moburf
04-03-2016, 09:04 AM
Greetings. First post after lurking around here for the last few weeks. Wanted to share my story and collection with the forum as I go through the process of sorting, inventory, grading and likely auctioning off my collection. My apologies in advance for the lengthy post.
In 1990, as a ten year old, I inherited part of a postwar collection from a relative who died young (35 yo) of terminal illness that he battled his whole life. Card collecting was one of his passions and he wanted his collection split four ways between myself and three other relatives after he passed. My share was the last of the lot, after my older relatives raided the collection of the most valuable sets and basically left me what they didn't want. Fortunately, what I did inherit was still awesome, but the first share was certainly a top tier 60's-70's collection. If what I got was the "leftovers", I can only imagine what the first lot contained. I was left eight complete sets, a divider case with approx 3000 "loose" cards, and two three ring binders. At the time I inherited the collection, my mom encouraged me to treat them with the highest care, handle them rarely or not at all, store them, and most importantly to not sell them. At the time, I collected modern cards, but by the time I turned 13 I became interested in different hobbies and lost interest in cards. At some point in the mid-nineties the set was put into storage in my grandmothers basement where it sat until two years ago when I reclaimed the boxes from storage but didn't unbox them.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago when my wife and I started doing some spring cleaning of our home. In an effort to opt out of cleaning our basement, I at long last unboxed my collection and began the process of rediscovering the collection itself and also the fun of collecting cards. After spending probably 30+ hours sorting through thousands of cards and organizing everything by year and card number I've identified many of the most valuable cards and also learned alot about the current state of card collecting with grading, population reports, auctions, etc.
Probably the highlight of the collection is a complete set of 1974 Topps Baseball. Also have complete sets of 1977, 1978, 1980, 1983 Topps Baseball; 1981, 1983 Fleer Baseball; 1982 Donruss Baseball; 1975 Topps Basketball (stored in binder). The other binder had about 50 low grade 1962 Post commons and 1961 & 1963 Post (or Jello maybe?) and about 30 high grade 1969 Topps Decals. Several thousand "singles" (varying in condition and number) from 1957 - 1985 were stored in a wooden divider, with the bulk of cards between 1969 and 1978. Mostly commons but there was a handful of high grade hall of famers and low pop commons sprinkled in. A near complete, but poorly maintained set of 1979 Topps Football. Also nice runs of 1972 Topps football, 1972 Topps basketball, & 1968 Topps Hockey.
Last week I shipped my first run of submissions to PSA. So many of those are not pictured below. Most of the submissions are very high grade with a few exceptions. In addition to the Hall of Famers I've also singled out some low-pop high-grade common cards as well that I intend to send in for grading. Among the 33 cards I submitted are the following:
1974 Topps 1 Hank Aaron All Time HR King
1974 Topps 20 Nolan Ryan
1974 Topps 456 Dave Winfield
1973 Topps 556 Yankees Team
1977 Topps 265 Mark Fidrych
1977 Topps 390 Dave Winfield
1978 Topps 100 George Brett
1978 Topps 560 Dave Parker
1980 Topps 580 Nolan Ryan
1983 Topps 482 Tony Gwynn
1969 Topps 412 Checklist (Mantle)
1969 Topps Decals: Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Felipe Alou, Tim McCarver
1971 Topps 26 Bert Blyleven
1972 Topps 101 LC Greenwood
1972 Topps 60 Walt Frazier
1975 Topps 90 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The 1980 Topps set was missing the the #482 Henderson, but I was able to find it yesterday after thinking I may have lost it at some point. I put it in a top loader way back and it was in a box with several other cards I had in top loaders that was still in storage at my grandmothers. So, very excited to send that one into PSA for grading as well as several others that are pictured below.
I've had a ton of fun going through this process. Any advice or thoughts that you may have for me is greatly appreciated. Hope you all enjoy.
In 1990, as a ten year old, I inherited part of a postwar collection from a relative who died young (35 yo) of terminal illness that he battled his whole life. Card collecting was one of his passions and he wanted his collection split four ways between myself and three other relatives after he passed. My share was the last of the lot, after my older relatives raided the collection of the most valuable sets and basically left me what they didn't want. Fortunately, what I did inherit was still awesome, but the first share was certainly a top tier 60's-70's collection. If what I got was the "leftovers", I can only imagine what the first lot contained. I was left eight complete sets, a divider case with approx 3000 "loose" cards, and two three ring binders. At the time I inherited the collection, my mom encouraged me to treat them with the highest care, handle them rarely or not at all, store them, and most importantly to not sell them. At the time, I collected modern cards, but by the time I turned 13 I became interested in different hobbies and lost interest in cards. At some point in the mid-nineties the set was put into storage in my grandmothers basement where it sat until two years ago when I reclaimed the boxes from storage but didn't unbox them.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago when my wife and I started doing some spring cleaning of our home. In an effort to opt out of cleaning our basement, I at long last unboxed my collection and began the process of rediscovering the collection itself and also the fun of collecting cards. After spending probably 30+ hours sorting through thousands of cards and organizing everything by year and card number I've identified many of the most valuable cards and also learned alot about the current state of card collecting with grading, population reports, auctions, etc.
Probably the highlight of the collection is a complete set of 1974 Topps Baseball. Also have complete sets of 1977, 1978, 1980, 1983 Topps Baseball; 1981, 1983 Fleer Baseball; 1982 Donruss Baseball; 1975 Topps Basketball (stored in binder). The other binder had about 50 low grade 1962 Post commons and 1961 & 1963 Post (or Jello maybe?) and about 30 high grade 1969 Topps Decals. Several thousand "singles" (varying in condition and number) from 1957 - 1985 were stored in a wooden divider, with the bulk of cards between 1969 and 1978. Mostly commons but there was a handful of high grade hall of famers and low pop commons sprinkled in. A near complete, but poorly maintained set of 1979 Topps Football. Also nice runs of 1972 Topps football, 1972 Topps basketball, & 1968 Topps Hockey.
Last week I shipped my first run of submissions to PSA. So many of those are not pictured below. Most of the submissions are very high grade with a few exceptions. In addition to the Hall of Famers I've also singled out some low-pop high-grade common cards as well that I intend to send in for grading. Among the 33 cards I submitted are the following:
1974 Topps 1 Hank Aaron All Time HR King
1974 Topps 20 Nolan Ryan
1974 Topps 456 Dave Winfield
1973 Topps 556 Yankees Team
1977 Topps 265 Mark Fidrych
1977 Topps 390 Dave Winfield
1978 Topps 100 George Brett
1978 Topps 560 Dave Parker
1980 Topps 580 Nolan Ryan
1983 Topps 482 Tony Gwynn
1969 Topps 412 Checklist (Mantle)
1969 Topps Decals: Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Felipe Alou, Tim McCarver
1971 Topps 26 Bert Blyleven
1972 Topps 101 LC Greenwood
1972 Topps 60 Walt Frazier
1975 Topps 90 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The 1980 Topps set was missing the the #482 Henderson, but I was able to find it yesterday after thinking I may have lost it at some point. I put it in a top loader way back and it was in a box with several other cards I had in top loaders that was still in storage at my grandmothers. So, very excited to send that one into PSA for grading as well as several others that are pictured below.
I've had a ton of fun going through this process. Any advice or thoughts that you may have for me is greatly appreciated. Hope you all enjoy.