Anyone remember prices when you started pre-war?

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Posted By: Dave F

For me just getting involved in pre-war cards about three years ago...prices haven't changed a whole heck of a lot. Maybe a bit here or there. I'm curious though about those that started 10, 20, heck 40 or 50 years ago if you remember what prices were for certain type cards. I can at least do a little wishful thinking....

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Posted By: peter ullman

As a teenager in the 80's I remember paying $5 for ex+ t206/t205 commons. I paid $2 for my first t206...a white cap matty in f-g shape. I have a few e94's I paid $5 each for at the st louis nat'l in 95'. I'm sure sme stories to follow will make my mouth water! Dave I just sent you an email.

pete in mn

ps...I also remember about the same time a tom seaver rc was $7 and a hank aaron rc was $25...a wagner going for $25k.

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Posted By: Fred C

Turn the clock back to the mid-late 70's: I remember T206 cards being a buck or two a piece. I remember a T205 Cobb being around $15. I remember a cover on the Trader Speaks that showed the Wagner T206 and if I remember correctly it said something about the $1000 card (something like that).

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

1979, local show at the Nazir Grotto in Canton, Ohio: Bought a T206 red Cobb for $10.
<
<
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Sold it and doubled my money about a year later and thought I was quite the wheeler-dealer.

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Posted By: ErlandStevens

In the very early 1980s in the little town of Ashland, KY, T206 commons in presentable yet technically poor condition sold for $1. Unfortunately, I was buying 1974 Topps commons for 10 cents apiece.

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Posted By: Jerry Rucker

Early 90's purchases
T3 Johnson (Ended up a PSA 5) 900.00
T3 Lajoie (Ended up a 5) 700.00
T3 Evers, Baker, Joss, Griffith, all ended up a 5 with the Griffith a 6, 500.00 each
All Gone unfortunately

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Posted By: Chris Counts

At my first card show in Anaheim, CA in about 1974, I bought a '33 Goudey of Bing Miller for $2 and T206s of Lajoie, Chase, Joss, M. Brown and Magee for $1 each. Tobacco cards were definitely cheaper than gum cards from the 30s. The T206s had sharp corners ... Unfortunately, I traded them away long before there were grading companies ...

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Posted By: Bobby Binder

Summer 1974 went every Saturday to ADCO owned by Goody Goldfladden with my $50.00 I made working in my dad's warehouse. Could get any HOF T206, T205, 33 & 34 Goudey, 39-40+41 PB all for $2-$4,Ruth $25, Gehrig $20. Would usually walk out with about 15-20 new cards every week. By the end of the summer would have expanded my book fairly well.

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Posted By: Chuck Ross

I'm strictly a vintage nonsports guy these days, but when I got started in the early 70's I got plenty of T206's and '53 Topps from a number of dealers in the Trader Speaks (particularly one guy named Stan Martucci on Long Island) for a couple of bucks a piece.

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Posted By: Dave F

Man...already enough to make me shake my head. When you were born in the 70's it didn't give you much of a chance to acquire many cards


I'm waiting for someone to say they were buying Kalamazoo Bats for 3 bucks

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Posted By: raymond g. pasternak

20 years ago for (17) 1910 Tip Top Bread (RAW) including a Wagner ---$750.00, I still have them today, now graded!!!!!

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Posted By: barry arnold

'83 bought my Matty dark cap for 19 dollars.
pete ullman got a better deal on his Matty than I did.
I still have mine and it's still excellent.

best,

barry

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

These are prices I paid for the following cards in the late '70s and early '80s at BB card Shows.....

E90-1 Joe Jackson (Ex)......$275

T206 Green Cobb (Vg-Ex).....$15

T206 Magie (Vg)......$600

M116 McQuillan (Cinc)......$250

1933 Goudey (any Ruth) (Ex).....$150

1941 Play Ball set (complete....Ex)......$750

1948 Bowman set (complete....ExMt)......$100

1949 Leaf Satchell Paige (Ex)......$200

1954 Bowman Ted Williams (ExMt)......$300

1955 Topps Clemente (Ex)......$25

1959 Fleer Ted Williams set....Mint (includes #68).....$100


TED Z

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

We began collecting seriously in the Spring of 1976.

At our first NYC Card show, we decided to collect the rarest
available cards in the best possible condition.

Our first purchases were two near mint Delongs and three
George Miller cards. The we bought two Kalamazoo Bats
and Duke Cabinet from George Lyons.

We were fortunate to work near a wonderful antique
store in Greenwich Village. Within a month we were
able to secure 50 different T 207's for $4 each and
25 Ramlys for $10 each.

A few months later we attended our first Philadelphia
show. There we met two young dealers, Billy Mastro
and his pal Bob Lifson.

We purchased the rarest cards they had...included
a Four Base Hits, 2 Kalamazoo Bat NY Players and
a Just So. Three of those cards remain in collection today.

It was a great time in those days.

Within a year, we were spending time with Buck Barker
in St Louis, Frank Nagy in Detroit, Bob Richardson and Bob Lieb
in NY and Boston, Sir Edward Wharton Tigar in London,
Goody Goldfaden in LA and Barry Halper at his office in New Jersey.

Oh how sweet it was...when it was a hobby!


Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: barrysloate

I can remember in the early 80's when T206 commons were $4 in VG, maybe $6-7 in excellent, and NR MT's were $10-12. HOFers in decent shape might have set you back $20-25, and mid-grade Cobbs probably around $100. But it's hard to recall too many other details.

One thing I do remember, and this probably goes back to the early 90's, is offering a low grade N167 in SCD for $600 with no takers. A while later I relisted it for $500 and I think I finally sold it. You had to kind of give that stuff away back then.

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Posted By: ItsOnlyGil

I bought some vg common OJs @ $35 in 1983.
A financial guy once told me that a good investment doubles every seven years.
That would then be: $70 in 1990, $140. in 1997, $280. in 2004, $560. in 2011.
I bought other vg common OJs at $50. in 1983 (they were a little better).
I've still got them all, but they are not making me rich.
But they do make me happy (which is why I bought them).

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Posted By: JimB

I bought my first T206 Cobb/red for $70 around 1981 (roughly).
JimB

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Posted By: John S

In the mid-80's I remember paying $4/$5 for T206 commons at shows. Not so long ago (2001) I paid $8 a piece for some series 4 T210's at the Strongsville, Ohio show.

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Posted By: Paul

Around 1975, I started getting the Card Collectors' Company catalog. If I remember correctly, the first few catalogs went back only to 1948. But then, suddenly, T206 Hall of Famers appeared -- for $5.00 each. No cherry picking here either. Cobb was five bucks, Young was five bucks. They were all five bucks.

I was about 9 or 10 years old at the time and even then was a little suspicious. I had never heard of baseball cards that old. I smelled a rat. Something just didn't seem right. It was too good to be true. I passed.

It was probably two or three years later when I actually picked up my first prewar cards. I'm not sure what convinced me they were real. I think my first prewar card was a 33 Goudey of Bill Terry in "fair-good condition" (name crossed out in pencil) that I bought from Paul E. Marchant for $2.50.

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Posted By: David Vargha

I sold a NM 1939 Play Ball Ted Williams (rookie) in 1978 or 1979 at a show in Seattle for $15.

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Steve Dawson

I can second Barry's comments about T206s. I was buying the HOFers back in the early '80s in ex condition, and paid $14-$30 each for all of them except the Cobb's, which ran $60 for the red portrait $68.50 for the bat on shoulder, $87.25 for the green portrait and $125 for the bat off shoulder. I even got an Elberfeld (Wash) in ex-mt condition for $150. The Lundgren (Chi) only cost $24 (it was vg).

Other cards I bought were an E90-2 Wagner in vg-ex for $60, 6 others from the set for $8-$14 each, a vg E90-1 Lajoie for $20, a T202 Ty Cobb Steals Third (w/Jennings) for $100 (vg-ex), T201 Cobb/Crawford for $72 (vg-ex), N162 Kelly in ex for $250, and N28s of Keefe, Kelly and Clarkson for $70, $85 and $90 each (Keefe and Clarkson were ex, and the Kelly was vg with Buck Barker's name and address stamped on the back).

The first ones I bought, T206s of Mordecai Brown, Bresnahan and Keeler, cost me $3 each in 1977.

Unfortunately, I sold all of the cards in 1991 for somewhere around $2,700. I started re-collecting pre-war cards in 2003.


Steve

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Posted By: Fred C

Ted,

That's funny you should mention that 59F Williams set in Mt at $100. I picked up a CHERRY set in the 80s and I paid double book for it then ($200) and everyone thought I was nuts. If the set wasn't so darn near perfect (gloss, centering, corners - everything) I probably wouldn't have bothered with it. I can remember cherry picking dealers for their best condition cards and happily paying book for the cards. That was before grading which has escalated the price of NrMt-Mt cards to a stratosphere which I don't care to enter.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Bruce D said it all right there at the end...


" ... When it was a hobby!"


Collecting was more fun when it took information, desire, and persistance in the search; instead of now, where it is something you just threw money at.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Steve- an E90-2 Wagner in VG-EX for $60!

I think it's worth more today.

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Posted By: Anonymous

1st Beckett Price Guide 1979 on ebay right now. T206 Wagner MINT $4800. 1952 Topps Mantle MINT $500.

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Posted By: Keyway

I remember going to flea markets and auctions in the early to mid 80'S and buying tobacco cards cheap. Once bought 3 Ramlys at an auction for $4.00. Buoght over 40 HOF T206's and T205's for $2.00 each, included 4 Ty Cobb, 2 Meathewson, Young, Johnson, etc. At auction was paying around $25 to $30 for 9 cards in sheets, some scarce backs. I wish I Knew more then, I would have bougth every one I could get my hands on. Can't complain though for I still have most of them. Frank

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Posted By: jay wolt

Bought my 1st Turkey Red in '90 or '91 paid around $100
for a Howie Camnitz - PSA years later graded it a 5.
Got the bug in early '04 to collect the set.

And bought a $395.00 Ex/EX+ card off of Mickeys of Johnny Kling
it came back a PSA-6 (current value $2-$3000)
Here is a list I saved from April '04 from Mickeys.
Shouldda bought em all!



1911 T3 Turkey Red Tobacco 18 Hughie Jennings (Tigers) EX/EX+

$995.00

1911 T3 Turkey Red Tobacco 21 Red Kleinow (Yankees) EX

$350.00

1911 T3 Turkey Red Tobacco 24 Mike Mitchell (Reds) EX/EX+

$395.00

1911 T3 Turkey Red Tobacco 34 Nap Rucker (Dodgers) EX/EX+

$395.00

1911 T3 Turkey Red Tobacco 39 Rube Waddell (Browns) EX/EX+

$995.00

1911 T3 Turkey Red Tobacco 41 Hooks Wiltse (Giants) EX/EX+

$395.00

1911 T3 Turkey Red Tobacco 45 Jordan and Herzog at First EX/EX+

$450.00

1911 T3 Turkey Red Tobacco 48 Jack Murray EX/MT

$495.00

1911 T3 Turkey Red Tobacco 124 Bobby Wallace (Browns) VG/EX

$395.00

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Posted By: Gary Passamonte

Barry,

Was that N167 Larry Corcoran,that was part of our trade back then?

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Posted By: Dave S

Bought a T206 trio of Tinker-Evers-Chance (all Portraits)in the early 90's for $125. Walked away from both Cobb bat variations because I thought $200 was too much!

Paid $150 for my 1st '15 Cracker Jack Honus (now holdered SGC40) and $50 for Plank (also SGC40)....

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Posted By: Joe D.

I would collect just T206 cards. And only in Polar Bear backs (filling in with Old Mill when 'The Monster' told me Polar Bear did not make the card).

Going to shows...
If I asked for T206s - dealers would bring out a few stacks of cards, each stack held together by a rubberband.
There was a $1 each pile, a $3 each pile, and a $5 each pile.
And when you purchased a quantity of cards - the dealer always offered a discount. 7 x $3 card.... 'ah just give me $18'.


There were other cards - HOFers and better conditioned ones that went anywhere from $10 - $100.

For the most part - the dealers were very cool to me - I was just a kid.
I do feel bad about the 5 or 6 of my T206s that came back trimmed when I graded them with SGC.
As a kid - I am sure I paid 'extra' for those nice looking examples - and I am sure it was all the money I had at the time.

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Posted By: Anonymous

The very first vintage card I bought was about 25 years ago. It was an Old Judge Titcomb in vg shape for $15 or $20. The dealer had an entire book just filled with those cards. My dad bought a T206 cobb red (now sgc 50) for $75.

I also remember in the late 1980s looking at a raw T206 set for $25k minus the big 4 in a solid Ex-Ex/Mt. shape ... but we just thought it was outrageously priced...oh the memories. Just the Demmitt and O'hara would fetch that now!

-Soctt

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Posted By: Jim Rivera

My first T206 were a set of 9 Baltimore players for $90 all in ex and a bat on Cobb in ex for $100 somewhere in the late 80s and I still have them today.Also when I started rare backs in the 90s I remember picking up a ex Lenox for $200. Even ebay was not that bad in 2002. I bought T206s in PSA 5 for $25-$30.

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Posted By: Jimmy

When I started back in 1999, I was able to bring home collections of cards that helped my collecting, buying and selling on eBay and at shows. Prices were still very fair. T206 and Goudey Commons 10.00 each - most Hall of Famers just under 100.00 in ex condition. The next few years prices just kept going up and was unable to buy in such large numbers. Even when I cam across a 300 T206 collection back in 2002 I was paying a lot more for each card.

Jimmy

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Posted By: Anthony N.

In the early '70's (73 or so) T206's were .50 and T205's .70-1.00 Condition wasn't as much of an issue, I'd probably call them VG today.
A buddy and I ran an ad in one of the early issues of SCD offering 50 '70-74 commons for 1 T206, and got blitzed with them and T205's.
I remember going to Goody Goldfadden's shop and getting a '39 Playball Dimaggio for $10 and Hank Greenberg for a buck. His prices were always on the high side.

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Posted By: Glen V

Here's a page from Mark Macrae's 1996 catalog. Hope the print isn't too small to read. All prices are between $5 & $25 - amazing what has happened to T209/T210/T211 prices in just over ten years.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Out here in flyover country there was no such thing as card shows and I didn't own a price guide so I really knew nothing about tobacco and early gum cards, but there was a monthly flea market that my folks would take me to and one guy who had a big book filled with Goudey and T-206 cards...I remember them being about $5 each no matter what it was, but at that time I didn't really know who the oldtime players were...this was the early 1980s. I wasn't about to spend $5 on one card when I could get 20 packs of Topps cards for the same amount of money.

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Posted By: Paul S

Bobby Binder and I seem to have had the same experience at Goodwin Goldfadden's ADCO, although mine was a few years earlier. He'd have to buzz you into his musty dusty store with narrow aisles of sports books stacked floor to ceiling, and he had this cage/office in the back. I got my HOFer T206s, i.e. Cobb bat on /bat off/port, Johnsons, et al, for about $5.00 a pop -- there wasn't the small varying degrees of "grading" then -- a card either looked acceptable or beat. Speaking of which, I also still have about 40-50 E90-1s, which these grading days would be A's or 1's, for about $10.00 total. Costliest single purchase I made there was actually the Baseball Encyclopedia for $20.00.
Bobby, are/were your Play Ball 39s sample backs? The one's I got from him are, including Dimaggio and Williams. Don't remember the price but it wasn't so much that my allowance couldn't afford it!

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Posted By: daryle

My first pre-war card was a freebie. My uncle found it in an old trunk back in '84. 1933 Goudey #206 Gus Suhr. Still have it although I've had 2 more in better condition. I always keep that one. My first T206's cost me a whole $17 (Bresnahan portrait, Scott, Howard, Delehanty and Ganzel) from Fritsch in 1985. My 1st T206 HOFer (1986) (Cobb/red port) cost $60. Still have it. T205 Young (1985) $17. My 1st Old Judge....$11 (gone). T205 Cobb (1987) $64. E90-1 Speaker $10............the good ole days

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Posted By: Gary Nuchereno

I could go on and on but the one I remember most was buying a complete run of Bowman sets in ex-mt condition and better in the early 1970's from a Dr. Allan Weisberg in Pa. Tho only
card missing was a 54 Williams, and it included all the bow 49
variations. He even treated the different color backs as variations so it was almost like two sets of Bowman 1949! I was
thrilled but my two collecting friends kept reminding me that I
way overpaid for the collection! I bought them all for 3k but
sold them piece by piece in the early 80's when I got married and
built a home

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Posted By: Bobby Binder

Paul.

Every one of them where Sample backs always thought that was the norm for the card and did not know it was a premium til recent.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Gary- Corcoran sounds familiar. You probably remember the details of that trade better than I do.

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Posted By: Gary Nuchereno

wrong gary

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Posted By: barrysloate

I know- there are a lot of multiple names on the board- there are about a dozen "Brians"- and those mistakes happen all the time.

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Posted By: Anthony N.

Paul and Bobby- Every '39 I got from Goodie was a sample back too, I thought they were all that way.

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Posted By: Bob

Peter- $5 each for E94s at the St. Louis Natl. in 95??? Crap, what was I doing????? I didn't get in to caramels until 5 years later.
I do remember being in St. Louis and being undecided between 2 T212-3 Buck Weaver cards, one in VGEX for $65 and one in EXMT but with a diamond angle cut for $65 and bought neither. Dumb, dumb, dumb....
I don't remember T206s going for quite as low as some of you but I bought an EXMT to NRMT Tinker bat on in the early 80's from Bill Mastro at a show (KC maybe?) for $55.
I also will never forget the guy who kept pestering me to buy a stack of T205s which all appeared EXMT from him in KC (the show DiMaggio was at in 81). There were probably about 40-45 cards and he wanted $250 for all of them. I told him I didn't collect 205s (didn't at that time) and didn't want to start a new set since I had just started collecting prewar and was after 206s only. He said "how about $200?" I said no. Finally, he said, "ok, $150 takes the stack, that's about $3 a card." I just walked away after saying no thanks. Dumbest move I ever made, and I guess that could be a whole different thread. I remember the top card was Matty and I remember there was a Speaker in there, don't remember the other names. The cards were beauts.

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Posted By: peter ullman

bob...those 3 e94's I picked up were in a bargain box! At that show I also saw an e97 nichols, Phil variation for $175...I should have grabbed it but I was too cheap!!!

pete

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Posted By: Darren

I picked up a Vg-Ex T213-2 Cobb for $35 in 1983.

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Posted By: Dave F

Just amazing prices....nobody has any memory of a purchase price back in the 60's or even the 50's or was everyone just collecting topps cards back then?

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Posted By: peter ullman

I spoke to an older gentleman at a show years ago and he told me he had 2 complete t206 sets...I can't remember if he had a wagner or not...I think he did...but...he told me he bought a whole shoebox full of t cards in the early 50's for $2.50. He said he worked the whole summer to make the $$$$.

pete

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Posted By: Tim Kindler

I remember buying my first T206s when I was about 12 in 1985 at card shows for about $5 per common. I think I paid $9 for a Three-Fingered Brown with a Polar Bear Back in VG condition. I lived in a suburb, Moore, of Oklahoma City and I used to ride my bike with a friend about 15 miles to Sports Memories in OKC. Roger Neufeldt, the owner along with Mrs. Neufeldt, had a T205 Gold Border Cobb in the case for $75. Oh how I wanted that card, but $75?? How would ever be able to save that much up at one time? I painted the neighbor's entire picket fence redwood stain and only earned $40! Sadly I couldn't save any more and the money was burning a hole in my pocket, so I spent it on 85 Topps and Donruss Wax Boxes. Oh, to know then what I know now! But at least I have great memories of Sports Memories and I try to say hello to Roger each year that I atttend the National where he sets up.
Tim Kindler