Collecting Sports Cards

[DC]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

Man I looked in my closet this morning and planned on making this SAME post

What do I do with all of those damn cards I have?

[mkharsh33]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

AL TOON!! wow, that brings back memories...

my claim to fame is two larry bird '84 Star cards (anyone remember those?)...those cards still keep good value as they kept production numbers down.

[Chef Matt]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

I do remember those. They sell pretty high on the auction sites. Very Nice.

[ehh]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

Is there any value in cards anymore? I have a ton of complete set baseball cards from the late 80's and early 90's. I think I have '87-'94. I have a crapload of Jordan cards and NBA cards from the same time period but no complete sets. Some random football cards.

I have a feeling they aren't worth a damn thing.

[Chef Matt]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

Is there any value in cards anymore? I have a ton of complete set baseball cards from the late 80's and early 90's. I think I have '87-'94. I have a crapload of Jordan cards and NBA cards from the same time period but no complete sets. Some random football cards.

I have a feeling they aren't worth a damn thing.

You'd be surprised. Check ebay you'll some stuff (cards) sells pretty high on there.

[fishepa]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

I collected mainly baseball cards in the late 80's and early 90's, quite possibly the worst time to ever collect baseball cards. They were so over produced that they were hardly worth anything. I went through most of the cards I owned and got out the few that I think will be worth something someday. The rest, probably around 100,00 cards, I sold for $10 at a recent yard sale. They were just taking up space.

[mgoblue]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

I collected mainly baseball cards in the late 80's and early 90's, quite possibly the worst time to ever collect baseball cards. They were so over produced that they were hardly worth anything. I went through most of the cards I owned and got out the few that I think will be worth something someday. The rest, probably around 100,00 cards, I sold for $10 at a recent yard sale. They were just taking up space.

Exactly...mine are all gone now, but that was the same era I collected. I also collected some crappy types of cards unknowingly (Skybox, Bowman (I think that's who they were), the Pro Set (or whatever) NFL cards) and they ended up not being worth much. I just missed the era where a full set of Topps MLB cards was worth something. All my Fleer or Topps Stadium Club NBA cards were pretty worthless unless you found a solid insert, and even then the prices have come down.

[KG]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

Man I looked in my closet this morning and planned on making this SAME post

What do I do with all of those damn cards I have?

Man, I just laugh when I see these old names. I found a Terrance Rencher (SG from Texas, Wiz drafted him in like 94) card the other day.

[mkharsh33]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

i think card companies started losing me when they went to this idea of all these "special / inset" cards... they made those part of the sets in the idea that your card set lost value unless it included those special cards that often cost in the hundreds of dollars...

i really do miss the days when packs of cards were fifty cents and it wasn't totally impossible to put a set together (and part of the fun was the trading involved - i'd get together with buddies and see what we needed. we could pull off trades and often resolve our deals with a lunch at mcdonald's, if we needed to make up any monetary differences - LOL!!).

[mkharsh33]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

Man, I just laugh when I see these old names. I found a Terrance Rencher (SG from Texas, Wiz drafted him in like 94) card the other day.

funny stuff!! i can't remember the name of the company, but there were cards put out for nba draft potential players...i've got the set with mutombo, larry johnson, etc. and some of those players in that set were just gawd awful...

and i loved when upper deck came out with basketball cards - those were very nice looking cards.

[JBH3]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

Does anybody do it?

It doesn't seem to be a thing people do anymore.

I was thinking about starting to collect some. Mostly so that I can pass them off to a son. That way he can have a nice collection of some of the current and future stars of the league. And they will be worth more in the future. I already missed out on LeBron and Durant rookie cards. But I don't want to be missing out on John Wall. Lol.

I just didn't know if there's really any point in doing it nowadays. It seems as if it's a lost hobby.

What do you guys think?

What do I think?

What do I think? Invest MONEY for you child, not into cards. The money spent on cards, save, and invest it once it's a sizeable amount. Given the economic climate that's a risk too, albeit w/ a far better return as well.

My dad was born in 1951 and has been collecting cards since he could speak (I'd assume). His collection spans an entire two car garage, and what was my bedroom when I was living at home (the room over the garage - decent sized room mind you).

He's got complete sets of 1950's Topps baseball cards, a few MJ rookies from the Star card set, and countless COUNTLESS sets of cards; all MAJOR sports except Hockey and brands of Topps, Bowman, Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck etc. (however now fleer is exticnt I believe).

He attends shows regularly, keeps monster boxes FULL of star cards/inserts/rookies for people to pick through, but right NOW his big ticket items are duplicates of really OLD baseball/football/and basketball cards.

Seriously...that's where the card market is at. Unless you plan on going out and purchasing old cards w/ a rarity and value you're wasting your time and money on ANY of the new stuff.


...It doesn't just stop w/ cards though, he attends probably 25 baseball games a year (mostly Phillies games, some O's, some Nats), 6 or 7 Redskins games, and a few Wizards games.

He gets TWO PROGRAMS for EVERY game he attends. One to keep score in, and one to keep untouched/MINT. My dad is that guy. Not only does he buy the programs, but for baseball...come his first game he attends that year he'll buy like almost every team's yearbook that is for sale at the ballpark.

Here I was a youngster hauling like 30 lbs of team yearbooks back to the car after a baseball game. It was crazy!

Can you imagine the burden it will create one day when all of this is passed to my brother and sister and I? The old stuff we'll likely keep, but all the new stuff (because he hasn't stopped collecting, just "cut back") can go buh-bye.

Oh and here's a funny story...my brother and I both collected too, although we were just into keeping star cards/inserts/rookies and trading w/ our friends. Well when I left for Marine Corps bootcamp, and was gone for three months...upon my return I was going through stuff that was put in my closet; as my parents were transistioning my room to my dad's card haven.

Well...all of my cards, which I had collected since like 8 yrs old, were where? Gone. Over the span of me going to bootcamp my dad had "acquired" my cards, and put them into his collection...did the same w/ my brother's stuff around the same time.

The man is crazy about cards!!!!!!!!!

The card industry killed itself when so many were produced and the prices per pack were raised.

I have tons of football, baseball, and basketball cards from 1985-2000 none of them are worth nearly what they were back in the day. Even the good ones.

I remember when my 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr card was $150. Now I think it's $40 at the most.

Yea...the card industry did kill itself. They produced way too many, with far too many subsets and spin off sets that the market just became flooded w/ quantity over QUALITY.

That's why the new stuff isn't really worth a damn, there's too much of it. You've got to collect the Topps Chrome, and Bowman stuff - the real expensive cards - to really get any kind of value.

[The Chef]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

Yea...the card industry did kill itself. They produced way too many, with far too many subsets and spin off sets that the market just became flooded w/ quantity over QUALITY.

That's why the new stuff isn't really worth a damn, there's too much of it. You've got to collect the Topps Chrome, and Bowman stuff - the real expensive cards - to really get any kind of value.

I dont know how someone can say the current cards are worthless because thats far from the truth. While its tougher to pull now because there are so many different inserts out there, you can still pull high end cards but you have to spend the money to get them. Topps Chrome and Bowman are the expensive kind? I was buying boxes of Topps Chrome last year for 80.00-90.00 per box and thats a relative steal in comparison to the real expensive cards out there. In just baseball alone try grabbing a box of Sports King Series for anything below 350.00. Basketball can be bad as well if you wanna buy a box of SP Rookie Threads it would run you nearly 190.00 or if you really want to spend big money try grabbing a box of Playoff National Treasures Football, the 2008 box is still selling for 500.00 and its only 1 pack.

IMO, the thing that killed the card industry wasnt the cards suddenly becoming worthless but the price point going through the roof. They say that you can still get cheaper packs at retail spots like Target, Kmart, Walmart etc, but they also fail to mention that those packs are stripped down and anything you pull from it will be so mass produced that its not worth a damn. Now if you strictly buy hobby boxes then you can pull more but retail is terrible.

As for myself, I collected for awhile but the market basically priced me out of it and made it impossible to continue. I tried the whole retail packs thing just to see and got nothing but a lighter wallet. Did hobby and pulled some nice LeBron auto's but other then that I didnt pull much of anything.

[JBH3]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

Thanks for your input. Yes. They're even more expensive, but they're also even more mass produced then in the past.

Honestly, I didn't even know of those other brands ($500.00 for one pack). That's mind-boggling.

I say they aren't worth a damn because I look at the Beckett's or Tuff Stuff's from time to time when visiting my parents, and I look at the Griffey rookie and similar stars rookie cards and some that were at least $10-$15 are $5 or less.

For a card to be worth anything from like 88-98 it had to be an auto., a highly rare error card, or some rare insert (Donruss Elite Cards etc.).

There's "some" value in newer cards, but if it comes at spending $325.00 on a hobby box it isn't worth it...seeing as how you're not even going to get anything near face value for it, and the likelihood of pulling some extravagant card is not in your favor.

[Po Pimp]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

I was never really a collector, but I got a box set from the 1995-96 season, amongst other cards. Included are some limited edition Jordan cards, and rookie cards from C-Webb, Grant Hill and Kevin Garnett.

[peteykirch]

Re: Collecting Sports Cards

I stumbled across this youtube account where it's a guy who owns a sports memorabilia and card shop, and he basically tapes people opening some of the sets digging for rare cards. It's pretty neat, but most of them are these sets that cost 250 bucks alone for a pack of cards, and a special insert.