Bored With Cards?
 

Over the past year, I've become pretty bored with cards...seems like the same stuff in every auction and most of the cards that I have had an interest in are either drying up or overpriced. My focus has shifted some in recent months to historically significant baseball memorabilia. I see this as a niche that offers the ability to gain significantly more knowledge and growth as s collector. For me, it's time to broaden my interest...anyone in the same boat? If so, what (beyond cards) keeps you interested and actively collecting?

Game used flannels. Holding a shirt that was actually worn by a specific player during a specific season, and in specific ballparks (home vs road) is a really cool thing. Example: Suppose you lived near any AL ballpark from 1962-1967 and went to a game when your home team was hosting the Twins. There is a very good chance I own at least one of the shirts you saw that day, over 50 years ago. To me, that concept is really fascinating.

Cards generally never get anywhere near the player depicted, and unless they were premiums sold in the ballpark, nowhere near an actual ballgame. Autographs are things created by specific ballplayers, but often hard to authenticate, and kind of boring to look at.

GU shirts have everything: Direct contact with the player, stadium, and game action, and they are colorful and reasonably easy to authenticate (flannels especially) as long as all the original tagging is intact. Value-wise, they are a bargain.

For instance, about an hour ago in the Hunt live auction, I won a 1949 Boston Braves Earl Torgeson all original matched jersey and pants combo for about $2,600 including BP and shipping. According to an ebay search, on halloween this card sold for about the same, $2,450:

1952 Topps #79 Gerald Staley St. Louis Cardinals PSA 8 NM-MT

It's a very nice card of a common player, well preserved. But for the money, is it one tenth as cool as a 70 year old GU uniform?

Bored with cards? Have to agree. Baseballs are unique. I do have a Babe Ruth Lou Gehrig Joe Dimaggio Red Ruffing Autograph Baseball and a Tris Speaker autograph baseball if anyone is interested.

On they are Psa and Jsa

Vintage baseball tickets to historically significant games.

I agree Ethan. Other than a few certain cards, I've been buying mostly photos, magazines and some unopened stuff.

I entered this phase about 25 years ago. Memorabilia is so much more unique, less mass-produced, and provides a much closer link to the teams and players.

My preferred segments are vintage pennants, ad signs, photos, statues, trophies, game used uniforms and bats, and early equipment spanning the 1870s - 1970s.

There's no shortage of great items to collect, but a lot has dried up in past years. Cards recycle all the time, but the good/rare memorabilia tends to remain in collections until the Grim Reaper comes calling. :eek:

I still like my old baseball cards, but, like most people on this side of the board, I really enjoy memorabilia. I recommend you try it. I started collecting old, game used bats about 30 years ago, when more were available than now. If, like me, you end up working on specific teams or seasons, there's likely to be a lot of waiting. But when you find something that you've wanted for years (or decades), it's a great feeling. It has been a lot of fun learning how to evaluate a bat, especially when learning from other collectors.

What I have done is got a card a autograph baseball and a book about each player. Have picked up some cool books like "How to play the out field " by Babe Ruth and a little book sent to the troops during WWII on the life of Lou Gehrig. Book on the life of Tris Speaker. Looks really cool displayed on shelves.

I've started following some modern sports artists and picked up some really cool pieces at reasonable cost. Feels good to support an artist and some of this stuff is real cool.

I moved away from cards in the mid 90’s and have concentrated on game used jerseys and stadium artifacts. I like things that are affiliated with the game itself vs. a piece of cardboard.

Lots of great items to collect, you just have to pick something you like.

I still collect cards, but with the sometimes ridiculous prices things are going for these days and all, it is often nice to be able to dabble in other things, such as memorabilia. Just today in fact I received a package from Brockelman Auctions (thanks Scott), which included a 1955 first ever Global World Series souvenir magazine/book. I didn't even know such an event existed, let alone originally occurred back in 1955. And the magazine/book was in pretty nice shape, measuring 11" X 14" inches and including 100 pages of articles. stories, ads, and anything else you can think of regarding Milwaukee. where this inaugural event was held, and stories of the people running and involved with it and so on. Some stories and pictures of ballplayers, including those of different areas/countries competing in the event. Didn't really include specific details of teams/players in the event, and was more about the event and the city itself. Still an absolutely neat item that I basically just sat down and started reading right after opening the envelope it came in. No idea how many of these are out there, but for what I paid, it was a bargain to me.

My winnings also included a 1938 Wheaties football game, that came in the original envelope it had been mailed in, with instructions, game board and original 5 wooden die. Really neat item that you do not see every day. And given that it did not come in a box and was actually just mailed out in an oversized manila envelope with game graphics on it, I'm guessing not too many have survived with the original envelope still intact. A little the worse for wear, but still all there.

I also dabble in picking up other old games (primarily baseball), every once in a while as well. Figured that since we card collectors also occasionally collect things like E.R. Williams, Allegheny, National Game, Tom Barker, Polo Grounds, 1921-30 Major League Die-Cuts and S&S Game cards, it wouldn't be too much of a reach to pick up some of the myriad of the other actual baseball board, card, pin ball, and other assorted types of games out there when they pop up. Have some really nice, very early 20th century games, including a Walter Johnson game, a Christy Mathewson Big Six game board (need the box) and even a late 19th century McLoughlin Bros. game, all original in the complete box it originally came in. There are some fantastic graphics and images in a lot of these games, and some really obscure ones out there, that occasionally turn up for not that much at all. And you probably wouldn't believe how many different known games are actually out there.

If you're ever interested in learning more about the games, and seeing what all may be out there, there's a great site called Baseball Games at - baseballgames.dreamhosters.com
And one of the owners/moderators is a member on here, Butch7999 (Hi Butch). Highly recommend this site if you've ever interested in pursuing this other facet of the hobby.

Very bored, still waiting for that PM on someone who wants to buy it all...

Games
 

Bob C...thanks for your suggestion about checking out the website discussing early baseball games. These do interest me some as they can often be found for a fairly reasonable price. I came accrossed a couple of really nice games (one board game and another metal pinball game) recently and like you have said, the artwork is beautiful. Thinking about picking up one or both of them to display on the wall.

Cheers.

Ethan

Hi Ethan,

Be sure to check out the site. Butch and his two buddies run a great site, and the alphabetic listing of baseball games that they have on there is just incredible. Last year I actually got them to add another game to their list when I pointed out one of those baseball related punchboards from the 30s, 40s & 50s you often see was actually a game, and not just a punchboard to win cigarettes or money off of. This was a Damon Runyon Memorial Cancer Fund punchboard that was baseball themed with baseball graphics. You paid 1 penny for each punch, and got a paper that had three numbers on it like 1-0-2, which stood for the number of runs your team scored over three innings of a game. So you and a friend would each spend 3 cents and punch out 3 papers, and then add up your scores to see who had the most runs for a nine inning game. They knew of the punchboard when i pointed it out, but said they never realized it was an actual game and not just a lottery/gambling type of piece that pretty much all these punchboards were. So they added it to their recognized game list. The punchboard itself was pretty thick and had a hollow, middle space to collect all the coins dropped into it. And I guess when the punchboard had all the holes punched and used up, they simply turned it, and the change collected, into the cancer fund people.

I was surprised I could actually contribute to their site with a game they didn't realize was a game. And this, like a lot of baseball themed/related games isn't always incredibly rare. In fact, there's one of these punchboard games for the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund for sale on Ebay right now, though the BIN/OBO price of $250 seems a bit high to me. Seem to remember seeing these usually selling in the $50-$100 range before, but who knows anymore given the pandemic and recent price surges.

And of course they include the other games that you normally see as a card collector, like the Tom Barker, National, Polo Grounds and S&S Game cards. But then you find other games like the metal spinner game called "INSIDE" THE PARK with a 1911 patent date on it. I believe it was based on a re-enactment of the 1913 World Series between the A's and the Giants, and there were actually small coin-like tokens that had the names of the various players on both team involved in the series printed on the tokens. So you had an actual game piece named for Mathewson, another for Bender, and so on. No actual player images on the pieces, but still, how rare and how many of these pieces do you think have survived till today? And you'll likely be surprised when you see how many ballplayers had their names associated with various games over the years as well. Neat little collecting niche that hasn't completely blown-up price-wise, at least not yet. LOL

With the crazy price increases with cards, memorabilia seems to be a good bet for future appreciation. Photos, for example, are just starting to get the respect they deserve but they are still almost all modestly priced compared to cards.

Autos and Photos have showed some fair prices the last few years! Depends on who at times, but sometimes a vintage card with auto can sell for less then some cards of the same person/card - Happy collecting!

Jimmy

I do not think cards will ever go out of style as the primary collection of most do to the accessibility to them, they variety and selection of them.
Also the memories of collecting as kids and/or with your friends and parents

I will always alway be a card collector and that will never change.

However, now that my collection has matured and I have gotten the basics of what I have wanted I am planning on expanding more into collectibles that are not cards.

I started small with some pictures for the wall, an autographed, bat and some small items.

Now as I look around I see other items that fit in my collection focus and at some point will pick up some pieces (like I just picked up a cabinet photo)

The best part of collecting is that everyone can collect what they want and as this threads shows the variety and tastes are different

I got bored with cards a few years ago, being a lifelong Montreal Expos fan my focus and passion are Montreal Expos tickets, some expos memorabilia and some game worn Expos which must have 100% provenance (one of my best friends was batboy for the Expos during their glory years 1979-1982 so I get most of my stuff from him), Like this 1982 Al Oliver batting helmet which I was fortunate enough to photo match.

My true passion are the tickets, Unlike cards "every ticket tells a story" and the hunt for them are real, unlike cards where 90% of them can be bought on Ebay or auction houses any day of the week if you have the money, trying to find some tickets can take years, ticket collecting reminds me of what card collecting was many years ago, I have made contact with ticket collectors and we help each other out with tickets, I have helped collectors in the United States with some Expos home games , I have helped a collector with Dave Winfield home run tickets, and a few who collect Mike Schmidt Home run tickets and so on.

Agree with a lot of people here. I think photos prices have been rising and hopefully are ready to break out. It seems they have steadily been rising for the last 2-3 years.

Cards / Memorabilia
 

Many of us who come from the "card" side of the collecting world are most comfortable there...just like everything in life, taking some risk and being willing to learn new things takes courage, success and failure. I'm hoping the memorabilia world will also bring excitement and reward. Reminds me of when I first began collecting when it wasn't just about the money. That said, the more I reasesrch, the more I see opportunities for memorabilia investment / upside.

In the last month I picked up a piece of baseball art, a 1923 ticket stub, an old negro league magazine, and a 1906 postcard from BST. None of which I’ve ever seen anywhere. Variety variety. More variety.

I feel like the sheer volume of cards that have hit the market in the last year + has just created a totally different vibe on the card side. Auctions never end. One rolls into another into another. Every auction had scads and scads of highly regarded, coveted cards. Miss the build up and suspense of an REA auction rolling out and everyone being absolutely floored by what they were looking at.

Cards
 

Don't get me wrong, I do love rare / vintage baseball cards...just looking at the same cards for me has gotten a bit old. Many of the cards that I see are auctioned every year or two...literally the exact same card...just sold to a different person from a different (or the same) auction house.

Agreed that is true. However, this year I am seeing many cards that I have not seen every hit the auctions or have not seen in over a Decade. Many of the cards I picked up I never thought I would have a chance to get.

Any many I missed out on because not liquid enough to get everything I want

Joys of the hunt of collecting

My specialty is autographed faux wrestling memorabilia



https://www.collectorfocus.com/image...21/ackroyd-dan


On other days I just enjoy sitting back and remembering the perfect game with Scott


https://www.collectorfocus.com/image...5/larsen-berra


Don Larsen was perfect but don't belittle my casino buddy Yogi


https://www.collectorfocus.com/image...rra-trump-card


And it's hard to forget when Harvard beat Yale 29-29


https://www.collectorfocus.com/image...-29-harvard-29

There are many things that will likely keep cards more popular (and generally therefore more valuable) than memorabilia:

1. Nostalgia from childhood (the entry price for memorabilia is usually prohibitive for children, and you don't have nearly as much trading etc)
2. Checklists give people obvious clear goals, knowledge of what to focus on etc
3. Print runs and scarcity are often much more easily defined
4. They store well and don't take up much space

All that said, there is so much more history and variety in collecting memorabilia. The range of options is nearly endless, and there is so much to learn in any area. For me, the areas are Game Used Lineup cards, Integration-related items, WWII baseball and Negro League items.

It was shocking and wonderful to discover that when I was able to chase down the 1st contract Roy Campanella ever signed with the Dodgers minor league team, I could purchase it for far less than a high-grade rookie card of Campanella. And there are few things cooler than a Program from the 'World Series' tournament played by soldiers (including HOFers Leon Day and Willard Brown) in Nurmberg Germany in 1945 with Hitler's complex in the backdrop after the defeat of the Nazis.

I've definitely found my focus has shifted away from cards. The exploration and learning is endlessly richer. The cost for pretty significant historical pieces is often far less than you'd imagine once you get past the more standard memorabilia (like a game-used bat or jersey from an iconic vintage player).

Of course, one of the casualties is that as you continue to learn more and go deeper, you find endlessly fascinating corners of the hobby whivh others have no concept even exists.

Well said, Jeff! :cool:

Luckily we all have choices and options on what to collect.
Or any combination we like to collect.
Love everything that this forum shares both in experience and in pictures.

For me I will be expanding more into non-cards but my primary focus and passion will always be cards

Hey BobC ! Pardon our belated entry to this thread, but thanks for referring everyone to our website and forum
-- and thanks once again for your contribution to our "Big List of Games." S'true, we must've seen
the Arrest Cancer punchboard game fifty or a hundred times over the years and never realized it was
a baseball game and not just another baseball-themed punchboard until you pointed it out.
D'uh! Thus our signature...

Shush, though, eh? We're actually trying to "dis-promote" our hobby! Too much collector competition
for too little material, and we've already been all but priced out of the many games we'd still like to obtain...

Hi Butch,

How do you think the rest of us feel with what's happened to card prices, we're all feeling the pain. Ha ha

I'll try to keep it on the down low regarding old baseball games going forward though, okay?

Thanks,

Bob

Memorabilia has always been more appealing to collect for me. I enjoy collecting Bats, Gloves, Glass Negatives, Programs, Tickets and many one-of-a-kind pieces.

Unlike cards, many of the pieces I've collected over the last thirty years would not be able to be replaced if I sold them.

True that...

While even the rarest cards resurface time and again, so much great memorabilia is truly one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable.

My feelings are similar (to OP). I'm not sure how much of it is due to feeling that, after all of these years, I'm quite far along the learning curve for the vintage cards I like to collect and find myself focusing more and more in minutiae, how much of it is due to my general lack of interest in TPG grading and all that comes along with it, and how much is due to the escalation in prices over the last few years. If not equal measures, it is probably at least some of each.

Memorabilia such as jerseys and gloves and balls and magazines and programs are really fascinating. Personally, I don't really collect them due to a lack of space for both storage and display. Whatever I collect has to fit easily into binders and folios. Tickets might make sense, and I am learning about them.

But what I actually found myself collecting was original photos and (against all odds) Japanese baseball cards.

With the exception of the first item in the list, this is what keeps me fascinated with Japanese cards. I didn't grow up following Japanese ball, so instead of nostalgia I have a huge new area of learning (language, league history, players, etc.). And, a little bit like with memorabilia, with enough research and pavement-pounding it's still possible to find new, undiscovered items (in this case cards) on a semi-regular basis.

BobC, oh believe you us, we get it! We dabble in card collecting as well, in spite of a collecting budget
that's a microscopic fraction of the budget 99% of the guys in this forum have on hand to play with.

Another thing about memorabilia is if you have a favorite player and have a contract, or personal effect, autographed picture, or even a bat. . . . . well that's something your dude owned or held in his hands. That's a connection that you don't get with cards. (Unless signed of course.)

I completely agree with Steve. I have 71 World Series Ring that I never remotely dreamed of owning when I watched that Series as a child. There is something about taking a swing with a Clemente game used bat that for a guy like me is magical. The rarity of memorabilia is more like a treasure hunt. Conversely if you have the financial resources you can own most cards. I routinely sell cards knowing that I can easily replace them. I can’t remember when I last attempted to sell any of my 1971 Bucs memorabilia. In the end I guess I’m not bored with cards they just don’t offer the same thrill for me.

Lot of good insights on this thread.
Lots of great and varied memorabilia to collect.

I am still a card person but could see at some point expanding into memorabilia

Warning…

Once you make the plunge, you might get hooked!

Then I need to go carefully I tend to jump in the deep end instead of wading in

LOL, I hear you.:)

I started out wanting a couple Wade Boggs bats. Now I have around 30-35 of them.

Baltimore Orioles
 

Personally, memorabilia is what I enjoy the most. I collected cards when I was young, but now could pick up any of those cards I collected routinely.

I’ve narrowed my focus on collecting my favorite player when growing up, Brooks Robinson, to include almost everything. Along with Brooks I like to collect unique Orioles items like stadium signs, banners, programs, etc. Really anything that’s displayable and cool looking.

By the way anyone have any unique Brooksie or Orioles items available?!? :D

I hope you are wrong. My wife is already up in arms at the cards if I took to much space in the home I might be living in the shed

You can store bats in lots of places: in corners, under the bed, behind your coats in a closet, etc. And becasue they can handle moisture better than cards, photos, autos, and jerseys, you can keep them in the garage or the basement when necessary. Really no trouble at all.

Hey, as long as the shed is large enough to display your collection you should be good…

I collect purely basebal. I get bored, but I have tried to dabbled in multiple categories so that I can usually find something to lift the boredom. I'm not heavy into cards. But autos, pictures, pins, pennants, MiLB, memorabilia, game used. I also go thru different eras. I also collect certain players and teams. And now my son is starting to play with cards and he is looking into other sports. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...7a6056657b.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...81b3317a5c.jpg

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

I need to find A balance. I like to display the items I have as much as possible.

I actually have 1 Ted Williams signed bat. It is on display and I enjoy looking at it and sharing it with others to see.
For me putting away is not for me(not wrong just not for me)

And seeing the displays many have on this forum makes me want to do it that way

Very nice collection and excellent looking display

Congrats

Yeah, totally agree, that's why I listed a picture of my display. I love being able to showcase my items, and then change the display and rotate items in and out. I don't think I would like collecting if I kept items in boxes forever.

When I make a new display, sometimes it makes me think of an item I need that would tie everything together. For instance I have some awesome Stan Musial items, but I'm missing something tall. So if I had a Hartland statue it would help balance the items. Then it puts me on a chase to find that item.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Baseball Direct Miley Collection
 

More of an aside, several years ago I received a new Baseball Direct catalog. In it was a section of the Miley Collection of games broadcast thru the years. I purchased the broadcast of Larsen's perfect game, with the correct broadcaster. I'm planning on scoring the game when I can get equipment back together. To me it would be need to find another ticket to put with it. There are a lot of games available if anyone is interested.

Brian