The Coin Collector thread got thinking about the baseball cards I inherited from my dad. There are thousands upon thousands of them in boxes stored in my garage. I have no idea what to do with them. I have some in a safe in my house that my dad said were the really valuable ones.

Any ideas as to how I might unload these? I'm certain my daughter has no interest in inheriting them from me.

I sold a couple thousand junk wax era cards to a dude on CL for $30 and was happy I got that much. Unless there's some super rare stuff in there, they're not worth much

I collected a lot back in the 80s and early 90s, partly to collect and partly as a poorly thought out investment plan. I still have them, other than one or two cards there really is no reason to.

Are you located in College Station? Anything of the O-Pee-Chee brand?

What are the ones in the safe? Some of those may move for decent money, but I think the card market has tanked since the early 90s.

In today's market, for cards with any inherent worth to "realize" their value, you have to pay to have them professionally appraised, graded and then encased by companies like Beckett...



I miss the crappy Topps 35 cent wax packs that came with 18 cards and a crunchy stick of gum.

They are mostly from the late 80's through the mid 90's.

I have a list of the ones he thought were valuable. I guess I could take a picture of it and post it here.

Yeah, anything from ~'86-'92 would be pretty rare to have value....beyond '92ish you'll start seeing insert cards enter the picture

I don't have a lot of baseball cards left but I finally bought a Michael Jordan rookie card (and sticker) about 2 years ago. Man, if only my stock portfolio appreciated like the MJs did!!

I had a few hundred growing up. My 8 y.o. loves looking at them. His Nintendo MLB game has a classics team with a lot of the older players and I have a few of their cards, so he thinks that's pretty cool.

They're probably still worth about what I paid for them +/- 30 years ago.

It is sad how some of these things hold no value.

When I was about 12 I started collecting football cards. My dad told me he used to have a baseball he got signed by Mickey Mantel and Yogi Berra when he was a kid. He thought it was still in his mom's attic. Well, I urged him to go look so went went over there and it was exactly where he thought it was and in great condition. We've kept it in a safe ever since.

Well, Dad just passed away and I looked up the value of that ball. I couldn't find one with both of those signatures on it (as well as several other yankees that I don't recognize). But a Mickey Mantel autographed baseball is worth about $125. What a let-down.

Watch "Jack of all Trades" on Netflix. Explains the current market situation pretty well.

AgEng98 said:

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Watch "Jack of all Trades" on Netflix. Explains the current market situation pretty well.

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This. Unfortunately I was born in 1980 so 90% of my cards are from the worthless 80s-90s era. I thought my stepdad was a jerk whenever he'd tell us "they're only worth what someone is willing to pay you."

I'll make this thread OB related and say their best use will likely be kindling for my fire pit.

As an adult I've switched to collecting Aggie football cards. Most of them won't mean much to non-Aggies but it's fun. And now my 11 year old is into it.

What's ironic is you still have to pay a good amount for a good authentic autographed Johnny Football card even though he was a bust. Yet I have thousands of hall of famers that are worth nothing.

I collected a ton of Jose Canseco cards when I was a kid in the 80s / 90s. Yeah, that didn't turn out too well.

Bregxit said:

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You and me both brother. I had every Canseco card from 87-94 for a while.

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Apparently, I still do! Attic firewood now.

If I ask you to hold a large size cardboard box out of the weather for 40 years and you might, or might not, make a thousand dollars from the contents, a sane person would laugh the offer right out of the building. Yet, most of us on this thread have that box.

1988 Topps. Possibly the worst set ever. Yet I remember getting that set (792 cards) from my dad for Christmas a couple years after my parents divorced. It was my first full set and I opened and went through every card.

Fast forward a couple of months ago, my 11 year old found an opened 1990 Score set at an antique score. He opened it and I immediately located THE Bo Jackson card. Amazingly, as many of those packs as I bought when I was his age I never pulled that card.

I used to have a lot of those late 80s-early 90s baseball cards. Used to collect Nolan Ryan cards. I'm pretty sure they're all worth their weight in kindling.

I have a handful of mid 1980s Fleer basketball cards. I imagine the Larry Birds and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar type cards that are in good shape might be worth a few bucks.

I remember when I realized the whole thing was an overpriced scam -- it was when I was at an antique store and I was browsing through copies of the New York times and other periodicals. They had some really historic stuff (for example the moon landing) and they all seemed so cheap. Shopkeeper basically said that unless they're something really rare or have some special provenance, they basically sell for novelty value. Mass printed materials just rarely hold value.

I never pulled the Bo card either. But when I was decorating my man cave recently, I sure as **** bought one!!!




I still need a Billy Ripken ****face card.

I've got the cardboard box in the attic full of baseball and football cards that I bought in the mid to late 70s.

They were supposed to make me rich.

I was very disappointed when I learned my childhood collection is basically worthless. I still collect but nothing like I did as a child. I have a lot of cards and they're mostly from the 90s.

I'm hoping all of this turns out like the F-body (Camaro/Firebird) of the 80s. The 3rd gen F-bodies from the 80s were worth about $500-1,500 in the early 2000s. They produced so many that no one was willing to give you anything for them. People started parting them out left and right. Now they're becoming hard to find and the value has risen substantially

So please, use your baseball cards to start your camp fires

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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If I ask you to hold a large size cardboard box out of the weather for 40 years and you might, or might not, make a thousand dollars from the contents, a sane person would laugh the offer right out of the building. Yet, most of us on this thread have that box.

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My problem is that I have at least 30 of those boxes.

The kids these day don't look up to sports stars. They want the next YouTube star or pansy boy.

Great thread! memories

I have the Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan's rookie card, and every Don Mattingly card ever made.

Donruss, Fleer, Topps, Upper Deck....I have 1000's of each.

I had plans to cash in the 89 Upper Deck set for my retirement........oh well.

I have the Jackson and Jordan cards, and every Kevin Maas card ever made. Be jealous.

I was a collector when I was younger and still have all of them. Probably not worth anything now.

Most of my stuff now includes Baseballs and footballs for my Mancave/ office.

Baseballs: Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Pete Rose, Yogi Bera, Michael Jordan, Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr., Nolan Ryan and Pudge to name a few.

Footballs: Joe Montana, Adrienne Peterson, Johnny ****in Football, Von Miller, Ryan Tannehill and Jimbo Fisher.

Latrobe said:

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Great thread! memories

I have the Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan's rookie card, and every Don Mattingly card ever made.

Donruss, Fleer, Topps, Upper Deck....I have 1000's of each.

I had plans to cash in the 89 Upper Deck set for my retirement........oh well.

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I'll buy your Griffey. That's another I never had.

I have two complete unopened sets of late 80's early 90's upper Deck or something. I thought I'd be $$.

Yeah, no.

Might sounds like a weird idea... but maybe look into giving them to a charity that focuses on sick kids? Heroes for children comes to mind. Lot of kids without a lot of mobility, maybe one is into cards. Can't hurt to ask

This is the first of 17 pages. On the last page he says there are 891 cards, all issued prior to 1960.



These are all boxes of baseball cards (except for the Arnold Palmer golf game).

BSD said:

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I never pulled the Bo card either. But when I was decorating my man cave recently, I sure as **** bought one!!!




I still need a Billy Ripken ****face card.

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I have those! The original "error" and the air brush corrections.

Inhave a couple of sets of the same late 89's early 90's cards. Complete sets from the first 3 years of Upper Deck.

AgEng98 said:

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Watch "Jack of all Trades" on Netflix. Explains the current market situation pretty well.

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What's the one-sentence explanation? Man when I was a kid I got two boxes of 97 fleer flair (I think) baseball cards for Christmas and I thought I was in heaven. I used to subscribe to Beckett magazine and I'd track my fortune each month.

Same story as all of the above. I was a wade boggs collector. I have unopened boxes of wax packs that I New were going to be worth a mint.