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....

[glchen]

This just happened this week. I'm still smarting over it. I purchased a T200 Pittsburg / Wagner on ebay, and the card got damaged in the mail. The seller is taking it back, and has said that the Post Office will take the claim, and then destroy the card. He said that all of the packages with cards that he sent out that day were similarly damaged by the Post Office and will be destroyed after the claims are paid. Ouch.

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by glchen

This just happened this week. I'm still smarting over it. I purchased a T200 Pittsburg / Wagner on ebay, and the card got damaged in the mail. The seller is taking it back, and has said that the Post Office will take the claim, and then destroy the card. He said that all of the packages with cards that he sent out that day were similarly damaged by the Post Office and will be destroyed after the claims are paid. Ouch.

WOW! That sucks horribly. Isn't there any way the post office can handle the mess without making the cards disappear? It's one thing that they damaged the cards, but now they're gonna destroy them too? Why not just pay it out, and give the damaged items back? I know I'd still be interested in that card in it's current condition. Obviously, not for anywhere near what you probably paid though.

[tbob]

There is a complete set of E98s in vg to ex condition, all graded by GAI and includes a Clarke Old Put back, somewhere in the bowels of the Memphis UPS facility. It's been over 10 years and has never surfaced so I assume it is buried (or stolen) forever. I did get paid by the insurance but it was a crushing blow.

[LanceRoten]

man thats why delivery scares the daylights out of me. even if i'm just getting a $3 card

[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.

[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.

[Jaybird]

I had a really clean T206 southern Leaguer (can't remember which one but I think it had a yellow background) on my desk at work. I had a to do list and after I had finished all of the tasks on the list, I would very satisfyingly crumple up the paper and toss it in the trash.

Somehow, that card was in between two sheets of paper that I grabbed up. By the time I realized it, and unmangled it, it had turned from a 6 into a 2. I was so sick looking at it that I put it on ebay that day. Couldn't bear the site of it.

Now, I never crumple paper but just slip it gently into the wastebasket.

[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!

[almostdone]

My story is similar but different as well. The is a young collector that loves old stuff but dosn't like computers or the internet (whatever). I help him find the cards he wants for a good price and then buy them thorough my ebay account. He pays me the cash and everyone is happy.
About a year and a half ago he descided he wanted a "nicer" and more valuble card. After much thought he chose to go for a 1956 Topps Mantle in a nice graded condition. The most he had paid for anything up this point was maybe $100 bucks).
Because of his limited funds and potential price of the card he would pay me in advance in instalments. When he saved up enough money I ended up looking and purchasing the card for him.
Unfortunatly along the way I lost all of the cash for this card of his and had to replace it myself. Not exactly destroying a card but put my own collecting on hold for a bit.
Stupid!
Drew

[Tomman1961]

In 1988 me and my future wife were preping cards for my first show,to make a few bucks to help pay for the house we bought a few days before.We were in my bedroom at my parent's house laying the cards out. I was called to the phone in the kitchen.My fiance decides to make popcorn in the kitchen.So we both leave the room. When we come back,the (5) 1973 Topps EX-MT cards that we were grading and putting into sleeves were no where to be found.We searched that house all night.When I moved out of that house,my bedroom was literally empty.I even took the floor molding off the wall to look for those cards. My parents sold the house 12years later.Still no Willie. So I am single handedly responsible for lowering the supply of 1973 Topps Mays by 5 cards.

[ls7plus]

I had separated all of the star cards from my youth (mostly '60's cards, with plenty of Mantles, Mays', Aarons, Koufax's, etc.) out from the commons somewhere around 1982, and temporarily placed them in the trunk of a 1970 Mustang I owned (I don't recall exactly why). The Mustang was stolen, then later recovered and returned by police with a brand new stereo system that had been added by the no longer at large thief, but alas, the cards were gone, never to be seen again, along with a lot of very early stratomatic cards. I think I would rather the police recovered the cards than the car!

I also used to be quite the Mark McGwire fan, with emphasis on "used to be." After the steroid scandal enveloped him, I seriously considered intentionally reducing the population of quite a few Mark McGwires permanently, and still do from time to time. At times, I have thought a viking type funeral would be appropriate, with the cards placed aboard a toy boat, set ablaze in a fire that would burn slowly, and pushed out into the deeper areas of a pond or lake! Still have them, though, along with a heavily game-used bat from 1992, which used to be one of my most prized possessions. But I wouldn't make any bets that the bat and the cards survive forever.

Good thread!

Larry

[novakjr]

Follow up. Well, I guess the near miss, just became a miss. I couldn't get up there in time, the day that they were gonna set aside the car, and it's now been scrapped. Now there's a '48 Bowman Sain in the middle of a squashed up mini-van somewhere on it's way to be recycled....YAY!!!

[CubsFanCurt]

My dad and uncles had a major loss in 1968. They had multiple complete sets of baseball cards in mint condition dating back to '56. Sewage backed up in the basement during a flood and ruined everything. Along with the cards an autographed ball was ruined that was given to them by their grandfather, signed by Tinker, Evers ansd Chance

In the early 60's they had a broken bat they used to play ball with and they busted it up and threw it out. It was Mickey Mantle's bat from spring training

Years ago I showed my dad a price guide. After looking at it he hung his head and said "kid if that flood never happened we wouldn't have to work"

[abothebear]

The other day I was sorting through a mixed box of modern stuff and I purposely threw away a few poor grade 80's commons that were in the bunch. I agonized over it, even though they were a trifecta of worthlessness. It just seemed wrong.

[Jayjones82]

Back in 1936, my hometown, Gainesville, GA, experienced one of the worst tornadoes on record. My grandfather (then aged 10) lost his signed Connie Mack ball and all of his Goudeys (to include several Ruths and Gehrigs) when his house was destroyed (the last house to be so).

[scottglevy]

My wife threw away her dad's baseball card collection. He was born in 1933 ... so I'd have to imagine Playballs and maybe some Goudeys and maybe some Bowmans.

I've heard lots of stories of 'mom' throwing out this stuff....but my own wife -- aaargh

S

[Gary Dunaier]

The tales in this thread reminded me of this anecdote from legendary stamp dealer and writer Herman "Pat" Herst. It's about stamps, but no prior philatelic knowledge is required...

The customer was a doctor in Brooklyn. He needed a used single of [a very expensive stamp] and asked me to send him one on approval. Since he was a good buyer over the years, always paying promptly and never complaining, I did not hesitate to submit one.

Back it came, promptly, torn in half, with a brief note from his wife:

“My husband has received strict orders from me. He is not going to buy any more stamps. I hope this teaches you a lesson.”

Fortunately, his original letter had an office telephone number on it, and I was not long in calling him on the phone.

He thought that I was calling for not having sent the stamp. He said:

“My wife said that if she saw any more letters from stamp dealers she would open them and tear any stamps in the letter in half. I did not think she meant it.”

He continued, “It has taught me a lesson. I am going to take a Post Office Box. I will give you the address as soon as I have it.”

He did not stop buying stamps, and was decent enough to pay for the torn stamp. I asked if I might keep it as a souvenir of the stupid act of a wife jealous of her husband’s hobby.

It does not happen often that one spouse denies the other the pleasure of a hobby. But when that couple finally breaks up, her forcing him to seek additions to his collection via a Post Office Box will have been the start of it all. Happily, few of us are that dumb.

[novakjr]

Wow Gary. My wife's always on me about new stuff coming in the mail, BUT usually when they come, she makes sure that I show 'em to her, and she usually ends up liking them as much as I do. And then followed by the "How much is that worth?" and "How much did you pay?"..Then the next day it's back to "stop buying cards" mode...I don't think she'd ever kill a card though..

[z28jd]

I almost just threw out a 1922 Zeenuts Dots Miller, a player I collect. The card was in the middle of my pile of envelopes I was tearing the names off of before I threw them out. I just happened to check inside the one envelope that had nothing else but garbage in it and there the Miller was just like I got it from the seller, in the hard plastic taped between two pieces of cardboard. Needless to say I searched through everything else pretty good afterwards

[hoot-owl]

Not a valuable card--but one of the first T206s I purchased was a mid grade raw Ed Killian pitching. Tore open the envelope, left the card out and went about my business. Wondered where the card was a few days later, only to have my wife tell me the pieces were in the side table. Seems my beagle liked the smell of Killian and chewed him up.

A slight variation on my dog at my homework--but one less Killian pitching in the world.

[tbob]

When I consigned one of my T207 sets to Mastro Auctions back around 2002 or so I was told that in taking scans of the cards they had somehow "lost" the red Cycle back Lowdermilk card from the set. I was reimbursed and the auction went on without that card (EXish condition) but I always wondered what happened to it. The "official" explanation was that someone "probably accidentally threw it away during the photographing process."
Yeah, I thought the same thing you are thinking...

[familytoad]

I once pulled the 72 topps high number series aside to see which ones I still needed, as it seemed like I had most of them. Then I brought them to an ex-gf's house and shortly afterwards we parted ways and I needed the whole series and some new furniture
Fortunately, several years later my pals in OBC helped me rebuild that psycho set from those psycho days.

Then, just last week, flooding from Hurricane Irene took about 100,000 cards out of circulation from mom's basement in central Vermont. Some good stuff in there too...no prewar that I know of. It makes you wonder how many cards were lost in "Acts of God" instances over the years...
In fact, when you think about it, its simply amazing that we all have cards that are over a hundred years old or more!!! wow!

[tbob]

You have to wonder how much of a role Nature played in the fact so few Louisiana issues still exist and are in the hobby: T213 Coupons, Victorys, etc. It seems like nothing ever surfaces anymore (last 35 years) out of Louisiana and I don't remember hardly any collectors from the Pelican state. There used to be one guy on ebay years ago with the user id vendomecat who won whatever he wanted. Seems like his name was Mike Schwartz (?) and he had a restaurant and real estate in New Orleans. Nice guy, we communicated several times but someone mentioned that they had heard that he had had business reversals and the restaurant was gone along with most of his collection. Hope that's not true but I haven't heard from him in a long, long time.

[cardaholic]

An old friend of mine is related to one of the wealthiest families in Plaquemines Parish, LA. Based on what he told me, their collectibles insurance rider paid off $1 million (policy limit) following Katrina. Among the items ruined by the flood were multiple Pete Maravich game-worn jerseys and lots of Houston Astros game-worn jerseys, including a Nolan Ryan.

As far as he knew, they didn't collect cards. Most of their losses were apparently 19th and early 20th century art.

Keeping valuable collectibles on upper floors was not sufficient to protect them. With days of several feet of standdiing sludge, everything that can mildew, did.

I would expect that lots of collections throughout southern LA disappeared due to every major hurricane in the area.