Sports cards—any collectors/investors?

[irishfan]

Didn’t see a thread out there but wanted to see if anyone else either collects or has seen the huge increase in interest in the hobby over the last year or so. Some prices are wild and there’s a combo of institutional money, celebrity investor money, and price manipulation that is just nuts right now. Interesting read below on some of that new money that is in the market.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ant-logan-paul

*I should add I have a very modest collection. Few nice cards but nothing crazy.

[Luckylucci]

My father got me into card collecting at a very young age and it’s something we did together for the first 20 years of my life. I’d get cards or request them as presents for Bdays, Xmas, etc. Any savings I’d accumulate we’d go down to the local card store and I’d spend on cards. Never really bought complete sets but wax boxes. We’d then try and out the sets together ourselves. It was so much fun opening each pack and looking them up in the Beckett to see what we got. I’d spend hours upon hours organizing them.

Because of that I have a pretty extensive collection but I haven’t went back and looked at anything in probably 12-15 years. Good timing on this now. As I actually saw something on CNBC the other day talking about this and sent him a text. I sent him a similar article and that we should take some time to dig back into it and see what’s what.

I have a feeling I’d be pleasantly surprised at what we have. However, I got really big into the steroid era of MLB. And it was my peak card collecting days. I wonder if those cards have retained value. I literally haven’t look at prices in 15 years.

[IHateMarkMay]

I have a pretty decent collection, but nothing serious. I looked at offloading it last summer before moving, but couldn't find a website that was easy enough to search for (maybe I'm just dumb when it comes to this). Have a full collection of ND cards, a full year collection of baseball ('93 maybe?) and some odds and ends with basketball. Wouldn't mind selling them before I make my next move in a few months.

[Cackalacky2.0]

Interesting. I need to revisit my collection. I know I have a bunch of 1970s era cards and a ton of complete sets from the 80s and 90s. Once had a Steve Garvey rookie card. Still have 5 Johnny Bench Rookie cards and 4 Pete Rose rookie cards. Got like 8 Rated Rookie cards for KGJr

[Armyirish47]

I still collect on a small level but all this interest has jacked prices. I try to get all the Notre Dame players autographs in the annual Panini Contenders Draft picks set, and of course I'm still chasing the 2013 Upper Deck set. I've posted some pics on here before but may have to take some updates.

[tussin]

It's crazy to me to see all of these post-2000 gimmicky "jersey cards" go for such high prices. I don't see how they can retain their value like the pre-1980 vintage cards where it's almost impossible to find a PSA 10.

Then again, we do live in a world where a 1st edition, PSA 10 Charizard can sell for $5K+....

[IrishZag]

I have a pretty extensive collection from my childhood. Similar story to Luckylucci. When I went to college in the early 2000s I left them at my mom’s and didn’t buy anything for years. 3 or 4 years ago I started to get the itch a bit and bought small collections off people on FB marketplace and some small local auctions. I started looking at what I had and realized that a lot of my top end stuff had been taken at some point so I decided to catalogue everything (OCD). Spare time project that took way more time than I wanted. I also started realizing I was closer to completing some sets than I thought and that’s all it took for me to start perusing eBay and buying. When I started doing that a couple of years ago I was pretty pleased with the prices and when the pandemic hit it became a nice way to pass the time, but I think other people started doing the same and the prices have gone crazy and are still going up. Wish I started a little sooner. That all being said I am trying to offload all of my doubles (baseball, basketball, football) and finish sets if anyone wants to see my spreadsheets and commence with some trading! There’s a link below to one of the card forums as well.

[NDBoiler]

I used to love collecting and trading baseball cards as a kid. My heyday was mid 80s to early 90s and I still have a lot of my “good” cards stashed in the basement. I didn’t know prices had gone up so much recently, so I may have to dig them out and look up the value (does Beckett even exist anymore lol). I also have a decent amount of cards from the 60s that were handed down to me from a deceased uncle when I was a kid. I have a nearly complete set of 1967 Topps including Mays, Aaron, Mantle, Rose, and Carew (rookie!) amongst others.

Edit - I just found the PSA website and see where you can send your cards in to be rated, but it seems very expensive unless you’re absolutely sure they are in the top levels of condition and are valuable cards. Anyone else have a suggestion to determine value without paying an arm and a leg? I may look to sell some of the valuable doubles if I can, but I’m not really interested in paying that much to price them. Also, where would you guys suggest as the best platform to sell them on?

[GATTACA!]

It's crazy to me to see all of these post-2000 gimmicky "jersey cards" go for such high prices. I don't see how they can retain their value like the pre-1980 vintage cards where it's almost impossible to find a PSA 10.

Then again, we do live in a world where a 1st edition, PSA 10 Charizard can sell for $5K+....

Haha you better add a lot of zeros to that number. A PSA 10 Charizard is more like $250k right now.


I never really collected sports cards. Now Pokemon on the other hand............I may have never stopped.

[Blazers46]

My brother stole all of my cards and pawned them for $30. Instead of an allowance I just told my paents to buy me packs of baseball, basketball, and football cards. Barry Sanders and Jerry Rice rookie cards. KenJr, Bonds and other rookie cards as well as just about every single Michael Jordan card I could get my hands on... all gone. (sad face emoji)

[Luckylucci]

My brother stole all of my cards and pawned them for $30. Instead of an allowance I just told my paents to buy me packs of baseball, basketball, and football cards. Barry Sanders and Jerry Rice rookie cards. KenJr, Bonds and other rookie cards as well as just about every single Michael Jordan card I could get my hands on... all gone. (sad face emoji)

Brutal story. My dad has a somewhat similar one. He was really big into collecting cards as a youngster through HS. Had a great collection of old school baseball cards of all the HOF’s from the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. Left home, in NY, to head to college in MN. Well, my grandmother didn’t expect he’d be coming back much and wanted to make space in the house. So, she tossed them all out in the trash. Unreal to think about how much money those are probably worth now.

[irishandy]

I still have my collection and when I was in high school I worked at our local sports cards shop. I am a big Charles Barkley fan and I have a lot of his cards. I got out of it because there was too much. I remember when it first started out it was Topps, Donruss, Fleer, and Upper Deck. Also to keep collecting you have to spend $.

[tussin]

Brutal story. My dad has a somewhat similar one. He was really big into collecting cards as a youngster through HS. Had a great collection of old school baseball cards of all the HOF’s from the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. Left home, in NY, to head to college in MN. Well, my grandmother didn’t expect he’d be coming back much and wanted to make space in the house. So, she tossed them all out in the trash. Unreal to think about how much money those are probably worth now.

There are a lot of stories like that with old baseball cards. My Dad swears that he had most of the 52 Topps set (including Mantle) and his sister threw them out in the mid-70s.

[vinnymac2402]

I’m having a hard time finding any cards at like Walmart, target, or Meijer for what ever reason they all seem sold out. I went to the card store at UP mall in Mishawaka but there prices were through the roof. I have probably 3 to 4 thousand cards. My boss told me about a website to go to catalog my cards and get a pretty accurate value for them. I will look tomorrow for the website and post it on here. I have a bunch of football and baseball with some hockey and basketball to round it out. Lots of rookie cards from the late 80’s and up

[Irishize]

I’m having a hard time finding any cards at like Walmart, target, or Meijer for what ever reason they all seem sold out. I went to the card store at UP mall in Mishawaka but there prices were through the roof. I have probably 3 to 4 thousand cards. My boss told me about a website to go to catalog my cards and get a pretty accurate value for them. I will look tomorrow for the website and post it on here. I have a bunch of football and baseball with some hockey and basketball to round it out. Lots of rookie cards from the late 80’s and up

This has been the prominent case since the beginning of the pandemic. With folks stuck at home, they wanted something to do so they raided the shelves. While some were true collectors a huge group of “flippers” arose out of the demand. They would buy them up and sell them on eBay for double/triple/quadruple what they paid. Also, gamblers jumped on the bandwagon. With nothing to gamble on early in the pandemic, they started speculating sports cards. I suspect that has disappeared w/ sports gambling back online.

Sadly, it’s not much of a kids’ hobby anymore. Adults ruin everything. I’ve heard of flippers cutting deals w/ the stockroom folks at Wal-Mart so they can be there when they’re putting product out. I’ve heard of flippers becoming friendly w/ the distributor who stocks Target so they can know when to be there. In some markets, Target has put a limit on how much one can buy due to the demand. You really just have to get lucky when you go by one of these outlets. I would recommend hitting up smaller towns where there’s less foot traffic.

In the meantime, don’t buy the cards for the inflated prices online. You’ll end up being disappointed from what you get for your money & the flippers will keep on flipping. Like most things, this has created a bubble & the bubble will burst making the value of these cards a lot less (similar to the late 80s-early 90s ‘junk wax’ era). The hobby as a whole has “jumped the shark” b/c even “junk wax” boxes are selling for tons more at shows & online. Part of it was folks wanted something to open so the demand for stagnant junk wax went up. Then it became collectors buying “junk wax” in pursuit of a Jordan, Jeter Rookie or Griffey rookie that may grade out as a 10 from the grading services. I saw a dude buy 25 sets of 1989 Fleer specifically for the Griffey rookie. He actually pulled the Griffeys & gave the sets back to the dealer. That’s another result of the hoopla: the grading services are on a 6-12 month backlog.

Best of luck finding some product! Sooner or later you will hit paydirt.