So most of you know my dad died back in September. Well my mom sold their house (the house I grew up in) and we have been cleaning shit out. I found all of my old sports cards, and there is some really good shit in there. And I was the type of kid that was anal about taking care of my stuff, so they are all in amazing condition. Some of the shit in there was stuff I got in college, like a bunch of Torry Holt rookie and pre-rookie autographed shit.Now I am torn. The "I really need money" part of me says to sell it all. The nostalgic part of me says "hold onto it because it will be worth something, or you can give it to your son if you ever have one." What would you do, TWW?
6/14/2009 8:31:42 PM
sell
6/14/2009 8:32:13 PM
sell it unless you're planning on actually putting it on display
6/14/2009 8:33:15 PM
trading cards are pretty much past their prime at this point, i'd sell before they depreciate more ... nowadays, unless they're graded (and grading is a complete crapshoot, it's all so subjective but passed off as completely official and objective) you're going to be hard pressed to get any real money off anything.
6/14/2009 8:34:10 PM
sell ityour kid won't care
6/14/2009 8:34:11 PM
grab the cards that have the most sentimental value to you (favorite players, your dad's favorite players, players who might be a tangential part of fond memories), sell the rest.As a recovering pack rat, I can say you don't want to keep that around.
6/14/2009 8:34:36 PM
I mean I am going through this stuff and I am amazed. I remember being really into card collecting, but I never realized I had this much. Much less, that I took such care of them.Any card collectors on here that might like to talk about buying some of this stuff? I have been working all day getting a lot of it valued and it is crazy. This collection could really set me straight if I chose to sell all of it.^ that is great advice. I have already pulled out all the Torry Holt's and my Mike Schmidt autographs. I am keeping the Torry's because almost all of them I got signed in person.[Edited on June 14, 2009 at 8:37 PM. Reason : a]
6/14/2009 8:35:50 PM
I kept a small box of my favorite/more valuable cards along with a couple of albums. The rest I just chucked into the trash.
6/14/2009 8:36:45 PM
As an addendum, take the cards you DO decide to keep and actually do something with them. You could get a crafty-friend to help you make a shadowbox of them or get a frame and put a bunch of them into a poster sized wall hanging or scan them in and turn them into a custom screensaver.Don't just let them sit around collecting dust, because at that point you might as well sell them.
6/14/2009 8:41:33 PM
^ another great idea!Here are JUST the Torry Holt rookies I have. A lot of them are either signed or are game-worn jersey cards.
6/14/2009 8:52:51 PM
wow i just realized ive got like five hundred pounds of cards stashed all over the place.after about '88 it seems there really are no cards worth having outside of your favorite players. ive got like twenty or so emmitt smith rookie cards and i wasn't even trying to collect some emmitt smith[Edited on June 14, 2009 at 8:54 PM. Reason : blorp blorp blorp blorp blorp blorp blorp blorp ]
6/14/2009 8:54:12 PM
Naw, you know one day there'll be some groups of collectors trying to gather the complete "Steroid Set"Hell, I think it'd be pretty fun to have.
6/14/2009 8:55:27 PM
^^ I'm the same way. I have a ton of Griffey Jr. rookies and I wasn't even trying to collect them.
6/14/2009 8:59:44 PM
i like the shadowbox idea.
6/14/2009 9:00:57 PM
I think I am going to do some sort of framed deal with all the Holt rookies
6/14/2009 9:04:12 PM
They'd look pretty nice in a basic black frame with glass on both sides (so you could see the back as well as the front).Maybe pick the best one for a middle card and arrange the rest around it in a circle or some other pattern.
6/14/2009 9:05:17 PM
My mom is all into that type of shit, so I might just give them to her and tell her to hook it upshe framed a bunch of my Rivers autographed shit, and my poster signed by the entire Gator Bowl winning team.[Edited on June 14, 2009 at 9:08 PM. Reason : a]
6/14/2009 9:07:22 PM
That's handy, cuz getting them framed can be damned expensive.
6/14/2009 9:22:02 PM
after you get all that done, you can open up your own bar
6/14/2009 9:23:27 PM
It was really cool the way she framed it too because she integrated my Gator Bowl ticket. Once I get it unpacked I will take a picture and post it. She's all creative and shit, I definitely didn't inherit that from her.
6/14/2009 9:24:58 PM
6/14/2009 9:25:20 PM
lol, again the bitter troll shows up. god forbid someone take some joy in something that doesn't make practical sense
6/14/2009 9:26:55 PM
Eh, they're stupid to him. Most collectibles are stupid to anyone who doesn't collect them or doesn't understand the attitude of a collector.Now, if you want to understand the mentality of a collector go check out the Lightner Museum in St. Augustine, FL. Seriously, once you see if you will probably never want to criticize anyone's collecting instinct again. That guy collected EVERYTHING. He basically wound up being a collector of collections.But now I'm getting off topic.
6/14/2009 9:28:53 PM
^^Yeah... Because I was clearly the first one to suggest selling them because your kid won't care.
6/14/2009 9:32:38 PM
i also remembered that for some reason i had accumulated an amazing number of Fred Lynn cards. So many that for a while I considered collecting them on purpose. i mean like every other pack for a while had Fred Lynn's big goofy face in it
6/14/2009 9:33:14 PM
Willy Nilly is just a bitter dude. I feel sorry for you man. Do you take enjoyment in anything other than politics and money?
6/14/2009 9:34:31 PM
I don't really enjoy politics or money, per se.... But go ahead and keep trying to think you know anything about me.
6/14/2009 9:36:52 PM
lol he was all like "Mommy, Daddy! Please invest in some starwars figures for me!! I think you'll reconsider the risk of owning a han solo {Hoth} when you weigh it against the steady rate at which Boba Fett and Snaggletooth have appreciated over the last quarter"
6/14/2009 9:38:12 PM
you said that you would only collect things for their monetary value, so i assumed that money was important to youmy bad
6/14/2009 9:40:32 PM
^^Swing and a miss...(I could hardly care less about collectibles, star wars, or any of that stupid crap.)^Uh, nope. I said, "If you are collecting them for their cash investment value only, that's fine."I don't collect things for their monetary value. Oh wait, yes I do. It's called cash.
6/14/2009 9:43:45 PM
i, too, have tons of sports cards. i also agree with this:
6/14/2009 9:43:53 PM
try to offload the entire batch as fast as possible - this market is dead and has been for a long time
6/14/2009 9:46:15 PM
I think in 30 years from now they'll be worth more as time wipes out old stashes, but for the near future, they won't be worth shit. I wasn't a huge baseball card nut, but for awhile I did manage to acquire some nicer cards, my crown jewel being a 1962 Hang Aaron I utterly cheated a guy out of. A fair condition (and mine is probably fair to a little less) one of these should go for $25-30 by itself. I went through about 85 other cards looking up their values on ebay and other places and wound up at like $180 for it using what I thought were reasonable estimates. I put the entire itemized list with the values I found on craigslist and asked $40 for all of it and got 2 hits and no replies when I replied to those guys.
6/14/2009 10:25:44 PM
i sold some on ebay a while back, but the only thing that made any money were complete subsets. and i only sold subsets i had 2 or more of.
6/14/2009 10:32:38 PM
lol i have racecar driver cards.... baseball sucks -sumfoo1
6/14/2009 10:33:36 PM
6/14/2009 10:38:12 PM
6/14/2009 10:47:05 PM
You can have my Billy Ripken error card when you pry it from my cold dead fingers, fuckface
6/14/2009 10:52:18 PM
The only cards worth keeping are pre-1976 in above average condition, auto'd stuff (preferably serial numbered below 100), and 1/1 serial numbered stuff.You would think that HOF RC's would be worth something, but most aren't (pre-1984- check it on ebay). It's volume and scarcity. Baseball cards, and especially the condition of baseball cards, blew up in 1984. After 1984, people protected their cards, because it became a business. Therefore, the only stuff that is hot has to be professionally graded and perfect, rare, or auto'ed. If you have anything that you think is worth something, check it on ebay. More than likely, you will be disappointed. Then sell them, and if you are looking for an investment, find another avenue.
6/14/2009 11:46:54 PM