best vintage card buy you've had under $5?

[kilo]

I'm nearly broke, and cant seem to find anything to buy for less than $5. Sitting her in an only slightly depressed/jonesin'-for-a-card fix, I started thinkin about what I've been able to pick up for that $5 bill, (or less in some cases). I know I've been on a less-than-$10 kick for a while now, but what about less? Has anyone here picked up anything on the nearly-stupid cheap? Post your $5 or less finds, if you've got them!

--mike.

[novakjr]

Picked up for $5 with free shipping 5 or 6 years ago on the bay..

[EvilKing00]

Well i wouldnt call it vintage i guess but, a cool cheep card that I totally love is the 1960 baseball hi-lites eddie gaedel Rookie card. - its a big card size

yea thats his 1st card ever made, about 10 years after his only at bat, i also like the 1961 nu-scoops card - (basicly the same but regular size)

they arent worth much now, but i think that the real ones are somewhat rare, as most wound up in the trash. And I think its a pretty cool story in baseball history.

[novakjr]

This one's more of a joke, but I did pay a penny with 1.49 shipping, also around 5 or 6 years ago. It's so ridiculous that I couldn't pass it up.

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by EvilKing00

Well i wouldnt call it vintage i guess but, a cool cheep card that I totally love is the 1960 baseball hi-lites eddie gaedel Rookie card. - its a big card size

yea thats his 1st card ever made, about 10 years after his only at bat, i also like the 1961 nu-scoops card - (basicly the same but regular size)

they arent worth much now, but i think that the real ones are somewhat rare, as most wound up in the trash. And I think its a pretty cool story in baseball history.

Love the Gaedel. I think I picked up both for under $5. I find when I'm broke, that it can be a lot of fun to just scrounge for the oddball stuff/players/owners/executives. Even Hall of Famers with some of the Callahan's. This right here's probably my favorite of the cheapies.. Especially for a fan of Jackie, or someone wanting an item of the Walker brothers.

[z28jd]

No scans of any of them right now(scans upon request), but I did pick up a lot of W cards, 28 of them for $30 about 15 years ago. The guy at my local card shop knew I came in looking for old cards and he said he bought them for $30 from a guy, not knowing what they were, but he could tell them were old. There was a Bucky Harris in there.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by novakjr

Love the Gaedel. I think I picked up both for under $5. I find when I'm broke, that it can be a lot of fun to just scrounge for the oddball stuff/players/owners/executives. Even Hall of Famers with some of the Callahan's. This right here's probably my favorite of the cheapies.. Especially for a fan of Jackie, or someone wanting an item of the Walker brothers.

David, through today's eyes it's incredible that they could get away with that in 1963.

"Me too" on the Walker bros item.

[EvilKing00]

wow nocakjr - thats a great (though not PC) card. Im searching the web now for one! lol

[Exhibitman]

I'm really cheap but $5 is pushing it even for me. I can think of a few items:

I'm not sure what these are exactly but they only cost me $1 each...



This Booker McDaniels was under $5:

[Bocabirdman]

This saga just ended yesterday. Back on Nov. 3, I won a 1910 T212 Obak that was poorly listed. I won it for the opening bid of $7.38. 10 days go by and the vendor contacts me, saying how sorry he was for not getting it in the mail sooner. He begged me to not leave him negative feedback as he was not a card vendor at all. He is a militaria seller/gunsmith. He tells me that he was listing the card for a friend. I tell him, "No problem". Fast forward 10 more days and it still hadn't left California. Again he contacts me and apologizes. He says that he would put some extra stuff in the package for the delay. He was supposed to list the stuff for his friend. Since the first card only sold for $7.38, he didn't want to mess with the rest of the things. Anyway, yesterday, the package arrived with my card. Incuded in the package was a second 1910 Obak, 2 different 1947 P.C.L. programs and a 1950 UCal/Penn St. football program. But wait......there's more....He refunded my $7.38.

[EvilKing00]

Originally Posted by Bocabirdman

This saga just ended yesterday. Back on Nov. 3, I won a 1910 T212 Obak that was poorly listed. I won it for the opening bid of $7.38. 10 days go by and the vendor contacts me, saying how sorry he was for not getting it in the mail sooner. He begged me to not leave him negative feedback as he was not a card vendor at all. He is a militaria seller/gunsmith. He tells me that he was listing the card for a friend. I tell him, "No problem". Fast forward 10 more days and it still hadn't left California. Again he contacts me and apologizes. He says that he would put some extra stuff in the package for the delay. He was supposed to list the stuff for his friend. Since the first card only sold for $7.38, he didn't want to mess with the rest of the things. Anyway, yesterday, the package arrived with my card. Incuded in the package was a second 1910 Obak, 2 different 1947 P.C.L. programs and a 1950 UCal/Penn St. football program. But wait......there's more....He refunded my $7.38.

omfg!

[Bocabirdman]

Originally Posted by EvilKing00

omfg!

Does that qualify for this thread?

[EvilKing00]

SRY but when he said the guy also refunded his money i almost fell off my chair

[atx840]

The caretaker of the original owner was selling a bunch of his cards, I missed the RH but was able to get this thrown in for under $5.

[Bocabirdman]

Originally Posted by EvilKing00

SRY but when he said the guy also refunded his money i almost fell off my chair

It shocked me also. I guess he wanted to make sure that I would leave him postive feedback. I did. The custom stuff he builds and sells coupled with the Civil War stuff he was selling was going for silly money. Are you readty for this? He sold a Radio Control belt-fed machine gun/ pellet gun on big-ass knobby tires for $2700. Everything he was selling was in the same price range. The little pile of stuff that he sent me wasn't a drop in the bucket, I guess....

[steve B]

I can't think of a whole lot I've bought for under $5 recently. There was the batch of 3 truly awful T206s I sold here a few years ago when I joined that came in a box of stuff I bought for $10.

Of course, having collected long enough there's plenty of stuff I got for under $5.

Before you get all jealous, remember that means I'm also becoming old enough to have the random aches and pains that come with age.
It also means I passed on thousands of things at under $5 that I probably should have bought.

Steve B

[Howe’s Hunter]

(like 12 years ago), I used to follow my "the devil made me do it rule" on eBay. I'd bid $6.66 on almost every T206 that was listed that didn't have a higher minimum bid that that. Over the course of two years, probably won 45 cards that way. When my wife would ask why I was spending all that money on baseball cards, I'd say "The devil made me do it."

[EvilKing00]

Thought of one more:

the 1994 Larry bird baseball card! I actually have one up now on ebay

[Paul S]

Got these for $5 each circa 1967-69 (God, I feel so old). Still ungraded:

[atx840]

Originally Posted by Paul S

Got these for $5 each circa 1967-69 (God, I feel so old). Still ungraded:

End of thread..you win

[tonyo]

Well, those Cobbs are an impossible act to follow, but..............

I picked up an exhibits salutation Feller and Mize for $2.75 each in June

no scans with me here at work.

[tonyo]

Originally Posted by Paul S

Got these for $5 each circa 1967-69 (God, I feel so old). Still ungraded:

yeah, but those were 1967 dollars.. (joke)

[Paul S]

Watch out, I might put them on the BST

[Paul S]

Originally Posted by tonyo

yeah, but those were 1967 dollars.. (joke)

Five bucks was my weekly allowance! For my birthday I asked for The Baseball Encyclopedia. That tome cost $20. Now I think of all the cards I could have bought instead.

[jimivintage]

Not quite $5, but for less than $9....I believe $8.93 a card, I got over 100 different t205s including the Joss about 7 or 8 years ago. They're all gone now though....

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by Paul S

Got these for $5 each circa 1967-69 (God, I feel so old). Still ungraded:

Any chance you wanna double your money?

[Bocabirdman]

Originally Posted by novakjr

Any chance you wanna double your money?

I'll triple it for you

[Paul S]

Okay, that will save me from having to pay to have them graded.

[EvilKing00]

Originally Posted by novakjr

Love the Gaedel. I think I picked up both for under $5. I find when I'm broke, that it can be a lot of fun to just scrounge for the oddball stuff/players/owners/executives. Even Hall of Famers with some of the Callahan's. This right here's probably my favorite of the cheapies.. Especially for a fan of Jackie, or someone wanting an item of the Walker brothers.

still searching for this card! i have found others and even compleat sets but not this #46!

[MacDice]

Not vintage but the $5 I spent on a Power Ball tickets is looking like a pretty solid investment at the moment.

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by EvilKing00

still searching for this card! i have found others and even compleat sets but not this #46!

It's a pain in the nuts to find..Much like you, I thought it would be fairly easy, but it wasn't. I searched daily hoping for one to get listed, and gave up after a few weeks. A few months later, the card popped into my head again, and I luckily caught one the same day it was listed. For a relatively cheap card, I can't explain why it doesn't pop up more often.

[EvilKing00]

Originally Posted by novakjr

It's a pain in the nuts to find..Much like you, I thought it would be fairly easy, but it wasn't. I searched daily hoping for one to get listed, and gave up after a few weeks. A few months later, the card popped into my head again, and I luckily caught one the same day it was listed. For a relatively cheap card, I can't explain why it doesn't pop up more often.

reminds me of the eddie geadel

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by EvilKing00

reminds me of the eddie geadel

Now that I think about, I had to wait a while for those too. But they do seem to pop up more often.

[William Todd]

Paul S, Those Cobb's are original and thats the beauty of back then.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by novakjr

Love the Gaedel. I think I picked up both for under $5. I find when I'm broke, that it can be a lot of fun to just scrounge for the oddball stuff/players/owners/executives. Even Hall of Famers with some of the Callahan's. This right here's probably my favorite of the cheapies.. Especially for a fan of Jackie, or someone wanting an item of the Walker brothers.

how times have changed (for the better) can you imagine anyone printing that card today

[bbcard1]

It will probably be a long time before i top the 100+ T206s including HOFers and SLers for $100 in around 1985...collector grade, but what the hey.

[cfc1909]

$14 from Jays in Towson MD. About 1989 or 90 my dad took me to Jays and bought me my first group of vintage baseball cards. I walked out with about 30 cards and the best one was a Cobb bat on ( 100 bucks ), still have all of them.

[familytoad]

Mike...send me your address via PM and I'll mail you a vintage card that I got for less than $5...in fact I probably got it for free...but its old and maybe you'll like it...
Then you can be part of this thread, only with a much more recent date!

[Rich Klein]

From my 1st visit to the old sports corner shop in Montvale, NJ way way back i nthe day. Paid $1, he was a "common" but I knew he was a HOFer so I bought that one.

No, long gone

But my first ever pre-war card

Rich

[wazoo]

My t206 Titus! $5

[Hot Springs Bathers]

1976 my first card show in Ft. Smith, AR. I left and sat in my car a few minutes then went back inside and gave John England $4.00 for an Old Judge Doc Bushong, Browns.

As I drove the two hours home I tried to convince myself that I had not thrown my last $4.00 away!

[frankbmd]

Thomas Edison in a 1902 Ogden's Guinea Gold in pretty good shape for less than $4.

I'm not sure if he ever played ball, but his light bulb sure comes in handy for viewing all our cards.

The rest of the cards are all were obtained for less than $5 : Soccer, Golf, Horse Racing & Boxing

I also have 28 T51 Murads with sporting figures all for less than $3 each.

Parenthetically all of the above except the Edison and the Murads are graded with grades ranging from 5 to 8.

Not a B/S/T thread so I wont mention that I would sell any of them for $20.

[mintacular]

I traded a Sidney Crosby action figure (I paid around $5-10 for it) for a VG T206 Leach Hindu back when I didn't know what the Hindu backs were worth. Unfortunatley I trade the card for too cheap but I guess what goes around comes around....I've been looking to get this Leach card back ever since

[gnaz01]

eBay for $1.29

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by gnaz01

eBay for $1.29

very damn nice...

[EvilKing00]

Originally Posted by novakjr

Love the Gaedel. I think I picked up both for under $5. I find when I'm broke, that it can be a lot of fun to just scrounge for the oddball stuff/players/owners/executives. Even Hall of Famers with some of the Callahan's. This right here's probably my favorite of the cheapies.. Especially for a fan of Jackie, or someone wanting an item of the Walker brothers.

my search continues i have found 2 guys selling a full and partial set but wont sell it seperate! lmao

[ctownboy]

Back in the 1990's, I bought all 16 of my Star Player Candy cards for less than $5 dollars each. Before that, I bought a group of T205's and T206's at a country auction for an average of $3 dollars each.

Just this past Summer I missed out on a T206 with a brown Hindu back that sold at a yard sale for $5 dollars. A few years ago, this guy had a sale but didn't have any sports items. I asked him if he had any baseball items and he opened his garage door and showed me a pile of sports cards that his Father had collected. His Father had recently died and this guy didn't know what to do with the cards and didn't have the time then to go through them. I asked to look through them briefly and he let me.

Most of the cards were 1990's junk. However, there were some older cards and a complete set of 1982 football cards. In a small box, I found three T206 cards. All were commons and one had a large chunk torn out of it. One card was in Good to Very Good condition and when I turned it over, there was the brown Hindu back. I asked if any of this was for sale and he didn't know much about the cards and would have to do some research. He never got back to me.

Flash forward to this Summer. My Mom's neighborhood was going to have a community sale. I thought about going to see this guy (I didn't even know if he even still lived there) but couldn't because I was helping my Mom get her yard in better condition (she wanted it to look nicer) and also was helping her get things out of the attic, closets and garage to sell. By the time the sale started, I was too tired to get up and go to see what he had and also I was outside helping Mom set up her stuff when I did get up.

By the time I made it to his house, he had the cards out and priced but somebody had already bought the brown Hindu card and the complete football set. They hadn't, however, gone through the big box of cards that the guy had separated into Glad sandwich bags. I went through that box and bought about 20 bags of cards (for $1 dollar each).

From that group I have put together about half a 1977 Topps football set, have at least a couple of hundred more football cards (with stars) and also bought some baseball. Included was a 1958 Topps Musial All Star, 1968 Topps Tom Seaver, 1967 Topps Tony Perez and a complete set of 1968 Topps game cards.

Now these cards are only in VG shape but considering I paid only two or three cents each for them, I am not complaining....

David