The True Value of Your Baseball Cards

[Arroyos]

At dinner tonight, one of my students told me that he bought his first car with money he made from selling his baseball collection. That, my friends, is getting real value for imaginary worth.

He inherited his father's baseball cards from the 60s and 70s, then collected his own during the late 70s and the 80s. When he needed wheels of his own in the early 90s, he found a card dealer whose eyes nearly bugged out seeing so many cards from the 60s and 70s. The cash bought him a used VW Beetle in good condition and enough gas to get him across the country.

If only I'd saved my cards from the 50s! I remember vividly some of the 1958 All-Star cards I had: Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Yogi Berra. No Mickey Mantle, but I once had two Frank Robinsons. If I'd only known ...

What could have happened to all those cards?

[Jason]

I still collect. Although I only get the itch around this time of year when baseball is starting back up.

Mostly vintage and HoF rookies -- graded.

[Bill]

I buy a couple packs every year just to have a few. I still like opening them and seeing who I got. Was big into it in the early 80s and still have about half of them. Maybe some of them will be cool for a grandson someday. I stick a pack in my nephew's stockings at Xmas too.

Actually the most valuable ones I probably have are some old late 60s football cards some kid gave me in elementary school. Gale Sayers, OJ (is that valuable or just infamous), Alan Page, couple others.

[Evas]

I was very big in to baseball cards when I was about 6 through 11. I stopped collecting after than.

Still have all of them, now at my house instead of my parents'. My brother moved his over here too, so the combined mass of cards takes up a significant chunk of space in my closet.

Most of my collection is from 1986 to 1991, but I do have a handful of cards from earlier. I got those from my future uncle when he was wooing my aunt when i was about 9. In order to win me over, he let me pick through his cards and take whichever I wanted, except Pete Rose.

I walked away with a Rickey Henderson rookie card. He got my approval and later my aunt's hand in marriage. I think we were both happy with the exchange.

[John]

I was very big in to baseball cards when I was about 6 through 11. I stopped collecting after than.

Still have all of them, now at my house instead of my parents'. My brother moved his over here too, so the combined mass of cards takes up a significant chunk of space in my closet.

Most of my collection is from 1986 to 1991, but I do have a handful of cards from earlier. I got those from my future uncle when he was wooing my aunt when i was about 9. In order to win me over, he let me pick through his cards and take whichever I wanted, except Pete Rose.

I walked away with a Rickey Henderson rookie card. He got my approval and later my aunt's hand in marriage. I think we were both happy with the exchange.

That's a great story, Kevin. Funny, the things that bond us to one another. It doesn't take much, does it?

[Lions]

For a while, card collecting was the only thing I cared about. One day when I was in high school, I walked into my local baseball card store and the guy behind the counter offered me a job there. What a dream come true. I stopped collecting after high school, but still have all my stuff. Mostly 80's and 90's, but I have some older stuff I picked up here and there. Don Mattingly was my guy and I went to card shows to get all his obscure cards.

[Robert_Ogden]

Loved cards as a kid. I had every topps card made from 1959-1964 with many duplicates (yes all of the Mantles). After I graduated from college and was moving out on my own, I went up into my parent's attic to retrieve my shoeboxes full of cards. After looking for them but not finding them, I came back downstairs. My mother asked me what I was looking for up there, and when I told her she looked at me and said "oh, you wanted to keep those, we threw them all out last year when we were cleaning". I just stopped crying a couple of years ago.

[Arroyos]

Loved cards as a kid. I had every topps card made from 1959-1964 with many duplicates (yes all of the Mantles). After I graduated from college and was moving out on my own, I went up into my parent's attic to retrieve my shoeboxes full of cards. After looking for them but not finding them, I came back downstairs. My mother asked me what I was looking for up there, and when I told her she looked at me and said "oh, you wanted to keep those, we threw them all out last year when we were cleaning". I just stopped crying a couple of years ago.

That has got to be the most frequently told story for boys of the 50s and 60s: my mom threw out my baseball cards. It was naive of us to expect our mothers to preserve aging pieces of cardboard; it was inconsiderate of our mothers not to have asked before tossing.

Just think how many more Mantle rookie cards would be alive and well today if it weren't for the Great Conspiracy of Mothers!

Then realize how much less valuable baseball cards would be if no one's mother ever threw any of them out!