OT? Californiasportscards on Auction Hunters Tues 12/14
 

Received this email from Zack Grakal and Matt Federgreen and thought I'd post it for any who may be interested in watching:

"Californiasportscards.com/Beverly Hills Baseball Cardshop will be on Auction Hunters tomorrow night, Tuesday 12/14 at 10 PM/ 9 C on SPIKE TV. Please check it out. Pretty funny stuff. Auction Hunters is a show where they buy storage lockers in auction (without knowing whats inside). Once they win, they go through it , pull out the items they think have value, and take it to the experts they think they can sell them to. You can see what our shop looks like as well."

Yahoo's TV Listing says the following about the episode:

"A 1951 record jukebox; a rare Willie Mays baseball card; a moonshine still; Prohibition-era whiskey; the first model CD player."

I was watching one of these types of shows within the last couple of weeks (I don't remember which one) and they won a storage room and pulled the stuff out and there were a bunch of baseball cards. The buyers were ecstatic and said stuff like these were "big name players", the previous owners must really have cared for their cards because they put them in plastic holders and that the group was worth a couple of thousand dollars.

From what cards I could see, they WERE big name players BUT they were from the late 1960's and 1970's.

I thought to myself, if those guys think those cards are worth a couple of thousand dollars, maybe I should get into contact with them and see if they want to buy my cards....

David

Storage Wars
 

@ David- The show is called Storage Wars. I was laughing at the same thing...he found a box of 60's and 70's baseball cards that didn't look all that great and thought he was going to salvage 2k out of them. Amazingly bad for someone who is supposed to be a professional.

Yeah, that one cracked me up. Especially since I didn't see any late 60s cards in there. The one he showed to the camera was a 71 Stargell which looked to be in EX. Good luck collecting that 2K.

I saw the preview for the Auction Hunters episode the OP is referring to. It appears to be early 50's Bowman stuff. They just showed a quick glance at some of the cards, one was a Mays. Couldn't make much else out. I suppose they didn't want to show all the cards to keep somebody interested.

Tom

I saw this episode last night and the guy who bought the unit was told his stuff was worth $3-4k. It was mostly modern cards from what I saw however there were a few nicer autographed items. Problem is there were no certifications for the autographed items, including a Kobe/Shaq Team signed Lakers Ball. I would be hard pressed to offer him even the $850 he spent on the Storage Locker for it.

"Storage Wars" is fun. Saw the show with the baseball cards, obviously he didn't know much about them but he seemed like he was going to do just fine with the accumulation of all the other material he pulled out of there.

What about the dude who won the locker he didn't really want to win for about $400 bucks and he ended up pulling out about 20+ lbs. worth of silver coins.

Haven't seen "Auction Hunters", but I refuse to watch anything on Spike TV. I swear they have 15 minutes of commercials for every 10 minutes of content they actually show. :mad:

I saw that exact episode and got a kick out of it. Looked liked the cards were worth about $40 total but he said that he thought he could get at least $2K, LMAO!!

"A Rod Carew card, you just gotta know that ones worth money" and i liked when he said something like "You can tell what cards are worth the money because they are in plastic holders (Top Loaders)":p

I live just a couple of minutes away from the Beverly Hills Baseball Card shop; it's a really great store. if you live anywhere near it and have not checked it out, do so.

if they exaggerate the prices of these Baseball cards you gotta really wonder how much they exaggerate the prices of the other "treasures" they find in these storage units?

I also gotta wonder why so many people just abandon all these high priced, rare items in these storage lockers? Like the episode where they found all the rare coins and silver pieces. Its not like someone couldn't have just kept those in their junk drawer instead of putting them in a storage unit. I can understand people abandoning their "garbage" in these storage units, but why are people leaving all those valuable items in there? I'm thinking a lot of these great "finds" on these shows are more than likely all staged, just to make the show more interesting.

Oh, I'm sure most if not all prices are greatly exaggerated. Still, it looks like there's the opportunity for some pretty good turnover. I don't think it's a coincidence most of these guys bidding on these units own consignment and retail shops and the means to move a lot of this type of stuff.

I'm betting a lot of these abandoned storage units belonged to people who are now deceased and the remaining estates either don't know about the units or find out too late. Probably a lot of bankruptcy cases to. You can't pay your bill, maybe the facility cuts off your access to remove stuff from the unit.

It does seem a bit shady that these storage facilities can just sell off your stuff after only three months. Probably written in the fine prints of these contracts.

I'm sure they don't also show that a large majority of these are duds, otherwise it wouldn't make sense that the auction company doesn't let you look through the material before you buy. It probably works out better for them that way.

Ex o/c Yaz = $200
 

According to the owner of that CA card shop that raw Ex o/c 1960 Yaz RC is worth = $200--pull ur ass out the 1980s and put down your beckett

I would never hang out all day to buy someones storage locker (I guess some HUGE number like 20% of storage lockers that are abandoned are just filled with Porn anyways) it just would never be my thing, BUT some amazing Sports items have been pulled out of these in the last few years. ALL the Dud Branom (1920's star) stuff that has been sold lately on ebay and in SCP auctions was found in a storage locker, and 2 years ago I bought a really valuable collection of of a 1905-1920 Boxing Hall of Famer that was in a box in a storage locker labeled "Grandpa".

I think that the really good stuff that is found is either just forgotten or it is not considered to be worth money by the owners. I feel bad for the people whose stuff gets sold sometimes and I think they should give an opportunity to family members to buy the unit for the back rent owed.

Which is why I don't find it worth the time to go the 6 blocks to that shop. Grossly overgraded and grossly overpriced for the overgrade, let alone the actual one.

I read an article in a Storage Facility Trade Magazine about the Storage Wars show and the misconceptions that it portrays. Apparently auctions are a real pain to the storage facilities as they usually lose a ton of money from unpaid rent that isn't recouped from the auction and any overage they receive from the auction has to be sent to the owner or the state.

Which magazine?

Inside Self Storage. Here is the article I read.

I also have my doubts on how legitimate some of these storage finds are. However, I do know that Bobby Fischer (chess) had a whole bunch of his personal materials stored in a storage locker that was auctioned off several years back. Apparently when he was living overseas because of his legal trouble with the state department, a local person he hired to pay the storage fee forgot to pay. Given what a recluse he was his entire life, I would imagine there was some pretty valuable stuff in that auction.

Interesting read. Even the comments section had a lot of informative bits.

Sadly, my urge to attend a storage unit auction has been nipped promptly in the bud. :cool:

A few years ago, I think Paris Hilton had a storage locker sold with some of her stuff in it. An assistant was supposed to pay the bills but didn't and the unit was auctioned off. Inside were some expensive clothes and either nude pictures of Paris or a porn video of Paris and her boyfriend, I can't remember which.

Also, didn't giditgirl, or whatever her name was, earlier this year say she found the group of Star Player cards she was trying to sell in a storage unit in a coffee cup?

David

My brother bought a storage unit at auction because he could see some Nebraska football memorabilia in it...he won the unit for something like $50 and it turned out to belong to "Husker Bob" who was what people around here would refer to as a Superfan...He went to all the games and would lead his section in cheers...Unfortunately he had a heart attack and died at a game. There was box after box stuffed with autographs, programs, books, et cetera...He ended up making over $5,000 from the stuff.

I saw the episode with BHBC
 

The highlight of the find taken into Matt (which he bought) was a '52 Bowman Mays.

Storage units contain things that someone, at one time, felt was important enough to spend money to keep.

This gives them a leg up on garage and rummage sales, which contain things that someone has specifically decided to get rid of.

Personally, I like estate auctions. Someone decided everything there was important enough to keep, and they never changed their mind.

Hi Anthony,
I have actually found Matt's grading to be quite conservative. I bought a raw '59 Topps Gibson rookie there last year that he graded vg/ex to ex. I submitted it to PSA and it came back a PSA 6.
JimB

Griffins was talking about a different shop.
 

Matt runs Beverly Hills Baseball Cards. Griffins was talking about California Sports Cards.

I have known Matt and the shop for close to twenty years. I have done dozens of deals with him over the years, both buying and selling, and consider him to be good guy, an honest person in a hobby/business with a lot of thieves, and a friend. Sure his prices are occasionally high (i.e. retail), but I have also gotten very good deals from him too. And I don't know a full-time dealer who doesn't shoot for the higher price on the right items now and then. It must be getting tougher for dealers these days. They used to be able to get material at 30-60% of book. Now with ebay and big auction houses for higher end items, private sellers want 80-90% of retail routinely. That lowers the profit tremendously. Just adding my .02.
JimB
P.S. He is quite knowledgeable and unlike your average brick and mortar store, he has a lot vintage (pre-WWII) material.

storage locker tv stuff
 

Just so you all understand...these are recreations of buys that they found. They do not find stuff like this every week and I would certainly venture to say that they have day jobs. These shows are showing highlights of their finds over the years not weekly buys. Very misleading television...

Joshua

I don't know. On "Storage Wars" they seem to be recreating a lot of awful buys made by that guy Jarred and his Wife. LOL!!!

:D

Have you seen his wife? I'd want to show her, too, if I was one of the show's producers

All these so called reality shows are staged one way or another. Even the arguements. People wouldn't watch long if it were everyday life. I don't watch any TV unless it's history or sports. But I do remember reading about one episode of Pawn Stars where they bought a coke machine and after it was "restored.", it wasn't even the same model. It was like the kid trying to pass off fake cards in front of this board. I took 2 seconds for coke machine experts to catch them. It's like most of the bad movies they make today, if people keep watching them, they will keep making them.