NYT: 20 Million Cards: A Sports Memorabilia Gold Mine Uncovered in Virginia

[glchen]

For those who have a NY Times sub: Link

[Kawika]

Very interesting article, thought provoking for me. I have never counted my sportscards. Been collecting for twenty-five years, have two or three football and hockey sets and a dozen or so sets of Topps, Goudey and other diverse baseball issues. My count is probably somewhere in the low thousands. The pandemic and my wife's illness have kicked the shit out of me, I can see the gallows in the distance. The need to liquidate my relatively humble collection saddens me and is also an overwhelming prospect. My record keeping is not all that great and I have both the IRS and Revenue Canada greedily waiting to make my life miserable. Along comes this guy with a giant warehouse of cardboard and for me it's like watching a horror movie. He seems pretty stoked. Better him than me.

[calvindog]

I had the same reaction.

[Brent G.]

From the few things I can make out, looks like a whole lot of what no one wants.

[conor912]

bonfire.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Maybe he can get a discounted rate from PSA.

[Eric72]

Pyrite mine.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Group ebay lot, local pickup only.

[Eric72]

Perhaps best suited for an episode of Storage Wars or some other "reality" TV show...if those are still a thing.

[bbcard1]

I am looking at a smaller but still very large collection from the 50s through the mid 70s plus a bunch of 80s an 90s stuff. I would probably keep it in a "bubble" and try to liquidate it all at a mild profit, not really cross-pollinating it with my collection (I do expect to upgrade some singles in sets but nothing significant). It's just a lot of chopping for the wood you get out of it. He's trying to negotiate and I would probably be as interested in backing out as I am in negotiating. I haven't seen a single card worth more than $50 or so.

I do expect from the collection in the NYTimes there may be a Jordan rookie or two and probably some semi-desirable sets but I don't think it will make any difference in the hobby.

[doug.goodman]

Certainly it's possible that there is some value hidden in one or more of those boxes, but I'm betting that those cards aren't worth what it would cost to ship them across the street.

Doug

[Peter_Spaeth]

Owner estimates 10,000 Michael Jordan cards.

So not all junk:
The collection includes at least every Topps baseball set produced from 1954 to 2016, as well as roughly three decades’ worth of completed sets of basketball and football cards. There are an estimated 10,000 Michael Jordan cards, 6,000 Kobe Bryant cards and 4,000 LeBron James cards. There are at least five different Babe Ruth cards, not to mention Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio cards; authenticated tobacco cards of Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and others from the T206 and T205 set (1909 and 1911); hundreds of signed balls and bats; rolled-up sheets of uncut cards; and game-used catching gear worn by the Hall of Famer Bill Dickey.

[Tomi]

I can only imagine rare and desirable Jordan inserts worth who knows what. Possible for sure. Will be interesting when items start to appear online. Gotta love these finds.

[BRoberts]

Can't wait for the owner to come on here and start five different threads asking the best auction house to consign to.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Owner estimates 10,000 Michael Jordan cards.

So not all junk:
The collection includes at least every Topps baseball set produced from 1954 to 2016, as well as roughly three decades’ worth of completed sets of basketball and football cards. There are an estimated 10,000 Michael Jordan cards, 6,000 Kobe Bryant cards and 4,000 LeBron James cards. There are at least five different Babe Ruth cards, not to mention Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio cards; authenticated tobacco cards of Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and others from the T206 and T205 set (1909 and 1911); hundreds of signed balls and bats; rolled-up sheets of uncut cards; and game-used catching gear worn by the Hall of Famer Bill Dickey.

That changes my opinion somewhat. It might be fun in an "I've got nothing else to do for the next few months" kind of way.

[bk400]

This is the coolest thing ever. From the article, sounds like the owner might turn it into some kind of public exhibit or museum. I think it's awesome - especially if he leaves all the cards ungraded and in their current form for people to browse through.

[Lorewalker]

There is such thing as too much of a good thing. I would find this to be nothing but overwhelming. Based on the excerpts below it sounds like the collection is far from junk however I am certain there is plenty of that there. Joe Marrs is a part of Collectors.

Joe Marrs, an independent appraiser of card collections based in Chicago, visited Banazek’s acquisition in 2022. It’s not unusual for private individuals to quietly amass enormous stockpiles over decades in the hobby, he said. Still, he had never seen anything like the collection in Virginia.

“The sheer magnitude was just crazy,” Marrs said. “Within the last six months, I saw a collection that was probably 200,000 cards, which was maybe 60 or 70 of those white boxes. That was a very large collection. A really, really big collection might be a million cards, and this one is 40 times that or something. It’s just incomprehensible.”

Marrs said placing a value on the collection was difficult because of the possibility that some rare, extremely valuable cards could be lurking somewhere. “You have to factor that in,” he said, adding that $5 million was a conservative estimate, based on what he had seen.

[Leon]

That's a lot of cards. I think there are many more scenarios like this waiting to happen too.

And one of my favorite player action shots from the 50s...


.

[Hankphenom]

Is this the equivalent of hoarding, which in its extremer forms seems pretty clearly to be a mental illness related to some kind of childhood deprivation? We have all seen examples of where collecting as a hobby can take on more of an obsessive/compulsive nature if we're not careful or have that mindset. Trying not to be judgemental here, but what would possess someone to just keep filling shelf after shelf with duplicates, or unopened boxes of stuff that he knows will never have much value, etc. I don't get it. Does it say in the article what his motivation was in accumulating and making storage for such an enormous stash of cards? Was it money, did he hope to cash this stuff in one of these days, or he just liked buying more and more, or what?

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Leon

That's a lot of cards. I think there are many more scenarios like this waiting to happen too. And one of my favorite player action shots from the 50s...

This will always be the greatest catch ever made, IMO, and thank goodness there is film. He looks back once over his shoulder, runs with his back completely turned for another 20 or 30 feet before the ball lands perfectly in his glove, puts on the brakes flawlessly and turns to make an incredible throw back to the infield. It's a catch I believe only Willie Mays could have made, and having his cap come off at just the right time makes it the GOAT for the ages.

[bk400]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

Is this the equivalent of hoarding, which in its extremer forms seems pretty clearly to be a mental illness related to some kind of childhood deprivation? We have all seen examples of where collecting as a hobby can take on more of an obsessive/compulsive nature if we're not careful or have that mindset. Trying not to be judgemental here, but what would possess someone to just keep filling shelf after shelf with duplicates, or unopened boxes of stuff that he knows will never have much value, etc. I don't get it. Does it say in the article what his motivation was in accumulating and making storage for such an enormous stash of cards? Was it money, did he hope to cash this stuff in one of these days, or he just liked buying more and more, or what?

Well, it's definitely quirky, if you want to put it charitably. All I'll say is that he has a very supportive wife.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

Is this the equivalent of hoarding, which in its extremer forms seems pretty clearly to be a mental illness related to some kind of childhood deprivation? We have all seen examples of where collecting as a hobby can take on more of an obsessive/compulsive nature if we're not careful or have that mindset. Trying not to be judgemental here, but what would possess someone to just keep filling shelf after shelf with duplicates, or unopened boxes of stuff that he knows will never have much value, etc. I don't get it. Does it say in the article what his motivation was in accumulating and making storage for such an enormous stash of cards? Was it money, did he hope to cash this stuff in one of these days, or he just liked buying more and more, or what?

Hoarding could be the problem or just someone hoping to cash in or a combo of both. All I know is I would absolutely love to be able to spend the insane time it would take to go through and look at all those cards one by one.

I had a card hoarding problem for a while. From the time I got into cards in the 80s I loved buying, selling and trading cards. I would buy huge collections and sell the best stuff to get all my money back and then keep the rest. After around 15 years I had build up an entire room full of cards. I had easily 5+ million cards and most had little to no value. That is when I decided I no longer enjoyed the selling part. I moved 4 times since then and moved them from house to house. Finally around 6-7 years ago I said this is crazy and went through most of it and now have a very small percentage of that left. It was really fun going through the cards and getting rid of all the worthless junk. Funny and bad part is all the stuff that was considered junk that I burned/gave away was easy to sell during the covid era.

[butchie_t]

Wow, How many of those cards have cardboard worth more than the image printed on them?????

[butchie_t]

You still did the right thing. I had a lot of junk cards too. It was very cathartic to weed through them all, keeping the marginally more valuable cards and ditching the rest. Not to mention the fact that it freed up space and weight when we moved a couple of years ago.

Now I am much more streamlined and un-encumbered by all the crap cards.

Originally Posted by bnorth

Hoarding could be the problem or just someone hoping to cash in or a combo of both. All I know is I would absolutely love to be able to spend the insane time it would take to go through and look at all those cards one by one.

I had a card hoarding problem for a while. From the time I got into cards in the 80s I loved buying, selling and trading cards. I would buy huge collections and sell the best stuff to get all my money back and then keep the rest. After around 15 years I had build up an entire room full of cards. I had easily 5+ million cards and most had little to no value. That is when I decided I no longer enjoyed the selling part. I moved 4 times since then and moved them from house to house. Finally around 6-7 years ago I said this is crazy and went through most of it and now have a very small percentage of that left. It was really fun going through the cards and getting rid of all the worthless junk. Funny and bad part is all the stuff that was considered junk that I burned/gave away was easy to sell during the covid era.

[Yoda]

A deep psychological need for sports cards...........lots of sports cards. Credit to John Wick.