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Yard Sales/Estate Sales?
New to collecting; Anyone have success finding pre-war vintage on the cheap at yard sales or estate sales? I was thinking of getting into it, however in the age of internet and market data at your fingertips, probably unlikely I’ll find a shoebox of gold?
Anyone have success or is it extremely unlikely? Any fun stories? |
You may go a lifetime finding nothing but 1988 Donruss. You could find a garage full of T206 your first time out. Be prepared to waste a lot of time if this is your plan.
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One tip I have is "it never hurts to ask". The person setting up a rummage sale may not have everything out. Also if you're open to memorabilia as well you may have more luck.
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Garage Sale
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Wow
Could you please post a scan of the back of that Bender? Thanks!
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Garage Sale Sucess
I have had limited success at garage sales.
I see lots of 1988 Donruss and similar cards but I did find a stack of raw 1952 Topps on sale for $1 each. In terms of pre-War, I have never seen anything although I live in Austin, TX, which is a "newer" city and didn't have a ton of residents back then. Good luck with your quest. It is exciting when you find something. |
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Not many residents maybe, but incorporated in 1839, so not a young city...
I think this part of the country (I live near Dallas), except for some SL cards (and T210s), didn't have a lot of distribution back in the early days. Cards were more in areas that had tobacco and candy mfg'ing... Johnston in a Waco card.. Quote:
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Perhaps I shouldn't be so pessimistic. I did find a Babe Ruth card at a garage sale as a kid. $4 for a stack of Look & See. Still have it, too. Actually, I have all but 10 of the Look & Sees from that find. I swapped 10 to another collector for a 1956 Topps Mantle shortly after the discovery. I think it was a white back, but haven't looked at it for years. That's still here, too.
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Back in the 1980's, yes they could be found. Now, not so much but there is always that possibility. It never hurts to ask. I also ask about stamp collections as I know a little about them and sell some on ebay.
I seriously doubt you will find a gold mine but you may be able to find some good buys. I think someone here last year found a T206 Drum at an antique mall. Good luck and enjoy the hunt! Bob |
Bender
Don’t have it anymore more sold it and put the
funds into another card it was the 14 |
Have not had any luck so far, but it’s a fun game to look into
What I’ve found, is I have to do research on Wednesday so I hit the estate sales early Thursday morning to give myself the first shot Otherwise it will be a waste of time as the estate sales that have had good deals on cards have been scooped up first thing. |
You just have to decide whether you enjoy spending your time rummaging around a flea market, antiques show, yard sale, etc., or not, with potentially no payoff. I like doing it. Worst case scenario, I figure I get a good 2-3 mile walk in on a weekend morning. Best case, I find something cool or valuable too. As noted above, you got to be first through the door. Fifteen minutes early is two hours late at many of these events. You also have to be ready to pick up whatever is good even if it isn't in your wheelhouse. I've seen people walk away from great deals because the items aren't exactly what they are looking for. It is very competitive. And very, very dusty and dirty work.
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Lots of vintage toys
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You never know what you’ll find. However, scoring at a yard or garage sale imo is super rewarding. I love finding cool items after searching and putting in effort. To me, it’s a lot more rewarding than just scrolling through eBay and finding a deal. It depends though what your free time means to you. It’s a big time commitment.
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The odds are incredibly low. Pretty much everyone who collected these cards as a kid and don’t know they are worth much money is dead and their collections have already dissolved.
If you collect a breadth of things or post war cards, you can find stuff. Oftentimes that stuff is priced super high. I have a fun time just looking through old cards and talking or poking around stuff, so it can worth it to me, but the odds of 1) finding pre war baseball cards and 2) having them priced on the cheap is very low. An old guy selling his 50’s and 60’s cards at a yard sale is doable, finding T cards is really unlikely. But unlikely isn’t impossible, if you enjoy doing it for other reasons. Otherwise it will be more time and cost effective to just pay market prices online and save the hours and hours that probably won’t yield a single card. Bargains in the sense of getting a steal from a lazy or uneducated seller is more restricted these days to knowing niche hobby areas and having a monopoly of knowledge in them to leverage that isn’t easily found with a Google search. |
Many cards in my collection came from my nephew who, as he got older, became totally disinterested in them and bequeathed them to me. It was his mother, my wife's sister, who found the majority of his cards at early-morning yard sales (if you weren't first on scene, the good stuff like cards were long gone) and estate sales. This was back in the 1980s/90s. I am told that, as posters above state, the pickings are slim to none now. Everyone nowadays knows these cards are quite valuable. Same with flea markets and antique malls. The days of getting these cards on the cheap like this would definitely appear to be gone forever. Every so often you hear of some pick up like Bender above, but something like that now is exceptionally rare. The only things I see on my occasional flea market and antique mall forays is junk wax and way over priced beaters.
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I stopped by my local card shop on Saturday and the owner mention a family brought in several raw T206 Drum to send to PSA.
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Yes, as mentioned earlier it is slim pickens for the most part, but every now and then you get something by asking if they have any old cards. I've had no luck with pre-war but have gotten a few complete 1970s sets, box of mid 60s card w/ Mantle, Clemente etc and a few autographs just by asking
Good luck Bob |
It seems I have better luck at a local card shop. This guy I know calls me whenever something old comes in the door. Usually when the person is there. So, I tell the store owner what I would pay and he makes an offer to the person which is usually a few hundred less than I offered
This way the customer gets cash, the owner makes a few hundred and I get some good cards. |
Two weeks ago a bag full of Vintage GI Joes for $5.00.. Keep hunting it's still out there..
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Garage sales, estate sales and the like are all really hit or miss. I tend to do better at antique stores believe it or not. These pics are all items I found at antique stores and they were cheap.
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Where I live, Southeast Los Angeles County, I have never encountered any cards worth purchasing at a yard/estate sale, the thrill is in the chase. Where I have done well is finding collectible books and occasional CDs, DVDs, and BluRays that I have been able to make money on and that becomes baseball card purchase funds.
Phil aka Tere1071 Complete 1953 Bowman Color, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1975 Topps Baseball sets under revision as the budget and wife allows Under construction: 1967 Topps Baseball - 330/533: Overall p-g, missing all of the bigger name stars and many commons, no high numbers or posters 1968 Topps Baseball - 420/598: Overall good, missing all of the bigger name stars and many commons from 1-375; no game cards 1969 Topps Baseball - 328-664: Overall good, missing all of the stars and many cards after #217; no deckle edged cards 1969 Topps Baseball Team Stamps- missing Twins; Cubs; Cardinals; Braves; Tigers; Orioles; Mets; Giants; Pirates; Red Sox; Pilots; and Reds. i need the following individual stamp that appear together on the same block: Siebert; Pasual; Bailey; McBean, plus Hannan 1970 Topps Baseball Insert sets: Booklets- missing 7; 9; 11; 13; 14; 15; 17; and 23. Posters # 1; 8; 14; 17; and 19 I do not have any 1970 scratch offs yet. 1971 Topps Coins- 120/153 I do not have any 1971 scratch offs yet. 1974 Topps Baseball Washington variations- 32; 53; 77; 102; 125; 226; 241; 309; 364; and 599 |
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I own the CJ Bender now. |
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Just a few cards that came into my friends store. Plus several Allen and Ginters....Connie Mack, Cap Anson and a few Old Judge including a Mays spotted tie.
Attachment 595149 Attachment 595150 Attachment 595151 Attachment 595152 Attachment 595153 Attachment 595154 |
I've never found an awesome card-related thing at a yard sale/estate sale. I used to get great video game stuff until about 2010.
People know how to research their stuff better now, and a lot of other shoppers are pushy jerks. Show up early, ask for what you're looking for, and assume you probably won't find anything great. Consider it more of a hobby/time killer. If you find something, awesome. I have gotten a few amazing things at estate auctions though. |
I went to an estate sale at mid-day (late!) and there was exactly one baseball card there.
Surprisingly, it was a Cycle 460 (Hook Wiltsie)! They said there were some other cards earlier. No idea why the Cycle was left. A bargain at $100. |
For odd ends, 1980s/1990s commons, memorabilia and other stuff taking up space I advertise a sports memorabilia only yard sale on Facebook marketplace. I started with crates and crates full on junk and got rid of everything in a couple hours for around $1000.
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I have gotten into estate sales in the last year...if you don't have an in (I don't) it makes it much tougher to get on the lists. If you are not first five or so in...tough pickins...though I have had decent luck with some pre-buys and where it was like American Pickers style...mostly modern 1960s-2020's stuff. I did see an estate sale in Michigan near Saginaw in August that had ~800-1000 1948-1953 Bowman/Leaf/Topps Football/Baseball/Boxing cards...a true barn find and also a ton of comics...which I know nothing about. I also love the flea markets and swap meets...get good walks in and a side benefit is that I am known as the "card guy" now amongst many and get clued in first to new stuff. A couple good finds this year....1976 Yankees signed ball with Munson, Hunter, etc.($200)...a box of 1970s clean football with all of the key rookies except WP (1$/each)...Mantle & DiMaggio signed /#'ed lithos ($30 for the pair)....Gretzky Topps RC ($1 - true..this last weekend)....Kobe Topps RC/Iverson Precious Metal RC (Both $.25 each)...David Arias Ortiz Flaie Wave and Cabrera Topps Traded RC ($1/each)....and binder of 1000 Stars and RC from 1978-1987 with a gem 57 Banks and about 100 stars from the late 60's-mid 70's ($150). A couple of finds I missed out on...a 3200ct box of 1957-1965 Topps baseball in nice condition...filled with some nice stars (Clemente/Mays/Koufax) for $300 and a truck backing up with over 500 unopened wax boxes from 1987-2023 (all sports) For $10-$20 each...DOH!! Also check Craigslist...I recently was found a free lot of six binders of stars from 1975-1992 and a box of 5 unopened 1983 packs with Gwynn on top and two Star Gwynn auto bags...FREE...guy was cleaning out and just wanted em gone. One binder was about 300 auto/jersey/#ed cards from San Deigo players. Opportunity/Luck/Knowledge/Effort combined = a lot better results than nothing. |
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We have five or so fairly well known ones in town....I would start by typing in "swap meet" or "flea market" in Yelp and see what you get...that's what I do when I am visiting a city. Do the same with google....I also ask the vendors were else they set up...I know one guy that sets up at one seven days a week...from San Diego to Oxnard. |
Plenty of other stuff that I did well with back when I was doing yard sales. But not many cards, even junk. I've done really well selling sort of junk cards at yard sales.
The only time I got anything prewar was back in maybe 79 or 80. A single 33 Goudey at a yard sale in my neighborhood. Still had paper on it from the scrapbook, probably over paid at $1.... |
My last parent passed away earlier this year, and its amazing what and who comes out of the woodwork in these types of instances. Ive been a long-time baseball card and memorabilia collector and feel I generally know the market well and if I dont, have this entire board to ask questions. After my mothers death, everyone (family, friends, neighbors, etc etc) were pushing my sister and I to hold an estate sale and Im so glad we took our time to make an informed decision and decided against it. My parents had around 1000 antique books, almost 100 antique guns, artwork, coins, etc etc and we would have most likely lost an incredible amount of money by holding an estate sale. With the slow down in the real estate market, it may be awhile before we can sell her house but it has given us alot of time to properly research most things. I think now, with information readily at hand, finding bargains at estate sales may still occur but may be more difficult compared to pre-internet days.
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Back in the late 1990's, at a large, local, long-running, monthly flea market that my wife and I set up at for several years, in the afternoon after most of the shoppers had left, I went around to see what the other dealers had for sale at their tables. One general-purpose dealer had 5 or 6 baseball cards on one of his tables, including the scarce 1953-54 Briggs Meats Mickey Mantle card on the right in the first pic below (with his $50 price sticker on it). The dealer didn't think it was a baseball card but figured it had to be worth something because it had Mantle on it. He was only too thrilled to quickly accept my $20 offer! The second pic below shows this card after SGC slabbed it.
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I agree Phil that there seems to be nothing to note in the greater Los Angeles area. I think the east coast is where most of these finds are. Most of the suburbs around LA just aren’t that old. I guess you could run into 50s and onwards stuff but I never have. I’ve actually had good luck with books too a getting stuff from library used book stores. Lots of those are not picked through and you can make a couple bucks if you find the right stuff. You have to go to nicer cities though, they have the better donations. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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