Near miss...Cards that you've personally taken out of existence...

[novakjr]

Whew!!! I just had a close call.

Here's the story. I had purchased a 1948 Bowman Sain card a few weeks ago on ebay. The day it came, I grabbed the mail as I was leaving and opened the mail in my van, and put the card in the sunglass cubby...Now, here comes the problem. I scrapped the van last tuesday(completely dead, not worth fixing) and cleaned out everything, EXCEPT the sunglass cubby(there's too many damn hiding places in vehicles nowadays). I'm never this negligent with cards, but Sh*t happens sometimes. I felt bad, not because I'd lost a card, but because I thought that I had personally taken it out of existence, and decreased it's population by 1.

Luckily, I was able to track it down today, and while buried in a pile of other cars, the place told me the van wouldn't be shredded 'til tuesday, and that they would set it aside so that I can get to my stuff out of it(various paperwork and old ticket stubs from when I had the band and such). Now, at the very least, I feel better knowing that the card still exists.

What I'm getting at here is, does anyone else have any interesting stories about how you've personally decreased the population of a card? Lost, destroyed, whatever?

I'm obviously looking for more than the old "cards your mom threw out stories", but those would apply too... Stories about how you may have simply misplaced a card, to never be seen again would be interesting as well.

[terjung]

Your story reminds me of the story that one of the Baltimore News Babe Ruth prookie cards was lost. (I can't personally verify that, but have read it in more than one place.) I'm just glad that I haven't misplaced a $300k card. (not that I own one)

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by terjung

Your story reminds me of the story that one of the Baltimore News Babe Ruth prookie cards was lost. (I can't personally verify that, but have read it in more than one place.) I'm just glad that I haven't misplaced a $300k card. (not that I own one)

Wow! That would be terrible. I felt bad about possibly losing a card that some would just write off. Hell, I only paid $5 for it, and could replace(or upgrade) it for under $10. I really don't know why I made such an effort to find the thing. Maybe it's the principle of it, maybe it's the other various non-replacable stuff that was with it? But damn, a Baltimore News Ruth... I'd probably agonize the rest of my life over misplacing that one.

[Cardboard Junkie]

In 1956, when I was five and my brother was 14, we decided to clean house. We had a nice collection of 1956 topps baseball (I would guess at 1000 cards) soooooo we thought...." why should we keep the old outdated cards" so into our basement incinerator went a 55 gallon cardboard drum of baseball, football and hockey cards.....including a scrapbook jammed with T cards and other unregonizable cards of mostly players we had never heard of. I don't remember 52's in there but tons and tons of 53's bowmans topps and ???
I also remember buying 5cent packs of 54 topps hockey..ripping them open and cramming the gum in our mouths and then flinging the cards into the air like frisbees, leaving them strewn from the "milk depot" all the way to our house.
Also when we were kids we liked to carry our cards, especially tigers, bound by rubber bands in our back pockets. Those corners were a little sharp sooo, geniuses that we were, we ground the corners off so they would be nice and soft.
Woe Is Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[brob28]

Ouch David! I feel for you. Of course it was all your older brothers fault, him being 14 and all and you only 5!

[rp12367]

A few years ago my wife threw away a 1980 Topps Fred Stanley name in yellow variation PSA 9 . It came in a bubble envelope with no clear plastic card sleeve, I didn't want the case to get all scratched up, so I shoved it back in the mailer, till I could get one from my closet. Left it on the coffee table with some junk mail and didn't think twice or get back to it until a few days later. My wife had since done her cleaning ritual and saw the open envelope and tossed it out in the trash, which was picked up by the time I realized the card was MIA. So some where in a NJ dump is a nice Stanley card, just waiting for someones collection....

[canjond]

Originally Posted by terjung

Your story reminds me of the story that one of the Baltimore News Babe Ruth prookie cards was lost. (I can't personally verify that, but have read it in more than one place.) I'm just glad that I haven't misplaced a $300k card. (not that I own one)

Are you sure that happened to a Baltimore News Ruth? I know the story about the Butter Cream Ruth which was thrown out by Barry Halper. Here is the story as told by Rob Lifson...

"Incredibly, the first (lower grade) R306 Ruth unveiled in 1989 no longer exists. That card was also presented at auction, in the very early 1990s, by legendary collector/dealer/auctioneer Lew Lipset (author of The Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards). Barry Halper was particularly interested. However, the condition of the card was very weak and the minimum bid was very high. No one placed the opening bid, so Halper chose to not bid also, but he continued to express very strong interest immediately after the auction. A deal was struck between the two collecting legends. Barry also won an item of larger dimensions in the auction. Unfortunately, when Barry received the package, he unpacked the larger item and by accident completely forgot about the R306 Ruth, perhaps thinking it would be sent separately. He did not realize his error until it was too late and all the packing materials – along with R306 Babe Ruth – had been thrown out. The card was lost forever. It no longer exists."

[e107collector]

Originally Posted by terjung

Your story reminds me of the story that one of the Baltimore News Babe Ruth prookie cards was lost. (I can't personally verify that, but have read it in more than one place.) I'm just glad that I haven't misplaced a $300k card. (not that I own one)

I remember reading this story in a recent auction catalog description. I could be wrong, but I beleive it was lost in a flood.

Tony

[brob28]

"I remember reading this story in a recent auction catalog description. I could be wrong, but I beleive it was lost in a flood."

I wonder how many cards disappear in natural disasters, tornados, hurricanes etc. No way to know for sure.

[canjond]

Originally Posted by e107collector

I remember reading this story in a recent auction catalog description. I could be wrong, but I beleive it was lost in a flood.

Tony

Tony - good call. I found the story. Again, from Rob Lifson:

"in communicating with collectors over the past several years about the exact number of cards known, we have found that one card which at one time existed apparently no longer exists. The owner, a collector with whom we had lost touch with when he moved years ago, finally called us out of the blue. When we asked him if he still had his 1914 Baltimore News Ruth rookie, we got a much unexpected response: no, because he lost it. He had kept it in his office at work, and to this day he does not know if it was stolen or thrown out. It has been missing for many years, and every once in a while to this day he still finds himself looking for it. He even asked us to keep an eye out for it if we should happen to see it."

So, looks like it might have been thrown out (unless stolen). Wow, seems to be a curse with RARE Ruths!

[e107collector]

That's the story.

Tony

[rhettyeakley]

Not destroyed, but a pretty nice 1933 Goudey Clyde Manion and 1934 Goudey John Stone were creased by my mother in the mid-1980's. She got so mad at my brother Rhys for spending all of his money on baseball cards that she grabbed the cards, squeezed hard, and then threatened to throw them out of the drivers seat of the car (while we were moving). We pleaded with her to forgive the trespass and eventually she relented but forever those two cards were destroyed by my mother grabbing them.

[atx840]

Fathers childhood near complete set of 52 topps (with all the big ones) mostly PSA graded. While on vacation basement flooded with sewage, hundreds of comics, collectable vinyl records sat in foot deep sludge for a week. Luckily the night before we left I moved his cards off the floor and hid them in a closet. I am sure the slabs would have protected them but it would have been sh!tty.

[Cardboard Junkie]

Originally Posted by atx840

Fathers childhood near complete set of 52 topps (with all the big ones) mostly PSA graded. While on vacation basement flooded with sewage, hundreds of comics, collectable vinyl records sat in foot deep sludge for a week. Luckily the night before we left I moved his cards off the floor and hid them in a closet. I am sure the slabs would have protected them but it would have been sh!tty.

WoW.......I didn't know that slabbed cards are waterproof. Do you know this for sure??? Could I take a high end big ticket card that has been slabbed and submerge it????

[steve B]

The ones from SGC aren't completely waterproof. I specifically asked if there was any venting for the acid vapors from more acidic cards to escape. They said they weren't sure if it was enough venting, but that theirs weren't completely sealed. I'm fairly sure most PSA slabs aren't completely watertight either. Not sure about Becketts.


A couple years ago a friend of mine gave me an obak he'd found. It was barely a card, more a collection of creases held together in spots by some ink. I set it down either while sorting stuff inhis garage or somewhere here at home, and haven't seen it since.
I don't count the cards I wrecked as a kid. Standups made from 78 Topps, a few suncatcher type things made from cards stuck to tape with the cardboard soaked off....stuff like that.

[rp12367]

Originally Posted by steve B

The ones from SGC aren't completely waterproof. I specifically asked if there was any venting for the acid vapors from more acidic cards to escape. They said they weren't sure if it was enough venting, but that theirs weren't completely sealed. I'm fairly sure most PSA slabs aren't completely watertight either. Not sure about Becketts. .

I believe I read or heard somewhere that some cards got caught in a flood and all the SGC/PSA got destoryed but BVG were all fine. Might have been in Hurricane Katrina don't remember exact details.

[Zach Wheat]

I bought a nice Cy Young T206 from a board member. I received the package at work along with several other cards that day. Somehow I managed to throw away the card with the packaging material. I thought it was set aside with the other cards. I realized it after hours and searched & searched for the card. It was never to be seen from again. The card exists for 100 years but get it in my hands for more than a couple minutes and it is gone forever.

I am much more careful now when I open packages. Lesson learned the hard way.

MWheat

[Davids]

Glad to hear other people have done dumb things. I don't collect basketball cards but always wanted a tall boy of Oscar Robertson. So, so one day bid on and won a real nice one on ebay. As I am in Canada and so was the seller, it took about a month with me checking daily. Finally it came and I grabbed it from the postlady on my way to the office along with my other mail. Normally I'd wait but had to open it and I was really happy. I also received some other cards but didn't open them right away. I put Oscar back in his envelope for "safe keeping". That night I gleefully opened the rest and was very pleased with my new treasures. As always, I destroy the envelopes,customs disclosures etc, by cutting them as I prefer that my neighbours (and the garbage guys) not know that I collect. You guessed it, cut right through the Big O and his crummy semi rigid sleeve (which I normally replace and throw out) along with everything else. He was in almost 4 perfect squares! Aaagh!