Earlier this summer I finally retrieved a bunch of stuff from my parents’ house that had been in storage. Within a cedar chest that I wanted were the remnants of my baseball card collection.
There are probably 1000 - 2000 cards, mostly from the 1980’s. They’re in decent shape. Most of them were just from packs of Topps and Donruss that you got for a dollar or two. I traded cards with friends, had a few “good” ones, but I don’t think I ever spent more than $10 or $15 for a top shelf card, and only did that a handful of times. Apparently I had a prepubescent athletic crush on Wade Boggs, judging by the dozen or so cards of his that are in one of my binders.
I am making a concerted effort to reduce the amount of clutter in my life.
My first thought is to just toss the lot of them into a dumpster behind the Dunkin Donuts out by the interstate.
Another part of me wonders if there’s something valuable hiding in the pile - but I definitely don’t want to go card by card through it all.
Wimsey jr has mrs wimsey’s hoarder tendencies, and wants me to keep them all so that I can “pass them down to him when I die” (jr keeps me honest about my mortality :))
I got rid of remnants of my coin collection a few months back. Kept a few of the non us coins. Dumped the change into the change jar. To be dumped into a coin machine when it is convenient.
When I moved from California to Tennessee, I sold all of my to a friend’s son. Bulk deal, except for the George Brett rookie card that I kept for sentimental reasons. A win-win for both of us.
If most are from the 80s, probably not a big number of decent cards. If you just want to get rid of them easily and not go through them all, email some dealers and offer them bulk for x amount. Or do the same on eBay. Someone will likely take them.
I think the chances of there being anything significantly valuable are pretty slim. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have someone who knows what they’re doing (and isn’t looking to rip me off) just take 5 min to shuffle through them and tell me if that’s correct.
I think the chances of there being anything significantly valuable are pretty slim. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have someone who knows what they’re doing (and isn’t looking to rip me off) just take 5 min to shuffle through them and tell me if that’s correct.
Not sure where you live, but any decent sized city, should have a place that buys and sells cards. Take it to them and see what they offer. It helps if you have them in some kind of organized fashion, so they can quickly sort. Or look online for when the next card collector show comes through town (I think those exist still not sure).
Or look on Ebay what collections go for and throw it up there. or Fb Marketplace.
(I have stamps that Inherited that I am pretty sure are value less, but someday need to take to a stamp collection store/ show and see if there is any value.
Well I have two boys 13 and 10 that are into collecting cards, but mostly Pokemon ones. Oldest is into baseball though and we got some good Angel cards awhile back of Ohatani and Trout, and that has him excited about it again…Give me a bulk price and I will take them off your hands, and let the little buggers go to town on them. Been trying to get them into something other than online gaming stuff, got an old Lincoln penny collection going, bought 5000 of them to keep them busy sorting for awhile…
Well I have two boys 13 and 10 that are into collecting cards, but mostly Pokemon ones. Oldest is into baseball though and we got some good Angel cards awhile back of Ohatani and Trout, and that has him excited about it again…Give me a bulk price and I will take them off your hands, and let the little buggers go to town on them. Been trying to get them into something other than online gaming stuff, got an old Lincoln penny collection going, bought 5000 of them to keep them busy sorting for awhile…
WELL I thought I might play middle man and lay out a price… so I went to ebay, searched on bulk baseball cards… WOW… i guess the floor has dropped on these, looked at current auctions, most over 2000k, one says 20 HOFers some say multiple hofers, some are up to 5000 cards…
anyhow… $30 ish bucks $5 shipping, some with free shipping, some more, some less. easy enough for either of you to look up…
Not sure if you can use post office media mail to ship, if you can might be the cheapest way, otherwise, I gotta believe shipping is gonna be more than the cards are worth…
I guess I have heard this on coins and stamps and pretty much any traditional collectable from the 80s and 90s so many collected that the masses are worthless, and most only deal in the really top ones that every now and then a new one is found by going through the 5000 unit collection.
Sometimes when you “Declutter” you will have regrets.
1991 Atomic ARC skis
1980’s Shogun Bike
Are a couple of my regrets as I thought I moved on from them only to wish I had them still just a few short years later.
Now to your specific items:
They are baseball cards. Make sure you don’t throw something away that someone would REALLY pay some real money for. There are all kinds of books and cards that become very valuable unbeknownst to their owners
Maybe this can be a bridge between you and your son so to speak.
While cleaning out my parents attic, I came across my football card collection - 73 season and complete with lots of significant duplicates -All-Pro, MVP. and other special cards. Still in the old blue shoebox and in nice condition. Contacted a place that I found online to see if they were worth anything of significance. They weren’t interested - not rare enough. Couldn’t find my baseball card collection which is a bummer.
If you want some baseball cards Monty, I’ve got a ton at my house. My mom bought them as an “investment†for my sister…I think she really bought them for herself when my brother was into it. We had several boxes that were unopened, gave those to my nephews, but their mom wasn’t too enthused about taking any more than that.
Garbage Bin… yeah it hurts, helps you keep in touch with your mortality.
You will feel better afterwards I promise.
My mother recently tried to pawn off on me a bin of my “memorabilia”. I told her I refuse. Throw it out now, or someone who I pay to come to your house after you are dead will throw it out for me.
The cards have value to someone, maybe even a neighborhood kid that just got into collecting. 99% of the cards are probably not worth much, but you could have a Bonds or a Greg Maddux rookie card worth a few hundred bucks if its in mint condition. Of course, you would have to get the cards graded first which would cost you 17 or so bucks each. If you have kids, give them to your kids (unless they are girls, I assume they aren’t interested). If no kids, then a relative or just put an add up on Facebook or Craigslist if you really want to get rid of them. I’d be happy to take them off your hands but I live in Japan so its a little expensive to mail them here.
They are baseball cards. Make sure you don’t throw something away that someone would REALLY pay some real money for. There are all kinds of books and cards that become very valuable unbeknownst to their owners
That’s part of the point of the OP. I don’t want to have to go card by card through the entire collection, trying to figure out if there’s a valuable needle in the haystack. I want a quick and simple way to assess whether there’s anything of significant value.
Maybe this can be a bridge between you and your son so to speak.
Perhaps. He’s more of a soccer and hockey kid
Less is not always more with memories.
Humph. That’s the mrs wimsey mentality that had me moving several boxes of beach rocks from Massachusetts to Florida, then back to Massachusetts first to a rental and then our house, because “each rock came from a nice beach or a nice sunset or a good walk with family, or…” Multiple 30 lb boxes of rocks that haven’t been opened in going on 14 years, carted halfway across the country and back because ‘memories’.
Less isn’t always more, but sometimes it is. /end grumpy rant/
My magic the gathering cards from the early 90s were worth something.
My sports cards from that era were all pretty much junk. I went through the cards, and took out the ones I wanted for sentimental reasons/jordans/nolan ryans/etc., and gave away the rest to kids on the street.
It will be easier for their parents to throw away than for you to.
My magic the gathering cards from the early 90s were worth something.
My sports cards from that era were all pretty much junk. I went through the cards, and took out the ones I wanted for sentimental reasons/jordans/nolan ryans/etc., and gave away the rest to kids on the street.
It will be easier for their parents to throw away than for you to.
That’s kind of where I’m coming out. I’ve got a Ryne Sandberg card that I’m sure is worth nothing, but I had to bargain hard against my best friend who was a huge Cubs fan to get it. I want to keep that, just so I can give it back to my friend as a present when he has his first grandkid or something. A few others like that.
Maybe I save one binder of randoms to give to my kid.
The rest…I don’t want to miss out on giving away something super valuable. (I already blew that once at adolescent-value levels. Jose Canseco played on a farm team in my hometown, I had a minor league card of his that they gave away for free at Madison Muskies games back in the day. I threw that card away when I was cleaning my room as a middle schooler, turned out it would have had some money behind it.)
But at this point in life - if I don’t know I unknowingly gave up a few hundred/thousand dollars by handing it off to neighborhood kids, I can live with that. I just don’t want to give up something that could pay off my mortgage.
