Did you collect baseball cards as a kid? Still have them?

[john4psu]

Did you collect baseball cards as a kid? Do you still have them?

I had a large collection of the late '60s and early '70s and my mom threw them away. I have acquired some of the star ballplayers after HER EGREGIOUS mistake but nothing anywhere nearly in number of cards I had as a kid.

Two of my all-time favorite players: Roberto and Maz.

 

[LaJolla Lion]

I did and actually have a the 2017 set sitting on my porch today for my 7 year old son as you can't buy them at the stores anymore. Long story short is I had a great collection (80's mostly) and my most prized cards were in binders. My sisters ex-fiancee stole them 2-3 years back and I had no idea. They were still up in my parents attic and I'm still pissed about it today. Mantles, early Rose's, Clemente, Stargell's, Munson's, Eddie Matthews, Warren Spahn's....tons of older cards that were in incredible shape. He left me all of the crap cards...POS.

 

[LundyPSU]

I did and actually have a the 2017 set sitting on my porch today for my 7 year old son as you can't buy them at the stores anymore. Long story short is I had a great collection (80's mostly) and my most prized cards were in binders. My sisters ex-fiancee stole them 2-3 years back and I had no idea. They were still up in my parents attic and I'm still pissed about it today. Mantles, early Rose's, Clemente, Stargell's, Munson's, Eddie Matthews, Warren Spahn's....tons of older cards that were in incredible shape. He left me all of the crap cards...POS.

I still have many of my baseball cards from the late 70's early 80's. It appears I stopped collecting (or my parents stopped funding it) after 1984. I wish I had '85 and '86.
I had a ton of NHL and NBA from early '80's, but I think I actually threw them away (UGH!) b/c I didn't like the sports that much.

I buy some packs for my kids these days. Not for collecting, but more following teams and players. I also enjoy them asking me about the players they got.

 

[Woodpecker]

I collected as a kid and consequently have quite a few from the mid 60s. I still have them but I think my kid and/or his buddies got into them because some of those that I thought I had don't seem to be around any longer. I'll check to see what I have and post them.

 

[RussianEagle]

I still have many of my baseball cards from the late 70's early 80's. It appears I stopped collecting (or my parents stopped funding it) after 1984. I wish I had '85 and '86.
I had a ton of NHL and NBA from early '80's, but I think I actually threw them away (UGH!) b/c I didn't like the sports that much.

I buy some packs for my kids these days. Not for collecting, but more following teams and players. I also enjoy them asking me about the players they got.

Not necessarly a bad thing to quit collecting in the mid 80s. Most of the cards from then on are completely worthless except for a few super rare ones that were pretty much impossible for any typical kid to obtain.

 

[fairgambit]

I had thousands and now have less than a dozen, but I know a guy who has a collection worth over $100,000 and buys and sells cards on line. He's about my age, but has collected for decades.

 

[WestSideLion]

1970 Topps...nice. I used to have that complete set.

 

[bwifan]

Yes boxes and boxes of them. Topps was a large client of my fathers so when he made a sales call on them several times a year in the 70s and 80s they always gave him a number of full boxes of unopened baseball and football cards to take home for me

 

[SteveLoy]

Great post. I'm sitting in my office (actually just the third bedroom) surrounded by my 247,000+ card collection. I have all the regular Topps baseball sets from 1970-present and Topps hockey sets back to 69-70 and OPC sets back to 73-74.

If anyone wants to know what specific cards' book value is, please let me know. If you have anything you want to sell, also please let me know as I am always buying.

Please remember that cards from the 1990's were printed in mass quantities and have practically no value except for a few cards that had a very short print run.

Any questions about cards, please feel free to ask.

 

[katchthis]

All my good ones ended up clothes pinned to my bicycle spokes.

 

[joeparules]

Have about a thousand from mostly the 70s. I was hoping to pass them onto a son, but I ended up having two girls ... so maybe a grandson some day. My best childhood friend gave me the card below ... what would you say it is worth SteveLoy? I have no idea.

 

[john4psu]

All my good ones ended up clothes pinned to my bicycle spokes.

I did that as well and flipped them against walls to land on someone else's flipped card to win it.

 

[BrucePa]

I had a whole box full of cards from the '50s and '60s, and loaned them to my cousin in Wilkes-Barre in the summer of '72 so he could look at them. They were consumed by Agnes.

I did some collecting in the '80s when everything was overproduced and turned out to be nearly worthless, although at the same time, I went back and put together a complete set of Topps '67 and '68. Still have those.

 

[Ohio_Pirate]

Man some of you have some nice older cards. I started heavy with the 87 topps set (with the wood panel border) and collected through the mid 90s....so pretty much when they started not being worth much of anything. Still have them in boxes and binders in storage with no real plans what to do with but no real desire to get rid of them either. Was always a blast going to the card store or the card shows they held at the local hotels.

 

[john4psu]

I think I had more Ron Schueler's traded card than any other, and it wasn't close.

 

[john4psu]

Great post. I'm sitting in my office (actually just the third bedroom) surrounded by my 247,000+ card collection. I have all the regular Topps baseball sets from 1970-present and Topps hockey sets back to 69-70 and OPC sets back to 73-74.

If anyone wants to know what specific cards' book value is, please let me know. If you have anything you want to sell, also please let me know as I am always buying.

Please remember that cards from the 1990's were printed in mass quantities and have practically no value except for a few cards that had a very short print run.

Any questions about cards, please feel free to ask.

Steve,
Do you have those all cards cataloged and insured or as a rider to your homeowner's policy?

 

[Creek Side]

I loved collecting cards for about 2 years as a kid. 89 and 90 mostly. I worked my ass of for relatives doing yard work for one summer to earn enough money to buy the 1989 Donruss Baseball Factory sealed set. If my memory serves me correctly, I paid $29 and some change for it. Never opened it up... just tucked it away for safe keeping. I was so proud of myself. Looked it up a couple years back and again just again before typing this... my investment lost 50%. LOL! No regrets... it's a pretty good memory of mine. I believe that was the first time that my parents made me understand that you need to work for what you want in life, and how much you appreciate things when you do.

 

[dontgojoepa]

Great post. I'm sitting in my office (actually just the third bedroom) surrounded by my 247,000+ card collection. I have all the regular Topps baseball sets from 1970-present and Topps hockey sets back to 69-70 and OPC sets back to 73-74.

If anyone wants to know what specific cards' book value is, please let me know. If you have anything you want to sell, also please let me know as I am always buying.

Please remember that cards from the 1990's were printed in mass quantities and have practically no value except for a few cards that had a very short print run.

Any questions about cards, please feel free to ask.

Wow - sounds like you have a great collection. I collected for about 7 years as a kid in the 80s and also worked in a baseball card store (paid partially in cards/partially in cash). I prided myself on getting only near mint and mint cards. Some of my better ones are a 1958 Ted Williams (which was a number 1 card so hard to find mint since kids used to always put rubber bands around them), 1956 Jackie Robinson, a few Mantle's, 1957 Duke Snider, the entire 1964 set. I only have one hockey card but it's a mint Gretzky rookie (albeit Topps not OPC).

 

[NitneLiun]

Used to have hundreds of them. Still have a handful. I think I've got a Nolan Ryan rookie card around here somewhere.

 

[kgilbert78]

Have about a thousand from mostly the 70s. I was hoping to pass them onto a son, but I ended up having two girls ... so maybe a grandson some day. My best childhood friend gave me the card below ... what would you say it is worth SteveLoy? I have no idea.

I have most of this set. The one my mom did not make me throw away.... But she tossed my Connie Mack seat slats while I was away at school.

Someone did get into my cards at some point and grabbed a random handful--sadly this included Bobby Orr from 1967.

 

[kgilbert78]

Man some of you have some nice older cards. I started heavy with the 87 topps set (with the wood panel border) and collected through the mid 90s....so pretty much when they started not being worth much of anything. Still have them in boxes and binders in storage with no real plans what to do with but no real desire to get rid of them either. Was always a blast going to the card store or the card shows they held at the local hotels.

Copy of the 1962 set, as I recall. But an nice set.

 

[LuvDaLions]

I had a ton of cards from the late 60s and early 70s I collected when I was a kid. If I had sold them bask in the late 90's early 2000's when everybody was selling them for tons of money, I'd be rich. But I held on to them and now they're barely worth the cardboard they are printed on. Nobody wants them anymore.

 

[psuro]

Collected in 1973/1974 timeframe. Had some good ones, although the only one I remember is Pete Rose All Star card. I have no idea where they are, although I am certain my mother also made the EGREGIOUS error of throwing out the cards.

 

[SteveLoy]

Steve,
Do you have those all cards cataloged and insured or as a rider to your homeowner's policy?

I have more quantity than quality. They are on my homeowner's policy but only as a flat value specific item--all of my cards could be replaced and if they were destroyed, I would probably not replace them. They are all listed in an Excel spreadsheet that I maintain.

I have both a Topps and OPC Gretzky rookie and both are graded a "6". Way far from perfect but I do have one of each. Really like to pick up a Nolan Ryan rookie someday.

 

[SteveLoy]

Have about a thousand from mostly the 70s. I was hoping to pass them onto a son, but I ended up having two girls ... so maybe a grandson some day. My best childhood friend gave me the card below ... what would you say it is worth SteveLoy? I have no idea.

Appears to be a 1968 Topps card #280. If in Mint condition, it is book valued at between $175 and $350. Mantle is highly sought after and if you went to a large card show, I'm sure you could get $200 for it. If it is less than Mint, you could get between 10%-50% of that price. Even less than mint copies of Mantle sell.

 

[MtNittany]

Not a card question, but a friend (old roommate) has this SI cover framed, signed by Jack. Also mounted was the picture of Jack, Barbara, and all the kids - all signed.

The kicker is that it has Jack's mailing label on it. He dropped his copy off to be signed and Michael spilled a Pepsi on it so Barbara replaced it with their copy.

I guess it's worth what someone wants to pay for it, huh?

 

[WestSideLion]

Appears to be a 1968 Topps card #280. If in Mint condition, it is book valued at between $175 and $350. Mantle is highly sought after and if you went to a large card show, I'm sure you could get $200 for it. If it is less than Mint, you could get between 10%-50% of that price. Even less than mint copies of Mantle sell.

Grading is the hard part in card collecting. My father and I built a large collection when I was a kid. It was absurd, actually. We had 3 Babe Ruth cards, many T-209 cards, a near-complete 1941 Playball set with Joe D, Ted Williams, Shoeless Joe Jackson and more, and many multiple rookie cards for guys like Rose, Nolin Ryan, Clemente, Tom Seaver, and many, many other Hall of Famers. It was probably a $200k to $300k collection back in the day.

Unfortunately, we (my father) bought in the late 80s and early 90s before grading became standardized. The collection sat and when it came time to sell, we discovered that many cards were no longer worth as much as was paid for them. Plus, there was a huge cost to having them all graded.

The moral is that you never look at stuff like this as a real investment. It's fun (and can be expensive, if you want), but values change dramatically over time.

 

[Dr. Feelgood]

Did you collect baseball cards as a kid? Do you still have them?

I have this exact Clemente Card (not mint). Wonder what it is worth

 

[doublehaul]

Had a shoebox full and my mom threw them out , but did ask me first. Stupid me said I didnt want them any more. As I am in my mid sixties, most of my cards were from the late fifties. Again, stupid me.

 

[anon_xdc8rmuek44eq]

Used to obsess over baseball cards - had a lot of the great rookie cards of the late 80s and early 90s - Gooden, Gwynn, Boggs, Strawberry, Will Clark, etc. My most valuable card was an '80 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie card. Once Upper Deck came out with all their high gloss exclusives, I bailed (and lost interest in baseball in general during the strike).

 

[Phil's Rug]

Had a large collection from 80's on, baseball/football and basketball. Boxed the majority of it up about 2 years ago and donated to the animal shelters thrift store. Kept my PSU auto collection and a Willie Mays and Walter Payton auto's and a few others,

 

[artsandletters]

Did you collect baseball cards as a kid? Do you still have them?

I had a large collection of the late '60s and early '70s and my mom threw them away. I have acquired some of the star ballplayers after HER EGREGIOUS mistake but nothing anywhere nearly in number of cards I had as a kid.

Two of my all-time favorite players: Roberto and Maz.

We didn't necessarily collect them as much as play with them and trade them. We'd pitch cards. You place a card against a wall and pitch cards at it. Whoever knocks the card down got it. We also put them in the spokes of our bikes. I bought baseball cards with deposit money on discarded bottles (less sophisticated than the Kramer/Newman enterprise). By the time I started mowing lawns I was pretty much past the baseball card stage.

 

[AWS1022]

Did you collect baseball cards as a kid? Do you still have them?

I had a large collection of the late '60s and early '70s and my mom threw them away. I have acquired some of the star ballplayers after HER EGREGIOUS mistake but nothing anywhere nearly in number of cards I had as a kid.

Two of my all-time favorite players: Roberto and Maz.

Mom threw mine away too. I started collecting again in the late 80's and went back and got some decent older cards. Stopped collecting in the 90's and decided to save them in case I had a son. I did and I gave them to him when he turned 18. He loved it.

 

[LafayetteBear]

If anyone wants to know what specific cards' book value is, please let me know. If you have anything you want to sell, also please let me know as I am always buying.

Hey Steve: I realize this thread concerns baseball cards, but I thought I would ask since you appear knowledgeable. I have an event program for a Pro Am golf tournament they used to hold at La Costa (north San Diego County) every winter (this one was in 1967), and I collected the following autographs in the two blank pages of the program designated for autographs. I am wondering what it might be worth. (Every one of these guys is a Hall of Famer in either baseball or football.)

Any thoughts?

Yogi Berra
Jim Bunning
Dizzy Dean
Joe DiMaggio
Don Drysdale
Bob Feller
Joe Garagiola
Al Kaline
Mickey Mantle
Willie Mays
Brooks Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Ron Santo
Joe Torre
Carl Yaztremski

Lance Alworth
Raymond Berry
Mike Ditka
Otto Graham
Lou Groza
John Hadl
Jerry Kramer
Don Meredith
Ray Nitchke
Merlin Olsen
Johnny Unitas

 

[SteveLoy]

Hey Steve: I realize this thread concerns baseball cards, but I thought I would ask since you appear knowledgeable. I have an event program for a Pro Am golf tournament they used to hold at La Costa (north San Diego County) every winter (this one was in 1967), and I collected the following autographs in the two blank pages of the program designated for autographs. I am wondering what it might be worth. (Every one of these guys is a Hall of Famer in either baseball or football.)

Any thoughts?

Yogi Berra
Jim Bunning
Dizzy Dean
Joe DiMaggio
Don Drysdale
Bob Feller
Joe Garagiola
Al Kaline
Mickey Mantle
Willie Mays
Brooks Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Ron Santo
Joe Torre
Carl Yaztremski

Lance Alworth
Raymond Berry
Mike Ditka
Otto Graham
Lou Groza
John Hadl
Jerry Kramer
Don Meredith
Ray Nitchke
Merlin Olsen
Johnny Unitas

I know very little about autographs but I know this would be a tough sell. True autograph collector's only want single-signed items. My suggestion would be to find a card show or card shop and have someone take a look at it. Sorry.

 

[Option Bob]

Between my older brother and me, we accumulated an enviable horde of baseball cards that dated from the early-50's through the early-60s. I had a buddy whose dad owned an old-fashioned Ma and Pop store; the buddy would by the entire box of Topps cards for the gum and give me the cards!

In those days, Topps released cards by numbers so getting the entire box ensured I got all the latest editions throughout the summer. I had an entire old footlocker full of cards, all arranged by team -- remember when Topps also included team "checklists" in the packages? I must have had 30 or 40 Mantle cards alone, since he was my favorite at the time.

Finally fed up with her son keeping all those "silly cards" around, my mom gave my entire collection to neighborhood kids , some of whom used them in the spokes of their bikes. Many years later, when the baseball card collection craze hit, I would tell my mom that I could have paid for my college education from the sale of my Mantle cards alone. She was a good sport about it but got that Italian temper riled up when my brother bought me a T-shirt that said, "I'd be a millionaire, but my mother gave my baseball cards away." Who knew?

 

[PSUSignore]

I was really into collecting them in the 80's. I'd buy the wax packs with the terrible gum and would try to build a complete set that way. I also have some random boxes of older cards goin back into the 70's, but nowhere near as many as I have from the 80's onward. I also have complete sets of Topps cards beginning around 1983 through today. I have no real need for them anymore but still hang onto them and keep getting the new sets each year for some reason.

 

[PSUriseANDfire]

Bigtime. Basketball, baseball and football. Alex Rodriguez was my favorite player growing up so I started collecting his stuff especially all of his rookie cards. It was impressive and Beckett value was really high. That took a hit haha

Lots of random inserts that I opened "piece of jersey, bat, autograph etc" and some like a McGwire that was sequentially #'d to only 10 in the entire Upper Deck series. All those cards are probably worth basically nothing now. I haven't bought a pack of cards in years now.

It is fun though.

 

[ILLINOISLION]

Between my older brother and me, we accumulated an enviable horde of baseball cards that dated from the early-50's through the early-60s. I had a buddy whose dad owned an old-fashioned Ma and Pop store; the buddy would by the entire box of Topps cards for the gum and give me the cards!

In those days, Topps released cards by numbers so getting the entire box ensured I got all the latest editions throughout the summer. I had an entire old footlocker full of cards, all arranged by team -- remember when Topps also included team "checklists" in the packages? I must have had 30 or 40 Mantle cards alone, since he was my favorite at the time.

Finally fed up with her son keeping all those "silly cards" around, my mom gave my entire collection to neighborhood kids , some of whom used them in the spokes of their bikes. Many years later, when the baseball card collection craze hit, I would tell my mom that I could have paid for my college education from the sale of my Mantle cards alone. She was a good sport about it but got that Italian temper riled up when my brother bought me a T-shirt that said, "I'd be a millionaire, but my mother gave my baseball cards away." Who knew?

Ha - that's a great t-shirt!

 

[PSUriseANDfire]

Between my older brother and me, we accumulated an enviable horde of baseball cards that dated from the early-50's through the early-60s. I had a buddy whose dad owned an old-fashioned Ma and Pop store; the buddy would by the entire box of Topps cards for the gum and give me the cards!

In those days, Topps released cards by numbers so getting the entire box ensured I got all the latest editions throughout the summer. I had an entire old footlocker full of cards, all arranged by team -- remember when Topps also included team "checklists" in the packages? I must have had 30 or 40 Mantle cards alone, since he was my favorite at the time.

Finally fed up with her son keeping all those "silly cards" around, my mom gave my entire collection to neighborhood kids , some of whom used them in the spokes of their bikes. Many years later, when the baseball card collection craze hit, I would tell my mom that I could have paid for my college education from the sale of my Mantle cards alone. She was a good sport about it but got that Italian temper riled up when my brother bought me a T-shirt that said, "I'd be a millionaire, but my mother gave my baseball cards away." Who knew?

Sucks but makes for a good story. Ouch.