collecting patterns when retired

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by ruth_rookie

It’s always been a dream of mine (and probably everyone in this hobby) to come across a lucrative find of vintage sports memorabilia in a garage sale. I have had no such luck. Have you discovered anything of value, financial, sentimental, or otherwise? If so, talk about a dream come true!

I am an auto racing card collector, and I have shared this story several times in the "Vintage Racing" thread that pops up every now and again on this board. The card I have posted below is arguably the holy grail of American auto racing cards -- "Lorenzen with car" from the 1972 STP racing set. PSA has only graded two examples of the card. it may not be a Cobb T206 with a Cobb back, but it is probably the most valuable auto racing card in the hobby.

Fred Lorenzen has two cards in the 1972 STP set, and both are rare. But the "with car" version is so rare that several racing collectors had only ever seen one copy in 20+ years of collecting. As a result, I could not believe it when I saw the card show up raw on eBay two years ago. The seller had no idea what he had -- until multiple messages started coming in asking him to end the auction early. The seller was a picker who had bought a lot of old NASCAR clocks and photos of 1980s drivers Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Tim Richmond, etc. The guy bought the lot for $40 at an estate sale and hoped to double his money.

A single "Lorenzen with car" card and 12 examples of Fred Lorenzen's portrait card from the set were also included in the bottom of the box. Unable to find any information about the cards online, the picker who bought the lot thought about just throwing away the cards before deciding to put them on eBay to see if there was any interest at all in them.

That $40 estate sale purchase was worth over $4,000. I wasn't the lucky buyer at the estate sale, but I was able to pick up two cards I was almost certain I would never own. It is crazy how close the cards came to simply being thrown out as worthless garbage because the the guy who originally bought them did not know what he had.