What To Do With Extra Cards...?
 

Over the summer, I was browsing Craigslist and came across a listing for a storage tub of baseball cards for $5 (and you got to keep the container!). I bought it, and took two evenings to go through them. Mostly junk wax from the late 80s/early 90s - some early 80s appeared, which was nice. Tons of Baseball, Football, and Basketball, with some hockey, too. Lots of HoFers, as well. I kept the baseball, but now have a thousand or so football/basketball/hockey cards. Condition varies, as they obviously weren't stored the best. I've relisted the cards I don't want on Craigslist for $10, but no takers.

I want them out of my room, but would also like to maybe get my $5 back to break even (really, I still win because of the container - it's pretty nice). What would you suggest?

Options...

A) Be patient and keep the listing active on Craigslist
B) Sell in lots of Football, Basketball, Hockey, Baseball Duplicates respectively
C) Send to COMC and list at very low prices
D) Donate to somewhere (or hold and pass out at Halloween next year in little packs)
E) Write In

Let me know your thoughts, please and thank you!

Kyle, If you should meet any youngsters who are at all interested in sports cards, give them any they want. ---Brian Powell

If Brian's idea does not work or pan out, option "D" works best.

C) COMC is an awful idea for this, and that's coming from the biggest COMC homer on this board.
Say there's 10,000 cards in that tub, it would cost you probably $100 to mail it to Washington and then $2,500 to add them to your account. So if you can't sell the box for $10 on craigslist, I'm not sure how you'd turn a profit with $2,600 invested...

E
 

E. They should fit nicely in a garbage bag.

Donate to local childrens hospital or if all else fails to the Salvation Army. Let someone else have a little fun!

+1

a good way to get the hobby exposed to potential new fans.
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donations
 

If you are going to donate cards to a childrens hospital, donate some decent cards, not a bunch of junk. Give them some current cards with players that are recognizable to them.

I have never sold on COMC, and this is exactly the advice I was looking for. I wasn't sure if COMC would be best for this situation. Thank you.


As to others saying donate them, any other suggestions along with the Children's Hospital and Salvation Army?

D

Will a children's hospital take a box of thousands of 1990 cards? Me ex-wife works at a pediatrician's office and she said they would have no interest.

In the past, I was able t o find a neighborhood boy and my cousin's son who both took large amounts of cards and was quite happy about it.

E) recycle or throw away.
Larry

My brother bought a similar size lot for me on Craigslist. I felt like I got my money's worth just going through them and sent the non-HOFers off to the Salvation Army. They may end up tossing them but maybe someone will enjoy them.

I have brought many big boxes of baseball cards to the Dallas Salvation Army and the kids love them. Please don't throw them away. I can almost guarantee your local Salvation Army has kids that would want them.

www.commons4kids.org appears to be a legitimate organization that donates commons to 40 charities. I have no affiliation with them and have not donated to them, but they appear to be legit.

Mailing address is posted here:

Commons4Kids
1065 Dan St.
Lawrenceburg, KY 40342

however, it is probably preferable to email Jerry - the owner of the site - and make the decision on if they are legit for yourself.

Z

Exactly. Would I love to get my $5 back in actual monetary form via resale? Sure. But did I get $5 in entertainment value out of them? Yes.

I can promise you, and everyone else on this board, that I will NEVER throw away these or any other sports cards.


For me, I would prefer to donate them to specific kids that I know would enjoy them. Might contact the Wounded Warrior Project to see if they have any families with younger kids that like sports and would take the cards. Only issue there is delivery, as the nearest WWP office is in Pittsburgh which is 2 hours away.

Please keep any and all ideas coming, minus ideas that include disposing of the cardboard in the garbage/recycling bin.

The first card show I took my grandson D to, he was looking at these packs of shiny cards that cost $5 each which I thought was an outrageous price. So I bought him a whole box of these mid 90s basketball cards that had college players on them, and the whole box was $2. He never even opened all the packs, they are still sitting in the corner of his room unopened. I don't think he recognized one player. What fun is that?
Last week I had grandson A and grandson D in the car with me, and we made a quick stop at my local card store so I could pick up supplies. Grandson D wanted basketball cards, so the card store manager showed him the latest products, and D chose a pack of new Donruss. Grandson A wanted Pokemon cards LOL, both packs cost $4 I think. Now they had fun with those!

Sometimes I see these hoards of '90s cards at garage sales, and I think to myself "dude you would have to pay me to haul this stuff away".

You want to get kids excited about cards? Give them some players they have heard of, not a pile of junk.

Larry

We can always use more cards for our goodie bags for the Adat Chaverim non profit show I run 2x a year

And I can provide tax receipt sheets for all donors

Thanks!
Rich

I agree with a few previous posters, no kids want your junk cards with players on then they never heard of. Hell most don't even want the new shiny cards unless they are free and Mike Trout limited edition or super shiny limited editions.

The last few years I have tried handing out free packages of cards to kids that got drug along to my produce stand with their parents/grandparents. I put 1 modern autograph, 1 modern patch card, 1 Kirby Puckett and then 7 random Twins(this is Twins country) players from the 60's to present to make 10 card packages.

I had several want them at first. Then because there was no big $ cards in them only a few wanted them after that. I even had a few kids complain to me that they could not sell them at school.

I agree with what's been said, but keep in mind, not every kid is going to get all giddy that they received some BB cards.
Just like everything else, it is hard to please everyone and of course that's not possible but if I know there is at least the potential to put a smile on one kids face, it is certainly better than just throwing them in the trash.

Right now, I currently have a bunch of 92 Stadium Club cards in acrylic holders that I plan on donating soon to somewhere. My thinking is, it is something solid, protected and may give some the assumption that it is something special for a young, underprivileged child to hold?
Either way, if my thinking is offside, I know that I at least tried to do something to put at least one smile on a child's face.

I got a small pile of low grade 1973 Topps cards when I was a kid and I didn't know many of the players, but the cards made me want to learn about them. I think donating cards is good if you find the right people to give them to, which wouldn't be every kid. It might be better to group them into teams and then give kids cards from their favorite team.

I often wonder if it would be better for the hobby if you threw away a large pile of cards instead of giving it to a kid. Maybe you get a new collector for life into the hobby, but if people threw away large piles of junk cards, eventually they would be worth something and might bring back former collectors who still held on to them. At least with the former collectors, you know it's people who recognize the players and had a passion for the cards at one time.

Personally, I think the best idea is donating large groups to kids and if they don't like it, they will probably throw them out. If they do like them, then you have a new collector, which helps the hobby.

Bingo.

I like the spray and pray approach too. All we can do is try and hopefully some of the young ones become interested. If not then there are that many less of the over-produced cards.

I tried my local Children's Hospital a while back and they weren't interested based on health concerns...the cards might have dust, germs, etc.

The other ideas sounded good. But the LAST thing I'd worry about is getting your $5 back!! We're talking five dollars here, right?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

One other idea Ive used in the past ...... tossing a fistfull into each kids bag when they come to Trick or Treat in addition to candy. Ive had a bunch of kids come back with their friends for round #2 in the same night LOL!!! I usually have 3 boxes.... baseball, basketball, football and ask em which one they want if they seem to care. Either way, the cards get distributed and who knows if they are junked or treasured..... thats not up to me. By the way, I do think its a good idea to leave in some better cards, even superstars dont cost much in those years and just think how awesome some kid would feel with a Michael Jordan or Mike Trout card. Merry Christmas to all !!!!