11,000+ Baseball Cards In 2 Weeks
 

Now that I am fully retired, I work at a thrift store where, other than operating costs, all profits go to various charities and college scholarships. I don't know why, but in the past 2 weeks, people have dropped off 3 4-row cardboard card boxes full of baseball cards, and 2 shoeboxes full. More than 11,000 cards would be my guess. Almost all are "junk wax". But not all. Some 1950s/60s/70s in there also. The store normally does not receive this sort of thing, but all of a sudden, in they came. It will take a little time to sort them out. If there is anything of value, and perhaps there is, and they are all in very good shape it seems, we'll see what's next with them. Looks like what I used to see at card shows years ago. No idea why they wound up at the thrift store.

Your thrift store isn't near me in California, is it? I got $14 and am ready to roll in the winnings and make a killing!!! :D

The one card that sticks out is a 1961 Topps Koufax. Out of all these modern cards, there are several stacks of 1950s/60s/70s. I saw some 1967 and 1971 Topps. There's others. Someone will have the honor of going through them to see what's what.

Any late 90s stuff?

Lots of hidden gems in collections of 90s stuff people don't realize is extremely valuable. As someone searching fir these rare cards, uncovering them in collections is one of the only way they are ever seen.

May I make a suggestion?
If it's a pile of decent stuff, would the shop allow you to post the group here as a short-term auction and let us all bid on it to maybe exceed what they would generally go for in-house?

I buy these sorts of collections periodically. The outcomes are variable; I bought a box of trash two weeks ago, a very profitable box two weeks before that. The research is fun; I learn about cards and subjects I would never have come across otherwise.

That's not a bad idea. I will bring this to the manager next week, sir.

I believe the majority is 1990s.

If you need any help IDing rare 90s stuff, I'm happy to help.

Just a little anecdote: I went to a few card shops while on vacation a couple weeks ago. I asked the dealer if he had any rare 90s Barry Larkins. He said if he did they would be in the dollar boxes. I said I doubted what I was looking for would be in the dollar box. He proceeded to tell me how all that 90s stuff was overproduced and worthless, then tried to explain the junk wax era like I was clueless. I just chuckled and continued looking through boxes. Because now I knew if he did have some rare cards, he wouldn't even know it.

It’s tax season. Donations normally pick up around then.

Do you provide receipts?

The part that amazes me the most is one of the employees/volunteers didn't take them home and return the junk. I know a ton of people that have worked in those type places and very rarely does anything decent actually make it to the shelves. The person that run the Salvation Army here had a perpetual rummage sale at their house from all the stuff they took home from work.

These cards haven't been searched since their arrival at the thrift store, I can assure you. No one has taken any. They are kept in the manager's office. Anything that comes in deemed "high value" goes there. And you would not believe some of the things that come in...paintings, iPads, big screen TVs, jewelry, you name it. And it isn't a junk store. Everything gets sorted. Things we won't sell gets donated elsewhere, and unserviceable things are thrown away. Sometimes things are sold on eBay, with proceeds to the store. I don't know what will become of these baseball cards, or 4 original, numbered paintings of WW2 8th Air Force B-17s, signed by artist and crew members at the time they were done. I will offer the suggestion of perhaps listing some of these cards here.

The ability to apply donations as tax deductions ends December 31 of the tax year. Any donation now would apply to taxes filed in 2026. There is usually a surge on the last weekend of December at the Salvation Army I donated to when I lived a little farther north in Springfield, VA.

I have no idea how this auction service works but the Salvation Army has an auction website. I do not know if the cards can be contributed or if the auction service is run by a larger Salvation Army store. They have various collectibles as well, TCG, older comics etc

https://shopthesalvationarmy.com/

Being an adamant collector of unslabbed cards I'm surprised you're not buying the vintage cards. Seems like that would be a win win for you and the shop.

We will see. I got a big haul of 1950s and 60s Topps over the past few months.

One or more of the Topps 1990s Golden Spike Award cards would make for a rewarding find :)

I will need some sort of tutorial on what is valuable in 1980s 1990s, if anything. I only know 1970s on back.

A short tutorial likely won't suffice. Identifying all the valuable cards from the '80s and '90s would be a three-day seminar.

Part of the problem is the sheer number of sets. Another part is the fact that even relatively low-value base cards look pretty/flashy/shiny. There are a whole lot of "...that's only a dollar..." cards that look fantastic.

From the 80s, putting aside base sets, the Topps 80 Coins, 82 Blackless, 84 Encased, 85 Minis, 88 Cloth, 89 Big Head suckers and 89 Yankee/ Met Double Header proofs can all be pricey, The pulled Topps Tom Gordon 2006 card is another good modern card. There are some good recognized variation cards from the 90s

It takes a long time to learn the depths of the 90s. I'm happy to help identify cards from pictures.

If you want a few hour tutorial, this video series is a crash course in 90s inserts/parallels.

Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/live/75rcjBd...rjwpZUi338FZ_M

Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/live/FESLF25...T7Ejqx4quok2zu

Part 3

https://www.youtube.com/live/IdfhmC5...J40M3odcZuSEiJ

Thanks very much for this! I will watch these.

You had asked why someone might do this, and I can say that I have done it for a handful of reasons. A few years ago I dropped off three 3200 count boxes at our local Goodwill. They were full of commons from 1983-1985 mostly, with another chunk of stuff from 1987-1989. They had sat in my closet for about 20 years. I hadn't gone through them once, hadn't moved them, hadn't cared about them. I poked around to see if anyone was interested in them, but the shipping cost was enormous because of weight. I didn't care enough to package them in different lots for sale, because that was just a headache. The one local store near me is staffed by jerks, and I wasn't about to show up with 10,000 largely commons and expect them to give me even $10. At the end of the day, I decided that someone else will have fun finding those unexpectedly at a thrift store, the store will sell them and make some money, and they are out of my hair and out of my way. So I saw it as a win-win.
kevin

Over the last several years I have donated thousands, upon thousands, of cards. I donate them to a non-profit thrift store located on a local military base and operated by spouses of service members. These are not simply junk cards, but contain some valuable cards in the mix. Normally when I donate the cards I speak with the manager, briefly explain the contents (sometimes there are bobble heads and memorabilia), and ask that they not sort through the cards and price them very affordable so a youth would be able to purchase them.

Do I lose money? Yes. Does it make up for my lose by the way I feel after the donation - WITHOUT A DOUBT!

I always hope that some young child, boy or girl, will be excited when look through the cards and find a treasure - whatever that is to them.

Donations made to non-profits aren't there for workers to sort through and take the "booty" that has been donated.

+1 could not agree more.

I won an Ebay auction around 1990 or so for 20,000 Topps baseball cards from about 1976 to 1985 or so. All in excellent condition or better. The seller stated that if the auction went over $300.00 that they would cover shipping. I bid $350.00. I won the auction. I asked my wife beforehand if I could get the cards. She said yes. Bless her soul. ;)

These cards have not been "cherry picked" to this point, except by whoever owned and/or donated them.

The manager will sell them, once the best way to do so is determined.

We sold a shoe box full of 1987, 1989, and 1990 Topps cards just before Christmas for $8. A gentleman and his young grandson saw the box, and the grandfather bought them, and let the grandson have them as "an early Christmas present."