Author Topic: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??  (Read 2735 times)

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Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« on: February 10, 2013, 05:17:20 PM »

Offline greg683x

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I recently bought a house a couple months ago and I'm still getting some of my stuff cleared out of my parents attic, and recently Ive come across the tons of baseball cards that I had stored up there.

Out of curiosity I checked the value of some more important ones that I had set aside in the mid 90's and was completely shocked how the value of these cards have completely fallen off a cliff in the last 20 years.

For instance, I have a Greg Maddux rookie card that I remember was worth $40 back in the day, now if you go to ebay you can get the card for 2 bucks.  You can get a lot of 6 of them for 10 bucks.  The prized Upper Deck Ken Griffey rookie card from 1989 was worth 200 bucks back in the day, you can get it for 20 dollars.

It's a bit depressing, at least for me it is, just because I remember how into the hobby I was a long time ago and I always dreamed about the day I'd see these cards skyrocket in value when all my favorite players retired.
Greg

Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2013, 05:19:27 PM »

Offline ScottHow

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I have an unoped tops set from 92. Other than that I didn't bother with baseball cards, except for MLB Showdown. Now that game was legit.

Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2013, 05:21:38 PM »

Offline CelticConcourse

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I have Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards!
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Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2013, 06:06:44 PM »

Offline CoachBo

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Yeah, I did.

And you're right. The newer stuff is relatively worthless.

Vintage stuff is still fairly valuable, but rookie cards from the 90s are a thing of the past, generally.
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Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2013, 06:10:42 PM »

Offline Birdman

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Yeah i collected cards from 1977 till 1992..i have basketball and baseball cards..I cant believe how the prices has drop on those cards I collected during those years. Reason I stop was there was too many company and cards coming out
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Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2013, 06:31:02 PM »

Offline ChefEricT

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I also have a ton of cards from the 70's, 80's and 90's.  the problem is that in the 90's more card companies popped up and all card companies started to mass produce.  So really the only cards from the 90's with any real value are rare error cards.  Google search 90's baseball card errors and you should find some to look for.  Also the whole steroid thing didn't help.  Some of my best cards were McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, etc. and their values plummeted when they got caught.  Good luck though, I hope you come across some of those error cards.
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Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2013, 06:32:05 PM »

Offline bdm860

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I collected baseball cards in the 80's and early 90's, and then basketball cards in the early 90's.  (Maybe it was just me and my circle, but it seems like most of my friends went from baseball to basketball cards around this same time).

I definitely know what you mean though, when I was a kid, I thought they'd be a great investment, yet just about everything is down like 90-99% from their peak price.

A couple of things I realize now though:

When I was a kid, you'd go into the local baseball card/comic book shop, look at the random Mickey Mantle's, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron's from the the 50's to 70's, the  '68 Nolan Ryan rookie card, the '80 Ricky Henderson rookie card, all priced in the hundreds to thousands of dollars, and think wow I wish I could afford that, daydreaming about buying it, but never really serious about it.  Then you buy some of the latest packs that came out, hoping to pull whatever the hot card was at the time. And maybe, just maybe, you'd occasionaly actually buy a card, maybe a Roger Clemens, Kirby Puckett, or Jose Canseco rookie card for $5-$20.  So ya you never really ever bought the expensive cards.  Sure the Ken Griffey, Jr. card was listed at like $100, but how many of those actually sold at that price?  They sit behind the glass case, but they rarely sold.  There was always a very limited market for those things.

Then there was an over-saturation.  Everybody looked at the '52 Mantle, the '68 Nolan Ryan, and saw the "market price" for those things.  And thought that would happen with the current cards in 20-30 years too.  So the card companies pumped out cards, and everybody took care of them, so there is just so many out there.  And at that time, there was basically just Topps cards until the mid-80's, then came Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck, Skybox, Hoops, etc.  Then you had special brands in addition to the regular brands, like Topps Stadium Club, Fleer Ultra, Donruss Pinnacle, etc.  Then you had special insert sets within all those brands.  Started off with one insert set, then two, then five, then they sold packs that contained nothing but insert sets.  Are you kidding me?

Plus back then, you saw your buddies' cards, you saw the cards at the local hobby shop, and maybe went to a local card show that was held locally a few times a year.  So that special card you wanted you could only really buy at one or two places.  The local hobby shops/card dealers really controlled the supply, you either bought from them at their listed prices, or didn't buy at all.  Then came the  internet and places like eBay and Amazon.  Now the market was flooded with supply.  That special card only the local dealer had that was in bike riding distance from your house, now you could buy it from any card shop/dealer across the country.  Instead of one guy selling the card, there's literally thousands of people selling it.  Market became flooded with supply.  Totally pushes down the price.

Then there was card grading services, I think this kind of ruined it for all but the ultra, super serious collector.  Maybe you did go buy the Ken Griffey, Jr. card, but I doubt you really inspected it. Was it perfectly centered?  Did you inspect for the tiniest bends on the corner, bet you didn't put it under a black light looking for smudges or finger prints.  No the guy just gave you the first one behind the glass display and you took it.  New cards rated anything but gem mint, 10.0, are pretty much worthless.  Nobody wants to send out their Ken Griffey, Jr. card and find it's only rated 7.5, you'll never sell that, not when there's thousands of cards rated better than that for sale.

Ya I used to love collecting cards though.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2013, 06:39:56 PM by bdm860 »

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Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2013, 06:36:53 PM »

Offline RebusRankin

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Hockey and basketball. Still have mine. Dreamed of getting rich. I have some cool stuff but not worth a ton.

Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2013, 06:38:09 PM »

Offline bdm860

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Plus I think cards are just stupid now.  Ever look on eBay and see the most expense cards?  They're just gimmick cards.  Special game worn patch autographed cards.  Get a Jordan card with a patch of his game worn jersey,  autographed, numbered 1 of 23.  A game worn LeBron card, numbered 1 of 3.  A Duel patch Jordan/LeBron card numbered only 1 of 1!  Wow it must be special they only made one of them!

Kind of ruins the fun of collecting when they make all these "super, special, limited" cards that you can never really collect, because they only made 1 or 5 or 10, and they're all listed for $10k to $100k because they're so "rare."

Ruins the fun of collecting, IMO.

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Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #9 on: February 10, 2013, 06:42:07 PM »

Offline CelticConcourse

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They must find the balance between too common and too scarce.
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Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #10 on: February 10, 2013, 06:52:51 PM »

Offline bdm860

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It's ironic though, the things I collected as a kid that I really took care of, and made sure I saved and kept, I couldn't care less about now, and are pretty much worthless.

But the things I really played with as a kid, and beat the crap out of: NES games, GI Joe's, Transformers, etc., while I don't collect them, there's a pretty decent market for them, and wish I took care of them and still had them.  Though my dad will tell me I really got my monies worth out of those toys, how I would love to have them in their original packaging now.

I love old NES reviews, like the Angry Video Game Nerd and Pat the NES punk, because it definitely brings back my child hood.  Pat the NES punk has videos where he goes to flea markets looking for deals on old video games.  He also has videos from a couple of guys called the Game Chasers on his site, they do the same thing going around to flea markets looking to build their old video game collection.  Just the empty boxes and instruction manuals for old video games will get you like $5-$20 a piece in good condition.  Very niche stuff, with a small following, but I love it.


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Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #11 on: February 10, 2013, 06:56:24 PM »

Offline TheGreenMonster

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Here in Britain we had to make do with Football stickers.

Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #12 on: February 10, 2013, 06:58:18 PM »

Offline Bahku

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I have collected basketball as an adult, and had much more fun doing it than when I was a kid, (I collected baseball cards then, and still have a great collection). I have a sealed box of 1994 Fleer Metal and two sealed 1994 Upper Deck ... I take them out every so often and tease myself about opening them. ;)
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Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #13 on: February 10, 2013, 08:47:33 PM »

Offline greg683x

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Yeah from what Ive been reading online, inflation pretty much ruined it.

In 1981 Fleer won a lawsuit against Topps, making Topps give up their monopoly of the trading card business.

So pretty much anything after 1981 now is pretty much worthless.  Like bdm  said, more companies came out with their brand of cards and would start releasing multiple sets of cards per year and inserts for those sets.  It really got out of control.

It's weird, I remember collecting rookie cards in the mid 1990s bc I was in awe of all the rookie cards my uncle had that were worth tons.  I just remember trying to get my hands on Jeter, arod, etc rookie cards and it was just impossible to get them all.  There were so many to get your hands on bc you didnt know for sure which would be the priceless one 30 years from now.  I remember specifically thinking that I wish there were only 1 or 2 brands of cards like I see in the 70's in the price guide bc it would make it all so much simpler.

Ahh well, one article I read said that a year or two ago Topps got exclusive licensing rights from the MLB to have their team logos on their cards.  They said add that to the fact that tons of other companies have folded that it could lead to a resurgence, but I doubt it, one reason being that I cant see kids these days getting into again.

Im done collecting I have a house to fix up now, lol
Greg

Re: Did any of you collect baseball cards when you were younger??
« Reply #14 on: February 10, 2013, 09:29:54 PM »

Offline rondofan1255

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I collected baseball cards. A few weeks ago, I was cleaning the attic and found some of my childhood sets. They were worth very little then and are still that way. :)