How many collections lay dormant?

[mintacular]

Is it possible that there are hundreds maybe even thousands of collections that lay "dormant" ie. older collectors that have bveen "siitting" upon nice vintage stuff but have never registered them with PSA or posted on an internet board such as this?

In other words, could there be much larger quantities of vintage cards that we do not fully realize? I'm not talking about grandma's attic of hidden baseball cards but just folks over the last 50 years that are not active now but do indeed own cards of great significance.

[chris6net]

I think you would be very surprised at the high number. I live on Long Island and have a group of collectors that we have met monthly over the past 20 plus years and even though the active participants has dropped due to a variety of reasons most of the guys don,t have their collections registered. I am talking about 15 major collections mostly 1951-1975 but a fair amount of vintage cards. CN

[ruth-gehrig]

Yeah that's an interesting thought. Who knows but I like the way you think. We will never know for sure because they are "silent collections" unless they are sold or brought to our attention.

[Big Ben]

I agree about the "dormant collections" if you are talking about cards from the 1950's through 1975. Pre World War II is a different story though. imho

[rhettyeakley]

There are quite a few more than I think any of us realize still laying around out there. Every major show has several that come in and ebay has new "collections" that come to light on a very regular basis.

A few months back I was contacted by a nice guy that had just "found" his great uncle's old baseball card collection and was able to purchase ~500 Zeenuts from 1921-28 and that was just part of the collection. There are still tons of new finds to be made out there.

[bbcard1]

The biggest problem are the undiscovered hordes of 1988 Donruss collections that have been dormant for lo these two decades. You have to find a lot of collections to find a collection.

[ChiefBenderForever]

Yes a lot of super collections out there and probably a couple T206 complete sets with the big ones as well nobody knows about. I know of one virgin collection put together through the 1960s-early 90s with all the prewar and 19th century bought in the 1970s and early 80s. He was a sort of type collector so had everything you could think of. He has atleast 30 old judge cabinets maybe more, I thought the cabinets were regular old judge until I first saw the small ones, he also found a booklet with the cabinets glued inside at a garage sale in the 1970s that has who knows who in it. I tried to go look at the collection in hopes of buying it a year ago and my old friend didn't even know where they are boxed up as he quit collecting years ago since it got to expensive and then I moved to CT. My dad went to see him last fall to see if he wanted any help in trying to find the old stuff but he said he has no interest in them or money for them so pretty much giving up. This collection could end up being tossed out depending on who does what when the collector who is ill passes away, I sure wanted to see what he had but it wasn't meant to be..........

[ctownboy]

I, too, think there are more "finds" out there than people realize. However, I see a couple of problems.

1) Unless the collection has a Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb or other well known player, a LOT of people wont realize the value of the cards and will throw them away. Or, they will just keep the well known players and ditch the rest.

I say this because I sometimes watch shows like Hoarders or Clean House and am amazed at how often the solutions to the problem is to either throw everything away, have a yard sale or donate items to a thrift or charity store.

One find that I had, 20 years ago, was of a person whose Grand Mother died and who kept everything she owned. When she died she was about 100 years old. Her first Husband was older than her and he was also a "collector".

When the Grand Children were cleaning up her place (which they said had a LOT of OLD stuff) there was an out building with a roof that had collapsed. In that building was a pile of paper items three feet high that had gotten wet and was destroyed. The Grand Son I spoke with said they had to remove the pile with shovels and nothing could be saved.

The good part, however, is that on a shelf, in a wooden box, were 1100 tobacco cards from the 1880s. I didn't have the money to buy the cards (they sold for $3,500 dollars) but I let a dealer know about them and the cards were saved. In the collection were about 100 Native American cards. There were also complete and partial sets of birds, fish, Parasol Drill, World's Smokers, World's Dudes, actresses, hold to light cards and N28's (plus some types I have probably forgotten).

The N28's only had Clarkson, Keefe and Caruthers in baseball but they had a number of boxers, wrestlers and other sports plus Wild Bill Hickok and Annie Oakley. Some of these other cards had doubles.

Other things these people found were old books, guns and tin types, one of which was of General Custer.

The point I am trying to make with this LONG story is that, luckily, the relatives of this woman had a clue about old things and saved as much of her stuff as possible. If they didn't have a clue or if a "hoarder" intervention person had showed up, I am afraid much of this stuff would have just been considered trash and thrown away.

I am sure if I didn't tell my Nephew about my cards and how much some of them were worth, he wouldn't have a clue and wouldn't know who most of the players were and what to do with them if something happens to me.

I bet there are a LOT of young people today who have no clue about antiques and when faced with teh task of cleaning out a deceased relatives house, just want to pitch stuff and be finished as quickly as possible.

2) The second problem I see is fire and disasters. I am sure there are collections truly hidden away in attics or basements but are destroyed by fire or natural disasters. With things like Hurricane Katrina, I watch television and see the destruction and wonder what was lost that nobody will ever know about.......

David

[ctownboy]

Johnny,

I would make it a point to stay in contact with that person. You never know what might happen.

It is possible they might one day decide it is time to sell and call you. Or, they might make a note or tell a a relative that if something happens to them that they have a valuable baseball collection and that you are the person to call about it.

David