cards, jusy "knowing" that he would be a hall of famer some day.

Worst $2 investment I ever made.

[sooner333]

Burn them all in a huge bonfire...it will look cool and make my worthless cards become slightly more valuable.

[Raven]

I thought autographs on cards hurt their value, not improved it?

Anyway, I have a boatload of cards too. I just put them in my closet, and every few years take a look just to reminisce (sp?).

[Chief Rum]

Keep them around for our next edition of shady baseball players contest.

CR

[MrIllini]

with today's cards going for $200 per pack of 5, it's highly unlikely that the bubble gum cards of the 80s will ever rise to the value they had in the early 90s again

[CamEdwards]

I'll second the "I'll pay for the shipping, give them to me". Split the darn collection down the middle, tell me what I need to pay for shipping, and gimme gimme.

[Crapshoot]

Hell- Ill third it with Cam...

[Ksyrup]

I got rid of a boatload of baseball cards I collected from about 1978 through 1985 or so. Then I started collecting basketball cards and some baseball cards around 1989 and 1990, but quit for good at that point. I still have all of those cards (with some David Robinson rookies and a bunch of Jordans - whoopee!), and I kept some of the baseball cards I had.

A couple of months ago, as we were cleaning out a closet, I found them and started going through them. It had been so long since I had even looked at them, that I still had several Darryl Strawberry rookie cards set aside and specially protected. That's a sad commentary on that dude's career, huh? I still have a couple of Ripken rookies. Nothing worth a heck of a lot, though.

Oh, and I've got about 572 Monty Farris rookie cards, if anyone is interested.

[albionmoonlight]

Put the whole thing up on ebay.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Put the whole thing up on ebay.

Throw in some reflectoporn. You'll clean up.

[spleen1015]

People aren't in the market for large collections like that anymore.

The insert cards are what makes the money these days and that only lasts for a few months until the next idea comes along.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by MrIllini

with today's cards going for $200 per pack of 5, it's highly unlikely that the bubble gum cards of the 80s will ever rise to the value they had in the early 90s again

Enough of those attitudes and we'll have a nice shortage of bubble gum cards in 20-30 years. Please throw them all away. In the long run, I'm sure they'll bounce back in value. If I remember right, the 50s and 60s cards didn't really explode in value until card collecting became an adult hobby in the mid-late 80s. Once people in their 20s and 30s hit their 50s and 60s it'll kick off another nostalgia wave.

[sabotai]

Well, put it this way. You have 20-30,000 cards. Let's say they are worth, on average, and let's make this low, like 10 cents. That's $2,000 to $3,000 dollars. Would you toss 2 or 3 thousand into the garbage? I wouldn't. (And that's an average of 10 cents. 50 cents puts it up to 10 to 15k. 5 cents, still over a grand. Etc. Etc. Each individual card may not be worth anything, but sold in bunches and you have yourself a nice birthday present to yourself)

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by sabotai

Well, put it this way. You have 20-30,000 cards. Let's say they are worth, on average, and let's make this low, like 10 cents. That's $2,000 to $3,000 dollars. Would you toss 2 or 3 thousand into the garbage? I wouldn't. (And that's an average of 10 cents. 50 cents puts it up to 10 to 15k. 5 cents, still over a grand. Etc. Etc. Each individual card may not be worth anything, but sold in bunches and you have yourself a nice birthday present to yourself)

Problem is the difference between book value and what something is actually worth. I dare you to find someone to buy those 10c cards off of you in anything but bulk. I don't think you're going to find too many people willing to pay you even a penny for a, say, 1989 Topps Mike Stanley. I don't know if they will ever be worth what people think they should be worth. So many people in the 80s expected their cards would be worth what 1950s cards were worth despite the fact that 1980s cards were produced by the millions and 1950s were much less.

Then again, as a collector, it was much easier back then. I remember my first box was a 1988 Topps box and it cost $10 at Sams Club for 36 packs of 15 cards (540 for those without math skills). Now it costs $10 for 10 packs of 10 cards for the main sets and they are going to be worthless in 3 years. Heck, unless it's the rarest of the rare insert cards, those will book at $1 and you couldn't sell them to a dealer to save your life because he's already got a billion that he has from trying to find those ultra rare cards.

Just get me back to the day when the standad Topps set cost maybe $20 to collect the entire thing and that would be fine with me even without any resale value. I just like pawing through the cards. Unfortunately, people like me can't do that any more so I'm limited to a pack or two at $2 a year just because it's not worth it other than to see the designs of the new sets.

Then again, if you're just looking to dump cards, I'll 4th the "give me a shipping price and I'll pay it because I love having them even if they aren't valuable". Particularly the stuff from the mid 80s since I didn't start collecting until 1988.

SI

[cthomer5000]

the bottom line is you would be better off selling them NOW, and investing that money for 40-50 years. Due to the amount printed, the cards will never reach the value that old ones did. I would say that game artifacts/memorobilia has sufficently replaced cards.

[Anthony]

i'd 5th your collection for shipping if you were gonna do it, but i'd want it to be random cards with the chance of getting something good - not Jets taking out what good cards he has (i don't expect him to give out Bonds' rookie cards but you know what i mean).

i agree with ct - i think the whole market is shifting towards memorobilia - autographed photos. the value in something is in not so much what the athlete did - it's in the short supply of his card. same goes for comic books - new series pop up from time to time and just cuz you get your hands on the 1st issue doesn't mean anything - everyone and their mother can get that 1st issue. there is no value in mass produced items. the value is in the rarity of those items.

if i were you i'd take out your favorite cards and put them all in a frame. it's looks real cool.

[ageofquarrel]

I dont follow sports memorobilia anymore . But, I think its just supply and demand. There is a glut of those cards right now. Because of us making sure are moms didnt throw away our cards. My dad had a ton of old comic books my grandmom threw away, including 1st issues of spiderman, fantastic four, and alot of other old stuff. So my dad made sure my mom saved all my old comics and baseball cards. Of course she threw away all my old GI joes, He-man and transformers. Which are worth money now. Go figure. Guess the lesson is dont throw away anything.

[Grid Iron]

Pull out the rookie cards of famous "Hall of Fame" eligible players. Keep them.

The rest, send to your greedy "friends" at FOFC.

[gottimd]

I have the same problem. I have a ton of cards at my parents that I collected when I was younger. all from 1980-1993 (Many Hall of Famers and Future Hall of Famers Rookies). I have many rookies. I thought I could get a good amount for them. I took them to some local baseball card stores and they didn't want any of them, or they were offering about a 1/10000000 of the book value. My brother has hockey cards from 1984-1988, including a Roy rookie and Lemeiux rookie and many others, and I took them as well after I asked him to those card stores and got nothing for them. They said to make the presentation better? I had them in those hard plastic covers, I didnt know what else to do. I went to www.beckett.com to see if they could grade them for me, but it costs an arm and a leg to do just 100 cards. I tried ebay awhile ago but got nothing. So now I am in the same boat as you, a ton of cards, nowhere to go.

I guess you should buy a beckett magazine and in the back they have Baseball card shows. You could go to one and bring the cards you want to sell and see if you get anything for them.

[Buccaneer]

Sorry I didn't see this sooner, I just got back in town. I've been in the bbcard business since the early 1980s, stopped after the early 90s madness and now back into building vintage sets and spending way too much money each month. Regarding the initial post, let me tell you a little story. I co-managed a card shop in Kentucky in the late 1980s and among other things, I bought an incredible amount of cards from the years 1985-1990. I ended up with something like 60,000 cards just from those years. When I started back into the business a year and half ago, I researched what had happened in the market since I stopped collecting. One of the key things that I learned (and have been re-enforced many times since then) was that the cards from 1985-1991 were and still considered junk. This is the truth: I pulled about 50-60 cards from the 60,000 (like the Bonds, McGwire, Maddux, Sosa and Johnson rookies) and threw the rest away in the trash. They are literally worthless in bulk because of the extreme over-production in those years.

The only cards of values would the abovementioned stars - but only if they are graded PSA 10 (perfect condition). Even at that, we're looking at $40, probably $100 for Bonds. If they are in any less condition (like near-perfect PSA 9), then it's around $10-20 for the future HoF rookies. But as usual, the price guides are way too high. Just take a look at eBay to see what these cards are really going for - usually one can pick up 5 of these PSA 10s for $5-10 each. The rest are junk. Really.

[Buccaneer]

By the way, if any one needs advice on anything in the bbcard hobby/business, post away or PM me. I don't know a whole lot (esp. about modern issues) but I can point to experts who do.

[Wolfpack]

I have a box full of cards in the basement and a small batch of "Starting Lineups" which I think have done pretty well value-wise since their production runs obviously were much smaller than typical sports cards. I bought a bunch of cards around 92-93 (interestingly enough NHL cards, mostly, since everyone else was into baseball cards) and then another glut of cards from 96-97-98 or that era (all sports). I have hoped that some of them would escalate in value, but as far as I know, only my 1990 MJ "Starting Lineup" is worth in some guides over $100. (The great tragedy of SLUs for me is that I do have some of those 1988 first issue ones, but they are all lose figures...I weep thinking about Dan Marino being worth $400 or thereabouts.)

[DanGarion]

Autographing cards would be a terrible suggestion. People do not want cards that are autographed, one of the main reasons is they are not certified.

Secondly the best way to make your cards worth close to actual value is to look through them, find the ones in the best shape and have them professionally graded. Many people (online) are not willing to take a chance on cards that are not professionally graded.