Most Valuable card to you

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Posted By: Sean

mine is either a 1956 Topps Rance Pless or 1964 topps Harmon killebrew or finally a 1965 Topps HAND SIGNED AUTOGRAPH OF BOB UECKER

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Posted By: Chris Mc

I don't have it yet. I like a lot of my cards but I want the one I can't have, and it's driving me mad.

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Posted By: damian

1985 Donruss Don Mattingly !!! my Wagner when i was young! WHAT A BATTING COACH!

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Posted By: Jim Manos

Anything related to Dummy Hoy cards, pins, cabinets, programs etc...

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Posted By: J Levine

My most treasured card is a T-206 Magie...About 10 years ago I noticed a poor (very poor-Tipton) T-206 Magie in a Mike Wheat auction (pre-ebay) and e-mailed the trading group I belong to (OBC) to plead for people not to bid. I bid $400 which was all that I could afford at the time. And waited. With two days left in the auction the bid jumped to $1000...then I think it closed pretty high after that, somewhere around 10 times my bid.

After about two weeks, I get the card in the mail with a note from Mike Wheat saying that it was paid for in full.

Turns out my group of guys took up a collection and bought me the card. Granted, they probably overpaid but it really is the centerpiece of my Phillies collection. I have since acquired rarer and more valuable cards but that one is still one of my favorites.

Joshua

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Posted By: T206Collector

...if y'all would pitch in and buy me a T206 Red Portrait Cobb.

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Posted By: Al Crisafulli

Joshua, that story is fantastic. Stories like that make me realize just how cool this hobby can be, and how generous collectors are.

The most valuable card in my collection to me is a T206 Rube Waddell portrait. When I was a kid in the early 80s, I used to go to a card store once a week. At the time, I was maybe 10 years old, and infatuated with T206 cards. The seller used to put beaters in a shoebox for me, and sell them to me for fifty cents each. The Waddell was in that box - fifty cents. All four corners were clipped, and it was creased from top to bottom, but I still have it, and I love it.

-Al

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Posted By: Ray

Josh, that's a great story!

My most valuable card is my 1984 Topps Don Mattingly... My first card of my boyhood idol. Its beat to hell, but I wouldn't trade for anything. It is my favorite link to my childhood.

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Posted By: Dan Koteles

1913 Speaker- Boston Garter

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Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

For prewar cards it would be a T206 Danny Murphy since that is what really got me into pewar cards, but overall it would have to be a 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken F**k Face card. It took me 3years to find one and then the local card shop wouldn't sell it to me b/c I wasn't 18 (was 15 at the time) They finally agreed to call my dad to get his permission for me to buy the card.

Of the cards in my collection most people ask to see that one over everything else including my Jordan RC.

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Posted By: dstudeba

Dan - that is a pretty nice card, would love to see a scan of it.

1975 Rod Carew obtained from one of the 5 packs of cards given to me by my grandmother in 1975 that started me on this craziness.

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Posted By: RC McKenzie

Good question. The first vintage card I ever owned was a 1933 Goudey Goose Goslin. I bought it from an ad in Baseball Digest around 1978-79. I don't remember the dealer but it seems like it was Larry Fritsch. The card was listed as vg and I think I paid around $45 for it.

At the time I was in elementary school and when it arrived in the mail I thought it was the greatest card that I had ever seen much less owned even better than the 8 Eddie Murray rookie cards I had.

The only reason I still have it is because I tried to sell it on ebay back in 99 and got no bids.

It is no longer for sale and ranks right up there as one of my favorites.

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Posted By: DJ

It's like picking a favorite child.

Mine is a 1976 Topps Larry Demery because it started the ball rolling. Ten cents, antique show. A few years later, $3 for a beater Latham T206 and never looked back

I love the fact that a large majority of you said Don Mattingly and even Billy Ripken. Maybe next year "Beckett" will induct them in the Hall Of Fame.

DJ

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Posted By: William Heitman

You guys really are collectors. And, my hat is off to you.

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Posted By: pete

do you want the TY COBB back or will a piedmont do???

my favorite(s) would have to be the t206 ty cobb....all four of them! (graded four's)....these are the center of my small collection, once i find me a joe jackson cracker jack that i can afford, i will have a new favorite...or maybe just 5 favorites

pete-

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Posted By: scott ingold

My green cobb in a 5 or the red 6.5 I hopefully will upgrade the other variations from there 3.5's.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

Maybe Jim Manos will win it; maybe Nathan Montoya...it graded a 7 (unlike most of my cards!)

Edited to say: I DON'T think that card is near mint--look at the lower right-hand corner! Maybe he meant the "arms outrstretched" one, but I think the bottom two corners are a bit rounded:



The other two are out of the question....

Story (someone mentioned stories): I got this pose, (with Washington scratched out) because I was enchanted with Hoy's story: deaf mute, taught his teammates sign language, married a deaf teacher, lived to be 99, played in the first world series--was probably responsible for the umpires beginning to use hand signals on the diamond. Batted .288, was a centerfielder, and would call the other fielders off the ball by making "his noise."

1) that card I gave to a woman whose son was Hoy's great-grand nephew, and advvertised in the Baseball Hobby News that she wanted a Hoy card for him for his birthday. I didn't charge her, but she sent me a $5 check, which I still have (her last name is Hoy!)

2) I replaced the card fairly quickly, and three or four years later, became friends with a deaf guy in Ohio, who asked me for a xerox of the card. I put it in my purse, and was going to a xerox store--but somehow went to the Coluseum to pick up some baseball tickets first. There was no game that day, and I looked through the slats in the fence at the beautiful green field, all manecured...and I thought.."You're sending a deaf guy a XEROX of this card?" So I sent him card #2. Just put it in an envelope with some paper.

Both these people were very grateful.

I couldn't find another Hoy card for about 10 years, and was kicking myself for my generosity when I got the one above from Lew Lipset in an auction. I believe two other Hoy cards came from Lew, and one from Jay Miller. The Oshkosh cabinet I got on eBay.

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Posted By: Tom

All great stories.

Mine is a 1955 Sandy Koufax. My grandfather purchased it for me in the early 80's. He took me to a Coin & Stamp Show to get me interested in his hobby. Needless to say, I found the only table with baseball cards. I still remember the price was around 20 dollars. I didnt have the money to purchase it so I didnt get it. A few months later, he gave it to me as a birthday gift. It is still the center piece of my collection and will never part with it.

Tom

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Posted By: jay behrens

No brainer for me, it's my m101-5 Thorpe. I have 2 other cards that will never leave my collection, my e92 Nadja Oakes and red boarder Colgan Speaker (thanks Julie)



Jay

If you can sue a band for making you want to commit suicide, can I sue Barry Manilow for turning me into a wuss in the 70s?

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Posted By: Chad

I love all the cards I bought as a teenager--my 51 Topps Redback set especially, but my T-206 Matty is probably my absolute favorite. Lately, my Aguilitas Alejandro "El Caballero" Oms is the one card you'd have to pry from my dead, cold fingers.

--Chad

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Posted By: Darren J. Duet

1956 Topps Mickey Mantle given to me by my father when i was 6 years old.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

This is my favorite card of all time:



It is the VERY FIRST card that I ever bought at a card show as a kid.

I had opened wax packs for a few years... but buying an OLD card with SUPER STARS on it was the big beginning of my card collecting craze!!!

(If we are talking ONLY about "sentimental value"... this one wins)

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Posted By: Darren J. Duet

Hello Hal,

Your image is not showing up, what card is it?

Never mind, it just popped up--!

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Posted By: Sean Coe

My first T206 HOFer, Matty black cap, that I bought from Wirt Gammon.

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Posted By: Anonymous

I would have to say my Jim Palmer Rookie Card that he signed is one I'll never sell and my 1979 Topps Jim Palmer. The 1979 card was in the first pack of baseball cards I ever bought. I am an O's fan and was then, too so I thought it was so cool to get their best pitcher in a pack. I think I got him to sign it, too somewhere along the line. The card is so beat up, it's not funny -- gives it character.

My Jim Palmer rookie was one of the first big rookies I bought and I got him to sign it at an event when I was 10 or 11. The signature has faded away on it, though. I used ball point pen instead of sharpie.

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Posted By: Marc S.

He was always my hero growing up - and living in the Philadelphia area - it was the best card to have in the 1980s. I remember the day that my dad bought me one for my collection! I can tell you everything about the card - and Schmidt's RC has always been the centerpiece around which I've based all my collecting efforts.

~ms

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Posted By: Joe Jones

My card that I value the most is actually a 1957 Topps Cello pack instead of a single card. This pack was given to me when I was a child from my dad and it is what started me in this hobby. I grew up in the 80's so I had no clue what this pack even was. I was tempted as a boy to open it but I am glad I never did. Here is a picture.

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Posted By: identify7

In 1957 I came across a friend just coming out of the candy store, still opening packs. I had a stack of cards in my back pocket ready for some flipping. Wouldn't you know it - he got a Mantle in those packs.

Well we flipped, and in part because I had way more cards to start off than he did, I cleaned him out.

Well that (now NM) Mantle went into the front pocket in my dungarees. Quite seperate from my flipping cards. Those dungarees went through at least one wash cycle before I retrieved the Mantle.

And although it is not NM anymore, Im still not giving it up. It is the only card which survived my youth that I know that I won.

A free Mantle.

That deep green grass in the background sets off Mantle's white uniform nicely (when the card is not so wrinkled that everything is obscure).

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Posted By: Jay Miller

To me the most cherished cards in my collection are those that I can remember getting from the people who really built the foundation for the hobby we all enjoy today. The Old Judge cards I got directly from Lew Lipset and Keith Mitchell, the Old Judge card that has Buck Barker's address handstamp on the back or those with his copious notes, those are my favorites.

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Posted By: Nate

My favorite card is my 1960 Topps Al Kaline that my uncle gave me when I was a young kid in 1993. It was my first "older" baseball card, and it opened my eyes to the world of collecting vintage baseball cards. The actual card looks like it was put through the washing machine on several occassions, but it still holds its sentimental value in my collection. I recall beeing utterly fascinated with the name "Al Kaline" and its humerous resemblance to the word "alkaline."

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Posted By: Ben

My earliest exposure to cards came as a 7-8 year old kid, from my favorite babysitter Alec. Living in Edmonton in the 80's, we were both huge fans of the Oilers. Whenever he was over, we usually tuned in to the game, and were lucky enough to watch several stanley cups handed out to Gretzky and co during their glory years. Anyways, Alec gave me these 81/82 OPC Glenn Anderson and Jari Kurri rookies, both whom were heroes to me at the time. I still have them stored away at my parents house and managed to scan them since I'm here for a few weeks now. Out of all the cards I have, they are probably the least valuable monetarily but I still love them.

I went on to collect all the Oilers rookies, and the tougher ones to get led me to ebay and a subsequent discovery of prewar basebal...and it went on from there. Unfortunately, I don't have the Gretzky and Messier rookies any more (no need to explain why). Alec is now married with two children, and our families remain close friends.

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Posted By: James Feagin

In the Fall of 1992, I was 17 years old and had collected baseball cards since 1984. I went with my father to a Hilton Hotel auction one October evening and remember purchasing a lot of loose 20 VG conditioned 1934 Goudey commons for $30. As we arrived home from the auction, I remember dropping one of the Goudey's, searching forever to find it, but to no avail. I didn't remember who the card was, and soon the disappointed loss faded into memory.
Fast forward a year, and so much had changed. I had become a bit rebellious, obsessed with punk rock, girls, and to fund this, I made a foolish decision. I sold my entire collection, t206, Goudey, vintage Topps, everything, to a shady dealer for $150 (which $$$ I didn't do anything good with). One evening in November 1993, I sat in my front yard, walkman on with blaring music, and waiting for a girlfriend to pick me up. Amidst a bunch of blowing leaves, I saw something that looked out of the ordinary. Curiousity got the best of me, and that item less ordinary turned out to be a 1934 Goudey Bob Johnson. At that point I knew exactly where that card came from. It had survived a harsh Maryland winter, and over 13 months "in the wild". It had a huge crease and water stains on the back of the card. Even though I no longer collected, I recognized a "good luck" charm when I saw it.
After I realized punk rock, girl chasing, wasn't worth it, I came back to my original love of collecting in 1998. The 1934 Goudey Bob Johnson is a permanent part of my new collection, and any time I need a little bit of inspiration, I think that this card was saved just for me.

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Posted By: ChuckkieB

My 1977 Topps Dave Kingman card is my most cherished card. I became obsessed with the Mets during the 1976 season (I was 7), and Kingman was my favorite player. The following summer was when I first dove head first into baseaball card collecting, and I couldn't get enough Kingman cards. I used to flip with friends every day, and I always insisted that if they had a Kingman card, to include it in the flip. After a while, I'm pretty sure that I had accumulated every single 77 Topps Kingman card in my neighborhood. To this day, I still have a stack of them in my possession, kept together by the very same rubber band that I used to keep them safe that summer. Ripping through wax packs searching for the next Kingman card is one of my fondest memories of childhood. For my birthday that year, my dad had arranged for a "Happy Birthrday Charlie" message to be displayed on the scoreboard at Shea. What a thrill that was. After the game, My dad and I were approached by a stadium official who handed me a baseball signed by most of the Mets, including Kingman and Tom Seaver (both of whom were traded just a few weeks later - I was crushed), a gift arranged by my dad as well. He was friends with a newspaper reporter who had access to the team. Lucky me! Unfortunately, the ball soon died a gruesome death as my little sister decided to "color" it with some magic markers a few months later. Oh well, at least I still have the cards.

To this day, everytime I see the Kingman card, I think back to that summer.....the summer that really sparked my love for baseball and card collecting.

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Posted By: Cat

Chuckie:

I find your story about Kingman to strike a positive chord with me, as well. I have a very few cards that are modern and NOT HOFers. Kingman's 1972 Topps is one of those. He was really one of the premier home run hitter during the mid 70's and early 80's. Kingman's home run numbers are a bit lost because of the small strike zone/high steriod use era.

The card I owm that I pull out of the collection and stare at more than most others is this the Anson shown below (Anson Goodwin Champions picture edited out). I think it is a cross between the color and the age that make me appreciate it more than most of my other cards.


Edited to take out the picture until I can learn to upload reasobanly sized pics.

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Posted By: Shane Killian

My most valued card to me is my 1955 Bowman Mantle Card. My dad got this card in a pack he bought the day he left for the airforce when he was 18. It was in his safe deposit box until he died, and now it's in mine.

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Posted By: joe maples

All of my Ty Cobb cards. especially the 4 T206 poses.

Joe

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Despite all the pre-war cards and others I have acquired since restarting collecting as an adult, I don't think any card will ever displace my favorite three cards as a kid, 65T Mays, Koufax and Mantle.

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Posted By: ramram

My most valuable cards I OWN :

"Darryl"

(Sorry, just a joke on a slow day for those that get it - Rob M.)

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

Why a nondescript common from a modern set? When I was about nine I went over to my friend Tom's house. He was 13 and had what seemd like thousands of baseball cards. We were sorting them by teams and we kept finding Curt Raydon cards. We must have found ten times more Raydons than any other player. Each time we found another one we laughed harder and harder. My friend died of cancer in 1971 at age 24. He was the greatest guy ever.

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Posted By: Chris Counts

My "MVC" changes with almost every new purchase. Lately, my favorite is a red 1934 Batter-Up of Frankie Frisch. But one card I've had forever that has extraordinary sentimental value is a 1948 Bowman Pete Reiser that's about as beat up as he must have been from running into all those walls. I've always been amazed by anyone who's willing to risk life and limb trying to make a great defensive play. To me, it's infinitely more compelling than watching a muscle-bound slugger bash baseballs into the bleachers and jog around the bases ... by theway, Sean, what's the deal with your 1956 Topps Rance Pless?

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Posted By: warshawlaw

My cousin and #1 ranked LW contender. The exhibit is not easy the find; the E211 is rare. If you know me it is amazing that I am related by blood to anyone athletic

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Posted By: Elliot

Even more amazing Miller was a lightweight!

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Sure, make fun of the jolly fat guy, he won't care... What's the old line, I can lose weight, you'll still be ugly...

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Posted By: Anonymous

My 1971 Kelloggs Lou Brock, plastic cracked, corners round, creased, with David W written on the back.

I was a Cardinal fan and traded a friend of mine for that card, and then of course wrote my name on it so no one could steal it.

It's prominently displayed in my Brock collection. I have no intention of upgrading that card, ever.

Of vintage cards it would be T206 McGinnity and Casey and Phillippe, purchased at a junk shop (McGinnity and Casey) and Phillippe (flea market) when I was a kid for.

I'll never get rid of them, nor do I care to upgrade them.

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Posted By: joe brennan

A recent pick up and one I have had for 39 years. I recently picked up a Cobb red. But hands down favorite is one pulled from a pack in 1966.



A scared man can't gamble and a jealous man can't work.

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Posted By: Anson

My E101 Cy Young, which was purchased about 10 years ago. Little did I know that it would start me on this crazy set building nonsense.

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Posted By: Anonymous

my favourite card is my E93 Addie Joss. it was my first baseball card thats from 1909 - 1911 era.

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Posted By: 1932 U.S. Caramel

http://www.psacard.com/articles/article2889.chtml