How many times has this happened to you?

[carrigansghost]

It happens, but I still will take a look. On the flip side, how many times has it turned out to be a good find? I'm still making a few bucks off a shoebox full of 50's cards that I bought in 1982 for $20.

Rawn

[sycks22]

The other thing is when people actually have some decent stuff they look in beckett and think they should get 60% of book even though there are 4 creases and the bottom left hand part of the card is missing. I had a guy today offer me his '52 Topps Bill Dickey ($1,800 high book) for $800 saying it was in good condition, but with creases. I told him that's a $200 card and he wasn't having it.

[David W]

I went to a local card show last Saturday, and one weekend warrior still had boxes of individual cards of Sosa/McGwire/Thomas/Gwynn/et al, not to mention the Kenny Lofton rookies and Juan Guzman rookies in his dollar boxes.

That was it, everything he had was from about 1983 to 1993.

90 Donruss Sosa's were 50% off his "list" price of $12.00.

I wondered why he was wasting a perfectly good Saturday.

[kllrbee]

Yeah, people tell me all the time about their big collection of cards in their shoebox. "I had a alot of cards when I was a kid, but I grew out of it" is usually what they say.
Sometimes for fun, I tell them Im looking for 1990 Upper Deck cards only.....Haha. "Ill check to see what I have" they say proudly....like they are really helping me out and supporting my worthless hobby....hahaha.

Fwiw, I still have all my Topps sets from the 80's and 90's (actually I have all sets from 1969-present). I know they arent worth sqaut, but i dont care. I didnt pay much for them when I collected them back in the day. I consider them part of my baseball card collecting history and that is important to me.
I remember how excited I used to get to find an Olympic Mcgwire, or Bonds, or even some guys that no one cared about but me, like Thad Bosley (great pinch hitter). Its all part of the hobby....it shouldnt be all about money right?

[skelly]

One thing I do see a lot with less experienced collectors is they think the "rookie all star cards" ( 1964 rose, 1969 bench ) are the true rookie cards. I'll also say this, I remember how hot some of those mid-seventies cards were back when I first collected in the 80's. Now, really anything newer than 1975 is pretty dead, unless your talking a mint 75 brett, etc...

[Jantz]

I've had this happen to me about a dozen times now. As recent as two weeks ago, but on two occasions it was worth it.

I was having a casual conversation one time with my ex's cousin and he mentioned that he needed money for college. He told me that he had no interest anymore in his baseball cards and would be willing to part them. I went with the assumption that they were going to be 80s & 90s cards because of his age. Turns out that he had some nice rookie cards from the 70s & 80s. We both walked away happy with the sale.

The other occasion was when one of my father's co-workers ( & friend ) asked if I would take a look at some baseball cards and give him a dollar value for all of them. So I get the cards from my father & a few days later call him up with a price. My father then informs me that it was all a joke and the co-worker wanted me to have all of the cards. There were around 100 cards from 1940 Play Ball to 1968 Topps.



Jantz

[jefferyepayne]

Same here. Usually looking at people's "collections" has been a waste of time but I did snag some good cards on three different occasions.

A co-worker of my father-in-law had some cards he wanted to get rid of. They were late 50's / early 60's with a 1960 Yogi Berra and a few other HOF'ers as well.

A friend sold me his cards from the '60s that included a Brian Piccolo rookie card for 1 cent each in the 80's.

A friend of my father-in-law wanted to get rid of his kids old cards that included a Terry Bradshaw rookie.

The best card find story I've experienced first hand came from an older co-worker about ten years ago. When his mother died they cleaned out her attic. He didn't know it but she had taken all of his late 40's / early 50's baseball cards and put them in a large tupperware container where they had sat for 50 years. They were all in NM condition and he had a lot of stars/HOFers. He brought them to work and showed them to me and, as much as I wanted those cards, knew I could never give him a fair offer for them as I didn't have the $$$ at the time. He ended up selling them through an auction and made more money from those cards than the family got for ALL of the rest of his mother's possessions. What a great Mom!

jeff

[theseeker]

I'm sure it's only me, but I not only buy the "shinny junk," I wish it had come along a generation sooner so that my childhood era cards could be had at easily affordable prices and also be of FAR superior quality.
It's a sad irony that at the hobbies height of popularity (late eighties thru early nineties), an investment mentality prevailed and most child-aged collectors were planning on financing their college education with the cards that are now refurred to as "worthless, shinny junk." Equally ironic is how the suddenly huge industry of manufacturers and dealers act of fueling this investment hype with promo cards, endless insert sets, premium grade, and super premium grade cards sealed then own fate when the bubble inevitably burst. With all the cases of cards being bought and the proliferation of supplies to protect these over-produced "investments," I'm still shocked at how many adults fell for this obviously manipulated market by all involved, including MLB with it's ridiculously liberal use of licensing.
No doubt in my mind that it is the disappointment with how these "shinny cards" did as investments that is the root cause of all the present resentment towards them.
Is it any wonder that the hobby is now largely viewed as a baby boomers activity? I fall into the tail end of that and I am part of the last generation where it was a true collector's activity. As a result, I see the cards from this era for what they really are.......plentiful, affordable, and vastly superior products to anything that came before them. Yet, perhaps because they were the first cards to be targeted to an adult market, utterly lacking in any visceral attachment.
As to the owners who still beleive there is any value in them.........................

This story isn't about disappointment... In the early 80s, I used to buy 70's football/baseball cards at a local bookstore (Old Fool's) for 1 penny apiece. Compiled an entire '76 football set that way, without the Payton Rookie. Found my first "vintage" card there, not pre-war but a 1960 Hoyt Wilhelm was a nice find for a penny.

Fast forward to 2008, went to a yard sale sale in town where there were boxes and boxes of books. The owner of Old Fool's was selling his collection. I asked him about all the cards he used to have, and he pointed me to some shelves in the back of his garage "You can have them all for $50". There must have been 40 file boxes of cards! I told him my wife would kill me if I brought them all home regardless of the price.

So I sat down, and rifled through some boxes to check cards and condition, just like when I was young. Felt that joy of collecting/searching again, and said to myself, this is too much fun... paid him the $50 and loaded up my truck. Got home and hid them in the rafters of our garage. Over the past few years I've gone out to "work on the car" just to spread all those cards on the hood and search through them. The best $50 I ever spent.