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Joined: Aug 26 2007 Posts: 2752

Apparently Baseball cards were a hot item back when i was a kid. I'm glad i never got into them:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/bt/lee/still-gaming/10703-baseball01

I can't stop watching this video, not only is Lee resentful (which is entertaining in of itself) but he also is informative

I was wondering if anyone collected baseball cards in the 1980-90 and if what Lee says about them being worth jack shit today is true.

Posted: Aug 20 2009 11:25 pm

Yep, I'm one of those sad people, unfortunately. I had--okay, full disclosure, still have--boxes and boxes of not just baseball cards, but football cards. I never got into baseball so those cards were pretty much abstractions for me, but I've been nuts about football since I was a kid (and hockey, but the amount of hockey card collectors in the states are none.)

My consolation is that (well, except for the baseball cards) I never really collected for the money or potential return of investment. I just liked collecting all the famous players, and the guys on my favorite team. (Guess how many pages of those little 9-slot cardholders I have full of 80s and 90s era Cowboys. Just guess. And guess how many pages alone are Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman.) I still get them out every now and then and go through them just for nostalgia. Honestly though, its sad now more than anything. All of my favorite players are gone from those football teams. And baseball...well...my favorite baseball cards as a kid were these really shiny ones of Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire. We all know how that turned out. Confused

In theory I suppose my collection would be worth $500-800 actual market value, but I doubt I'd ever get that much for it unless I sold the cards individually on ebay or something. I just don't feel like it. Maybe someday. Or maybe I'll hire someone to do it for me, give them a cut of the profits or whatever. I dunno. It was a hell of a fun hobby back in the day, though.

Posted: Aug 21 2009 01:57 am

The median age of someone who actively collects sports cards as a hobby is the mid-30's. The median age of someone with miniature trains as a hobbly is the mid-50's.

Outside of games like Magic and such, the only cards I would get were Marvel comics stuff, especially things like Fleer '94.

Posted: Aug 21 2009 02:19 am

Very funny you posted this.

Just as I read this thread I was watching a show on the History Channel called "Pawn Stars", it is a reality show about a pawn shop.

Anyways, in it they made an off comment about how unpopular and sad the baseball card market is right now.

Posted: Aug 21 2009 02:39 am

I wonder what it is about it that made the market tank so bad? I mean aside from people growing up and realizing they were paying 20k for a piece of cardboard with Micky Mantle's picture on it.

Weird. Maybe trading cards that aren't an excuse for pwnage just involve too much human interaction for the general member of the wired generation?

Posted: Aug 21 2009 03:35 am

Andrew Man wrote:

Very funny you posted this.

Just as I read this thread I was watching a show on the History Channel called "Pawn Stars", it is a reality show about a pawn shop.

Anyways, in it they made an off comment about how unpopular and sad the baseball card market is right now.

I saw that show, first ep I caught involved a guy trying to sell his antique cannon that turned out to be legit (they tested this by firing it).

SolderHawk wrote:

Weird. Maybe trading cards that aren't an excuse for pwnage just involve too much human interaction for the general member of the wired generation?

I was reading in the paper (speaking of antiquated pasttimes, amirite?) and I think part of the reason behind it is that most players worth collecting wind up with real life creeping in and dashing potential idol/hero status, such as rape charges, criminal records, being an idiot and carrying a pistol to a club, etc. to say nothing of roiding up, as you mentioned.

Posted: Aug 21 2009 01:57 pm

Baseball cards were a great hobby and investment from the 50s until the late 80s. That is when the market got over saturated, as there was a boom in popularity. Before the 80s, you pretty much just had Topps and Bowman making cards. After the 80s you had Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck, and Score. Then in the 90s all of those company had 2, 3, 4, or more sets each. (Regular, deluxe, premium, etc.)

Posted: Aug 21 2009 03:21 pm

Alright, here's exactly what went down:
Comics and baseball cards were created, I believe both in the 30's. They were considered disposable entertainment, and were literally thrown out. Also, there were paper drives during WWII which claimed most of them. There were literally 1,000,000 copies of Action Comics #1 printed, and there are something like 27 known copies left in existence.

In the late 70's, people starting paying good money for old comics and baseball cards. This is because they were so few of them around. Suddenly, everyone in the world saw what was happening and they all decided that collectibles were the greatest investment ever. Everything was overproduced, it was shit, and it's worthless because EVERYONE has it. There is almost NOTHING from the 80's and 90's from a collectible standpoint that's worth a fucking thing. We've had people come in with comic collections they wanted to sell that literally had hundreds of copies of the same book. Baseball cards from that era are so plentiful that we sell factory sealed sets for $10, and sealed boxes of packs for $10-20. Everyone thought they could get rich quick, and the companies were more than happy to overproduce the stuff.

It's funny because people think that anything 25-30 years old must be worth a ton because it's "really old", but when there are as many people holding on to as many copies of all this stuff as their are, it's impossible for anything to be worth anything.

Posted: Aug 21 2009 04:21 pm

Oh sure, Jeebus. You just know everything because you actually have a comic and card shop and know a ton of stuff about the industry. As if that's supposed to impress us. Razz

(Total

of course. Thanks for the quick and informative breakdown Jeebus.)

Posted: Aug 21 2009 04:40 pm

For the record, I don't HAVE a shop, I work in a shop. I am not the owner.

Posted: Aug 21 2009 04:51 pm

Fair 'nuff. Bad wording on my part; typing got ahead of my brain.

Posted: Aug 21 2009 08:33 pm

I currently have a card & comic shop in my garage. I'm not kidding. A friend of mine's dad died about a year ago. He used to run a comic shop, and when he closed it, he just kept everything and put it into storage. My buddy just moved and didn't want to keep paying for the storage, so I told him he could use my garage. After moving everything, we figured there are about 200,000 comic books. There are also boxes and boxes of collectable cards; everything from movie cards to fantasy art cards, to playboy cards.

Posted: Aug 21 2009 11:02 pm

I'm willing to bet that 99% of the cards are worthless (most collectible cards are, though there are a few sets that go for some money, like a Dark Shadows card set that was never officially released). As for the comics, do either of you know what they are? 200,000 comics is a lot; so much so, in fact, that I would think it's virtually impossible for it all to be 80's and 90's shit (That'd be almost 700 long boxes of total crap. Possible, but unlikely). If there are silver and golden age super hero comics in there, you should probably find out since that's the stuff that will be worth actually selling.

On a side note, how the fuck are you fitting 700 long boxes in a garage?

Posted: Aug 21 2009 11:28 pm

It's a double car sized garage. The Longboxes are 20 across per row, stacked 6 tall, 5 rows total.

It looks kinda like this from the front:

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

So there is about 180,000 in those. And then there is a stack of about 12 Diamond Distributer boxes full of comics that are in the graded plastic cases. And, then there are a crapload more that are packed in plastic shopping bags (About 10 per bag) that were sold as grab bags. (And, we know Bill mostly filled those with crap, but he did plant a few valuable comics in those as incentives.)

From what we saw while moving them, there is everything from the old Western Comics from the 50s all the way to when the shop closed in 1997.

Joined: Aug 26 2007 Posts: 2752

While i didn't collect baseball cards, i still collected cards such as Fox Kids (when the Tick was still on) and really fancy Marvel cards. My mom was convinced that the Marvel cards will increase in price because they were a lot more duded up then most cards. I have my doubts about that, but since my collection was near complete it might still be worth some thing.

And Pogs, why did we ever get into pogs, that fad died quicker then it came. I still have my collection somewhere. Did anyone else collect pogs or maybe i should ask who doesn't have a few pogs.

Posted: Aug 22 2009 12:49 pm

Knyte wrote:

It's a double car sized garage. The Longboxes are 20 across per row, stacked 6 tall, 5 rows total.

It looks kinda like this from the front:

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

So there is about 180,000 in those. And then there is a stack of about 12 Diamond Distributer boxes full of comics that are in the graded plastic cases. And, then there are a crapload more that are packed in plastic shopping bags (About 10 per bag) that were sold as grab bags. (And, we know Bill mostly filled those with crap, but he did plant a few valuable comics in those as incentives.)

From what we saw while moving them, there is everything from the old Western Comics from the 50s all the way to when the shop closed in 1997.

Just old Westerns though, no superhero stuff from the 50's? People don't give a shit about the Westerns. We had a great collection of golden-silver age stuff come in that included a REALLY nice run of Red Ryders. We sent them to CGC for grading and they were all the highest graded copy in existence. Sadly, because it was a Western book and not a superhero book, no one cared and they didn't go for anywhere near what we hoped.

Posted: Aug 22 2009 03:56 pm

I've haven't had the time, no the desire to sort through it, I just recall seeing older stuff when we we moving it. We would pop the lid, look inside, put the lid back on and then throw it in the truck.

The saddest part is, as part of my payment for doing it, my buddy said I could keep any and all magic stuff we came across.

My haul:

One opened booster box that had about 50% "The Dark" boosters, 30% Chronicles, 15% Italian 4th edition, and 5% Japanese 4th edition.

A single starter deck box that had:
4 Demonic Tutors (Revised)
4 Crusades (Revised)
2 Castles (Revised)
4 Granite Gargoyles (Revised)
4 Roc of Kher Ridges (Revised)

One Magic The Gathering Poster that had a bunch of cards on it, that each had blank text boxes. Copyright 1994.

Posted: Aug 27 2009 07:44 pm

I used to collect sports cards from the early to mid 90's. I mainly collected basketball cards from 1993-1995.

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

Sorry to bump this but I thought I'd share. I've got a very large suitcase full of cards from the mid-80's to late-90's. I only got about 4 GOOD cards in my entire life, only because my dad usually handed me down most of the cards he got. He's been collecting since the 50's and no joke, had a Mickey Mantle rookie card, one time when Mantle struck out, my dad took the card and colored his face yellow with a marker. My dad still has the card, and it makes him sick to even look at. The only good cards I had; a Barry Bonds rookie, a Mark McGwire rookie, a Jordan rookie reprint and Kobe's rookie. Estimated total for everything else; $35

And my poor bastard dad still collects.

Posted: Oct 17 2009 12:33 pm

Eventually 80s and 90s stuff will be worth something. People will get disgusted that it's worthless and throw it out. And then they'll be very little left. Of course, this probably won't happen until we're like 90.

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

You're being too generous, the only way these cards would be worth anything, is if the crust of the Earth went back to the molten rock from about 5 billion years ago.

Posted: Oct 17 2009 02:01 pm

Or if people suddenly become super obsessed with recycling.

Posted: Oct 17 2009 02:31 pm

The only way comics from the 80's and 90's will be worth anything is if there are paper drives for WWIII. Also, it would take about 70 years of paper drives to eliminate them. There are too many people holding on to them that think they'll be valuable, and when they're disappointed and find out that they aren't, they still get sold to people who are going to take care of them instead of just torching them.

Posted: Oct 17 2009 02:38 pm

Buy them all and start destroying them to artifically inflate the price?

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

I'd like to organize a large bonfire and get rid of about 98% of my collection. Fuck you Kent Tekulve, piece of shit.