Anyone collect/buy/sell sports cards?
 

I haven't bought a card in probably 10 years but have been thinking about it lately. Have been looking through ebay and the prices these are selling for seem ridiculously low. I'm not looking to make any real money, but I don't really want to invest a bunch of money in a hole either. Knowing packs are selling for $3-5 a piece and then seeing inserts for guys like Manning and Wade sell for such low prices makes me wonder is book value on cards even means anything.

Maybe they sell for higher prices at card shows?

all depends on the brand and the number produced.....the best shit is packed like 3-5 cards a pack for $20-$100 a piece these days....$3-$5 is only gonna get you some base upper deck packs which unless you get way lucky like 20,000-1 and hit an insert, which is still semi mass produced and not worth all that much..pokemon, ugioh and all that shit was the last straw after the massive production runs in the 80's and 90's that devalued the market, and took most of the interest kids had for sports cards.....best bet as it always has been, buy old cards of hall of famers and stars....

When we bought our house.. the previous owners left a book FULL of Mark Mcquire cards.. from his very first one to his very last one..

We dont collect them.. but we have them lol

I made lots about 10 years ago, still have 1000's but the magic period is long gone.

2c

Ahhhh, the days of selling sports cards twice a week at Frank and Son's in Walnut (CA)...

Definitely a fun feeling to open packs of cards in hopes you might find that golden insert. I sure hated sorted all the damn cards trying to make a full set.... then trying to trade a card worth 5 cents for another after I didn't make it. Sure glad that was just a "phase" in my life.

I probably have over 10,000 cards. All kinds of good ones too like chipper jones' high school/college rookie and mlb rookie, mcguire's rookie, canseco's rookie. Hunderds of special cards. Basically, all kinds of shit I collected when I was young. My cousin has about the same, except he has one of the best cards ive ever seen - a misprint/fuck up card - a picture of John Smoltz with Tom Glavine's name and stats on it.

I used to make tons of money doing it with my father when I was only 6 or 7. I did it with him until the early 90's. My dad still does a lot on ebay and I still have a few cases of unopened cards as well as a nice collection of very old and very good cards. Tons of comics too including the #4 issue of Amazing Spiderman.

Been a long time since I bought any. I think around 1994 sportscards stopped being marketed to kids. Mainly collectors with all of the serial numbered/autographed/game used cards. All those boutique brands with low print runs.

Cards are way cooler than they were in the 80's, but the price per pack ($5-$50) is out of the price range of most kids and casual collectors.

keep holding them for now. the gold rush went by last decade. Now new cards are too overpriced to make collecting "fun" anymore. bummer...

SB

There used to be a trick to find Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie cards. They were always in the same pack in the same spot of every box.

Sold all mine in late 90s

What is bonds rockie selling for on ebay? 1 2 dollars?

ps...the real way to make money is to watch the minors, figure out who will be a good pro and buy thousands of their rookie cards while they are cheap...then wait a year and cash in for 20x what you paid.....

I've got a bunch of pokemon cards that I use as firewood. They seem to burn nice

Yeah, a lot of people that bought cards in the old days got hurt because comparing to today's cards, there wasn't much special about them. With all of the a new cards, there's limited numbered cards, autographs, jersey pieces, and parts of other equipment, of course, those are gonna be more in demand compared to a rookie card from 10 years ago that is just a card and there's a bunch of them out there.

If you have decent old cards, unless you shell out to have them "valued" from one of the top graders, you'll never be able to get much for them. Those fuckers have a stranglehold on the whole biz.

I have a few that I really need to get graded if I want to sell them, like Clemente's rookie and first few years, Ryan rookie, etc, lots of 60's stuff.

I hate all that "gem mint 10" bullshit.

I don't think grading was really around when I was in last. I was reading up about it today, you can do 100 cards for $6 a piece. So really I could only see the purpose of rating for $50+ cards, though if you look on ebay you'll see $5 cards graded, meaning the grade is worth more than the card.

I haven't collected seriously in years but I still find the odd insert here and there that interests me, such as cards with pieces of the bat or uniform attached.

I know a guy that is a pretty big seller of baseball cards on ebay. If you are interested Sly, I could hook you up with him. Hit me up:)

I did when I was like 12... :-\

Not really. Only thing I really got into collecting was old vintage games.

And if any of you are selling... I am buying. :-)

Yes, I actively buy and sell. eBay is a great place to buy cards and a horrible place to sell them. You can only get 10% or so of low book on there. 30% is the very high end of eBay sales unless you have a Mantle or something really fucking good.

I only dump my shit (dups, crap autos, etc) on eBay, I don't sell anything good there as there is no money to be made on it. Not to mention dealing with eBayers is a pain in the ass in general... they want a new box, want to choose the carrier, bitch about using used boxes, insist on PayPal so they can charge me back for any reason or no reason at all, etc. When I go to sell good stuff, I set up at a show or make a consignment deal with a card shop.

The real good stuff these days runs upwards of $300 a pack. But good stuff can be had in the $20/pack range. Good ones to buy right now (as soon as they come out) are Upper Deck SPx 2007 ($1700 a case retail - if you want the Beckett review on it let me know I'll scan and e-mail it to ya) and Upper Deck Premier. Both are due to be out at the end of the April. SPx is running $15 or so a pack so the word is, $180 a box, $1700 a case retail, Premier is running $300 a pack, no one is going to be able to afford a case of that, lol.

I have two cases of SPx paid for and committed to by my local store's distributors. I'll probably be the only one in the country to get a hold of that many... there are only going to be... 2,800-something cases made... and most stores are being told they can only have 3 to 5 hobby boxes. Thankfully I have a good local store who has the connections needed to secure quantity of stuff when the numbers are tight. I am also committed on four packs of premier, which is all they can get ahold of for me. They are getting six... but wont sell me the other two since they want to have some for their store.

There is still money to be made and fun to be had, but you have to be smart about it. Thankfully, the massively over-produced 90s are over with and most cards have at least some value today because runs have been cut and there have been several innovations.