Sports Memorabilia Collectors

MayDay10

I recently dove into Baseball cards.  Its great, but expensive and addicting.  Love the variety, as well as the Autograph and Relic cards. 

Im thinking I need to back away and re-structure my strategy though.  Right now I am scatter-shot, joining breaks online (which are fun)... but Im just accumulating random product (some of it is really nice though).

I have to figure out what I want to collect and go from there, and maybe focus more on individual cards.  

HesCalledDyer

MayDay10 said:

I recently dove into Baseball cards.  Its great, but expensive and addicting.  Love the variety, as well as the Autograph and Relic cards. 

Im thinking I need to back away and re-structure my strategy though.  Right now I am scatter-shot, joining breaks online (which are fun)... but Im just accumulating random product (some of it is really nice though).

I have to figure out what I want to collect and go from there, and maybe focus more on individual cards.  

I know what you mean.  I left the hobby in 93 because it became too overwhelming.  I tried to get back into it a year ago but it might be even more overwhelming now than when I got out nearly 30 years ago.  I don't buy packs.  I gave up trying.  I don't have a hobby shop and the neckbeards & Gary V groupies all sit in Walmart searching thru everything (illegal btw) for "hits" basically rendering the retail market totally fuckin worthless. I  just keep searching and trading online for the few players I collect and I'm  happy with that.

tempo_n_groove

MayDay10 said:

I recently dove into Baseball cards.  Its great, but expensive and addicting.  Love the variety, as well as the Autograph and Relic cards. 

Im thinking I need to back away and re-structure my strategy though.  Right now I am scatter-shot, joining breaks online (which are fun)... but Im just accumulating random product (some of it is really nice though).

I have to figure out what I want to collect and go from there, and maybe focus more on individual cards.  

Do Bowman, Bowman Draft and Bowman Chrome.  You get prospects that may pan out later.  I got a Gold auto Adley Rustchman in a break and it's a $1000 card.  Graded it's $1500.  If he joins the majors and does well?  Jackpot.

Damn cards are just crazy right now.
here is my latest submittal I received back from grading  

MayDay10

HesCalledDyer said:

MayDay10 said:

I recently dove into Baseball cards.  Its great, but expensive and addicting.  Love the variety, as well as the Autograph and Relic cards. 

Im thinking I need to back away and re-structure my strategy though.  Right now I am scatter-shot, joining breaks online (which are fun)... but Im just accumulating random product (some of it is really nice though).

I have to figure out what I want to collect and go from there, and maybe focus more on individual cards.  

I know what you mean.  I left the hobby in 93 because it became too overwhelming.  I tried to get back into it a year ago but it might be even more overwhelming now than when I got out nearly 30 years ago.  I don't buy packs.  I gave up trying.  I don't have a hobby shop and the neckbeards & Gary V groupies all sit in Walmart searching thru everything (illegal btw) for "hits" basically rendering the retail market totally fuckin worthless. I  just keep searching and trading online for the few players I collect and I'm  happy with that.

It is overwhelming, but IMO, thats a good thing.  There are so many choices.  Some I think looks awful (and others love).... and some cards I think look amazing.  

Yeah, there is no humanly possibly way to collect every single Mike Trout card out there, or any other good player though, as opposed to like 1990 when you had like Topps, Donruss, Fleer, and maybe Upper Deck, along with a few maybe side things like a board game or something that came out.

It stinks that cards from most of the 80s and 90s are junk.  So much so it is called the 'junk era' Great era for iconic players from my childhood...  but it is cool that they include cards from all eras including autos in current packs.

eeriepadave

Holy shit, $4.6 million?

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/luka-doncic-rookie-card-sells-for-record-4-6-million-becomes-most-expensive-nba-card-in-history/

maynardsux

@nba_topshot......the future to card collecting has arrived....if you don't know about it, great concept

Wobbie

fucking crazy....I’d rather get something like this for 300 bucks...

tempo_n_groove

maynardsux said:

@nba_topshot......the future to card collecting has arrived....if you don't know about it, great concept

This is perhaps the dumbest thing I've seen since digital sports cards.  The whole reason for collecting sports memorabilia is to have the physical item.  So you get to have a video clip of a play in a game?

I don't get it.  Add the term Blockchain to anything nowadays and people throw money at it.

I am getting in on this because I'd love to sell something that people will pay thousands for and zero effort from myself.

tempo_n_groove

eeriepadave said:

Holy shit, $4.6 million?

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/luka-doncic-rookie-card-sells-for-record-4-6-million-becomes-most-expensive-nba-card-in-history/

Money laundering is something, ain't it?

eeriepadave

A rare Tom Brady card just sold for $1.3 mil

https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/05/tom-brady-autograph-rookie-card-1-3-million/?fbclid=IwAR1SesxxvsROVahmaDJl_GnRbXeFTBnlIzz-Uq3Sfi4VX6K4TYOM1FtOtAo

tempo_n_groove

eeriepadave said:

A rare Tom Brady card just sold for $1.3 mil

https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/05/tom-brady-autograph-rookie-card-1-3-million/?fbclid=IwAR1SesxxvsROVahmaDJl_GnRbXeFTBnlIzz-Uq3Sfi4VX6K4TYOM1FtOtAo

I would expect his stuff to be going for way more than that.  Just wait.

elvistheking44

My son has been racking up cards for years now. Christmas presents, birthday presents any presents he has his way. He was asking for cards that were always $75 and up, I told him he was crazy.....I’ve seen his cards recently, he had them graded, I’ve seen the same cards In worse condition, and ungraded that have sold recently. I thought he was fucking with me....his collection right now is easily worth over 100k....makes my 1985 McGwire USA baseball team card I was excited about when it hit $40 a fond childhood memory now...

Loujoe

Woah. Crazy cash.

tempo_n_groove

elvistheking44 said:

My son has been racking up cards for years now. Christmas presents, birthday presents any presents he has his way. He was asking for cards that were always $75 and up, I told him he was crazy.....I’ve seen his cards recently, he had them graded, I’ve seen the same cards In worse condition, and ungraded that have sold recently. I thought he was fucking with me....his collection right now is easily worth over 100k....makes my 1985 McGwire USA baseball team card I was excited about when it hit $40 a fond childhood memory now...

Peak times that McGwire was $275.

I am going to take a stab that your kid has a lot of basketball cards?

elvistheking44

tempo_n_groove said:

elvistheking44 said:

My son has been racking up cards for years now. Christmas presents, birthday presents any presents he has his way. He was asking for cards that were always $75 and up, I told him he was crazy.....I’ve seen his cards recently, he had them graded, I’ve seen the same cards In worse condition, and ungraded that have sold recently. I thought he was fucking with me....his collection right now is easily worth over 100k....makes my 1985 McGwire USA baseball team card I was excited about when it hit $40 a fond childhood memory now...

Peak times that McGwire was $275.

I am going to take a stab that your kid has a lot of basketball cards?

TONS!!!

elvistheking44

tempo_n_groove said:

elvistheking44 said:

My son has been racking up cards for years now. Christmas presents, birthday presents any presents he has his way. He was asking for cards that were always $75 and up, I told him he was crazy.....I’ve seen his cards recently, he had them graded, I’ve seen the same cards In worse condition, and ungraded that have sold recently. I thought he was fucking with me....his collection right now is easily worth over 100k....makes my 1985 McGwire USA baseball team card I was excited about when it hit $40 a fond childhood memory now...

Peak times that McGwire was $275.

I am going to take a stab that your kid has a lot of basketball cards?

The gem....a Jordan rookie graded 9.5. Bought for $650 about 8 years ago.....

tempo_n_groove

elvistheking44 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

elvistheking44 said:

My son has been racking up cards for years now. Christmas presents, birthday presents any presents he has his way. He was asking for cards that were always $75 and up, I told him he was crazy.....I’ve seen his cards recently, he had them graded, I’ve seen the same cards In worse condition, and ungraded that have sold recently. I thought he was fucking with me....his collection right now is easily worth over 100k....makes my 1985 McGwire USA baseball team card I was excited about when it hit $40 a fond childhood memory now...

Peak times that McGwire was $275.

I am going to take a stab that your kid has a lot of basketball cards?

The gem....a Jordan rookie graded 9.5. Bought for $650 about 8 years ago.....

Yep, I missed out on the Jordan bonanza.  From what I did have I made out very well.  I was too cheap to buy the Jordan rc, lol.  Idiot me wishes he did now...

I had a Cousy rc I bought for $10 floating around in a box for years.  Finally decided to give it a look last year.  Damn 3's are selling for $500!  Sent it in, got a 4 and now it's a $1200 card.

Basketball cards have increased far more than any other sport, it's crazy.  

Jordan's I bought for $25 I sold for 3K.

Crazy ass times.

cp3iverson

Bought a mint Jerry West card about 20 yrs ago at a card show.  Its probably not worth much today.  Idk.  Are the 70s ones blowing up now too?  

The story tho is that it was in a glass case.  Middle of the mall.  No price. The owner walks away to get lunch.  His annoyed wife arrives and takes over.   I ask her how much for the West.  She sighs and says “i dont know. 10 cents?”   Bought it and walked away so fast.  

Edit:  found it.  Probably worth $20-$30.  Not a bad investment for a dime 

tempo_n_groove

cp3iverson said:

Bought a mint Jerry West card about 20 yrs ago at a card show.  Its probably not worth much today.  Idk.  Are the 70s ones blowing up now too?  

The story tho is that it was in a glass case.  Middle of the mall.  No price. The owner walks away to get lunch.  His annoyed wife arrives and takes over.   I ask her how much for the West.  She sighs and says “i dont know. 10 cents?”   Bought it and walked away so fast.  

Edit:  found it.  Probably worth $20-$30.  Not a bad investment for a dime 

ISo a Jerry West 1962 rc!

Some 70's cards are doing well.  McHale, Erving, Bird.

URthekey

I’ve got a kind of interesting sports memorabilia story, for anyone who is interested in the NY Yankees…..

A friend of mine discovered a treasure trove of old Yankees memorabilia (1920’s - 30’s) while cleaning out the bedroom closet in the house she inherited after her grandmother's passing.

 

This is going back about 15 yrs.,

My friend Debby called me up one day to ask if I wanted to come over and go through some of her grandmother Lee’s old clothing before she sold it to a vintage shop in NYC. Lee had recently passed away and Deb was cleaning out her house and planned on fixing it up and moving in. 

We had been childhood friends. She was the first girl my age that I met when my family moved from Queens to the Hudson Valley in 1982. We stayed in touch over the years and she knows I like quirky old clothes and thought that I might wear the same size as Lee. 

I was hesitant to go because from what I remembered about her grandparents, they lived kinda close to the earth. I mean, we would ride our bikes to their farm in the summer and there were dirt floors in the kitchen and mice running around in the walls. But when I got over to the house I was quite surprised by the quality of the garments Deb had laid out on the bed. There were all these little Jackie-O dresses and bolero jackets, funky little hats and an alligator skin purse... and I remember saying to Deb how odd I thought it was that Lee had such nice clothes, and I wondered where she could have possibly worn them in our po-dunk town. 

Thats when she took this brown cardboard box from the closet and proceeded to tell me about her ‘grandmother’ and all the things that she has since discovered about Lee’s past.

It turns out that Lee wasn’t really her grandmother, she was the 2nd wife of Debby’s grandfather, and no one in her family ever bothered to tell her that. 

She also found out that Lee, too, had been married before. 

Lee’s first husband was a man named John Edward Lutz. He had been the announcer for the NY Yankees during the 1920’s and 30’s, before the stadium had amplified speakers. He would relay the calls using a big funnel shaped megaphone, and was known as ‘the little man with the big voice’. Apparently he kept a scrapbook, amongst other stuff, and Lee still had it. And now Debby has it.

In it were newspaper clippings from the games, and funny cartoon caricature drawings of him from when he made a bad call etc., but it also contained a lot of original photographs of team members like Babe Ruth and other old timers. There were baseball cards and pages of what looked like folded pamphlets that had each year's team picture and then little seperate images of each player with his bio, and these were all autographed by the players themselves. 

She said there were also gold NY cufflinks from the world series in 1927 but she had put them in a safe deposit box. I told her that I was no sports expert but I thought she just discovered a gold mine, and she seemed aware of this and said she was going to hold on to it. That Lee had never cashed in on any of it when she was alive, and she wanted to pass it along to her son Michael someday.

I didn’t really appreciate what I was seeing at the time, (I was more interested in trying on the clothes) but whenever I tell a Yankee fan about this they flip.

It was such a cool glimpse of history, I think it belongs in a museum or someplace where real fans can enjoy it. I’m not really much of a sports history buff, but I’d imagine anything associated with the era of Babe Ruth has got to be of interest to many, (and probably worth a mint.)