Anyone ever use the newspaper?

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Posted By: Bryan Long

I am curious to hear if anyone of this board has ever placed an ad in the newspaper or anywhere asking for vintage cards? I was thinking of placing a newspaper ad in my local paper with pictures of the type of cards I am looking for - but wanted to get experiences first if anyone has ever done this. I live in a very rural area with a alot of the public being older generation 70s and 80s in age. It may not work, but if it did, I guess, the possibilities could be endless . . . right?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I've heard of people placing ads like this, though their ads were more general-- ala sports cards or baseball cards and memorabilia. You don't want to miss the chance to get a 1957 Topps football set for $5 because you only asked for for Gypsy Queens.

One thing about an elderly generation from a local area is that they could have old pennants, programs and such from the local college and pro football games-- and that type of stuff can be valuable. I live in Seattle and probably every other local old person has something related to a U of Washington football game-- and some of it must have some worth.

I grew up in a college town, and I'm sure there were game uniforms, letter sweaters, banners, team photos, etc in peoples' basements.

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Posted By: barrysloate

A rural area with elderly people, particularly families who have lived in the same home for generations, would be the ideal place to make finds. I would give it a shot. I don't think you need pictures, because it might throw them off. For example, you might picture a T206 and a family who reads the ad might say: "Gee, our cards don't look like that, I guess this cigar box filled with Old Judges isn't worth too much." Just let the ad say you are interested in all things baseball, and see what happens.

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Posted By: barrysloate

David- we said the same thing at the same time. Pretty funny!

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Posted By: Bryan Long

I guess you guys are right. I never thought about all of the other great things that could be out there. I think I am going to give it a shot and see what happens. I will make sure and keep everyone updated, because I know that you will want to know if some old guy puts a box of 500 or so old judges in my face.

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Posted By: Bob

If I did that, Bryan people would back up vans with tons of 1997 Donruss cards to my door. You would think this (Arkansas) would be a prime place to find vintage cards and vintage memorabilia because of the ties with MLB (Hot Springs was where most teams used to go to trian every spring in the "teens"), and the number of retirees living here but nada. There is only one other avid prewar card collector here in this entire area.

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Posted By: george gogol

Bryan,
About a year ago a dealer friend of mine, who has more money than I, asked me to help him set up some ads in local papers in my county. I live in a town of 25,000 with several small communities surrounding it. He rented a small conference room at a local Holiday Inn and even had an armed guard with him. He brought a lot of cash and spent around $15,000. he was quite happy with what he purchased. A lot of collectors brought things in, a few elderly folks with something in the attic, a few middle aged men happy to leave with a couple of grand for their few thousand vg-ex 60's topps cards. The best prewar came from a collector wanting to get out of the hobby, 33 Goudeys, and some T-cards. Nothing too rare. I sat with him all day and had a grand time hearing people's stories and watching the deals go down. I simply got him the contacts for the papers. If you do it, I recommend using small town papers that are printed weekly, in addition to the large daily's. The ads are cheap and you never know what is in a farm house.

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Posted By: T E

Rural America is very cool, great way to meet and understand this country we live in. Especially in poorer areas. But you WILL get calls from people with a truckload of 1991 Donruss or whatever.

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Posted By: Mark Evans

I've tried this numerous times, seeking obscure regional issues. Only successful once (Sam Nahem, 1941 Cards team issue). Mark

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Posted By: Bryan Long

I'm going to run an ad in this weekend's paper just to give it a shot. I have no problem with telling people that I do not want their 1991 Donruss cards. To be honest I even put a year and early into the ad - just for those that may know they have old stuff. I'm looking into getting many calls if any, but I figured it is worth the 100 bucks if I am able to find one person that may have some decent stuff to sell. My ad is very basic, but at the same time a little detailed about what I am looking for. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck.

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Posted By: barrysloate

All you need is one good call and all the ads will more than pay for themselves. Good luck!

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I placed an ad in the Hobbies section of the classifieds that ran for a week or so asking for Lincoln Minor league memorabilia and didn't get one single call. You just can't find it HERE and I live HERE!

I think it would be interesting to try an ad for old baseball cards, but even my local card shop guy never sees prewar cards and he has people bringing him stuff all the time. However he did get in one T206 card a couple of months ago and he told me it's the first he's had come in the door in 5 years.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Dan- in your case you were very specific. Maybe someone read the ad and said: "then I guess this guy wouldn't be interested in my childhood collection of 1952 and 1953 Bowmans and Topps." You never know what is out there at any given moment; maybe not Lincoln Nebraska stuff but something else great instead.

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Posted By: David Smith

I have tried newspaper ads a few times and had some luck.

One ad I ran in a small town paper brought in eight B18 blankets (I bought them). From the same ad, another person had some Red Man's from the 1950's and W502's, with Ruth, Gehrig and a couple other Hall of Famer's. I didn't buy them because the guy didn't know what he had and didn't really know what he wanted for them except more than what I offered.

A couple of other ads in a different paper brought in some nice 1962 Topps (I bought them), some mini bats (I didn't buy them) and I met a guy who retired from Louisville Slugger. He had some stuff he didn't want to sell (Ty Cobb mini bat), some things he would sell but I wasn't interested in or had the money for (sets of 1987 and 1988 World Series black bats) and some things I was interested in. The best thing I bought was a Cal Ripken Jr error bat.

When they made some of the bats, they misspelled his last name as "Ripkin" instead of "Ripken". The error was discovered after they had burnt his name in some bats. Most of the error bats were destroyed but a few of the employees snagged some before hand. I was able to buy one of these bats from him. I have debated whether I should sell this or not...

Another time, I advertised for old comic books and bought about 300-400. I resold them to my brother-in-law and doubled my money. He then started to sell the ones he didn't want and made most of his money back plus added to his collection.

A few weeks ago, I had thought about advertising again and this thread just makes me want to even more (even though I don't have a lot of money). The worst part about advertising is not the people who have the new stuff but the people who have the older cards and a PRICE GUIDE!!! They have their own opinion about what EX-Mint is and think that you are going to pay them book price for each and every card. The other problem might be finding a great collection and not having the money to buy it. I did this twice and had to watch as someone else bought the cards. UGH!!!


David

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Posted By: Alan

Give it a try. It can't hurt. But, the problem is nowadays most of the cards in the old attic have already been discovered. Plus the fact that because of the all the publicity in the media, everyone knows now that the older cards are worth money.

Good luck !!!

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Posted By: Dave Williams

A guy I worked part time 17 years ago, spent the 1970's putting ads in Central and Northern Indiana newspapers that he bought collections of sports cards and memorabilia.

He told me he went all over, and acquired quite a collection for not a whole lot of money.

He had a sweet 65 Namath he showed me once.

He also sold a 33 Goudey set he picked up to get a downpayment on his house.

He also ran an old style mail auction in the 1970's, one of the people on his mailing list was James Beckett. He had no idea who he was at the time.

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Posted By: Martin Neal

The 67 card lot (64 T206s, 2 T207s, and 1 T205) I purchased a couple of months ago was acquired by the seller from a lead generated from an ad he had placed in the local paper. I think he was from the Philadelphia area. The E222s that walked into the Ebay store in Lynchburg last year would be a perfect example of why an ad in the paper might be successful.

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Posted By: T E

As Barry and others have indicated, keep the advert basic and fairly broad in scope. Better to get too many calls (which you will) than too few. I'd rather have someone with a stack of early World Series programs to look at my ad and say, "I don't get what this guy is looking for, but it says 'Baseball,' I'll give him a call," rather than, "I see this guy is looking for T206 Southern Leaguers, whatever that is, no point in my calling him, he wouldn't want these funny looking black and white photographs that say 'Old Judge' on them I found in Grand Pa's attic last week."

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Posted By: Bryan Long

I placed my ad to run this Sunday in my local paper. It is a very small town, but the paper is a daily so at least it some some circulation. The ad did not cost much at all. I didn't place a classified ad. I actually placed a display ad that I created myself. It reads that i am looking for baseball related items. We'll see what happens. The only bad part is that I just found out that I will be in Cleveland the day the ad goes out at a Cavs game - that is not the bad part. Hopefully people will call and leave messages. I am not holding my breathe, but it would be pretty nice to get something. I guess I'll find out early part of next week if my investment pays off.

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