I'll star! I buy packs and hand-collate my sets. I like it. However, it results in assloads of commons, that'm more than happy to give away to help someone else fill out a set.

Dan needs something like a 1983 Dale Berra (I promise to get my cards out and look for it, Dan!).

I'll get my want list posted and see if anyone can help with the few cards they have. Sure, we can sell them to one another too.

Hey, this is a good idea! I am working on every Topps set from 1971-1977 and some trading would sure be budget friendly.

I for one would VERY MUCH welcome the addition of a card-collector blog to go with sox therapy, trans. oracle, etc. Someone must need my extra 1976 Rennie Stennett ...

I think I have some extra Berras floating around at home. I'll have to go check later.

I've got the complete set for the 2000 Reading Phillies.

I need 1986 Topps Marty Bystrom! I could just go to the local card shop and buy one for a nickel, but that seems so like cheating.

If I remember right, the Bobby Meacham and Dale Berra cards we always stuck together, so it's hard to find a good one.

People still do this?

Yeah it's out of hand now, with autographed and game used memrobillia cards. Also low printed variations are quite out of hand and sell for insane prices.

Like my Jason Kubel rookie I bought on ebay for $10 before last season, when he was hot in the International League I sold it for $120 on ebay since only 25 were produced.

When I was a child, in the late 80's early 90's. I collected Strating Lineup figurines more than baseball cards.

I have an entire basement full of a lot of figures, 1989-1995 or so. a basement full.

It's harder than that, Dan. Local stores rarely carry commons.

Roy,
I linked to Kit Young Cards. I can't say he's the cheapest, but he definitely has filled my want lists for early years with quality and promptly.

I have countless 1977 cards - but I bought them in 1977, so they aren't NrMT or anything. It's okay for free though.

I have a lot of old cards from the 80's and 90's. When card shops close, it's a wonderful thing. But, if anyone wants late 80's Topps cards for HOF players, talk to me, because I have a lot of them. Boggs, Sandberg, McGwire, etc.

Yeah, good idea. I've a bunch and if anyone needs help finishing a set I'd be happy to help.

So, does anyone trade cards on eTopps?

I haven't, but it seemed like it should be the next big thing. But when I checked it out, the most valuable card on the whole site appears to be a 2001 Vernon Wells.

Besides Megastars like Barry Bonds and Vernon Wells, they don't seem to be retaining their value, though. Maybe people decided that it's not as fun if you don't actually get to hold the cards.

eTopps got started with a Primate doing the stats for them. Sorry, I'm under oath not to say who.

I haven't done it, but I have consdiered it. I'm too much of a moron, and I like having the cards.

Raines30, what years?

I'm sure I have an extra 1983 Dale Berra. Unfortunately, it's at my parents home about 400 miles away, so you might have to wait.

I hand-collected 1981 Topps through 1983 Topps, but came up a few cards short each year- next time I'm at my parents I'll see if I can come up with a wish list. I have tons of commons from those years.

Baseball cards went south in the '90s with all the inserts and $3 packs of five cards. Sell good ol' fashioned cardboard for $.50 a pack of 15, and I'll buy one every time I go to the store, just like I used to. As it is, I collect everything up to about 1993, but can't afford anything newer. Who'd have ever thought it?

Chris,

I've done a fair amount of online buying. I've found ebay was really great for starter lots on the cheap, but I'm to the point now where I'm probably 70-85% done with all my sets and need to get down to specifics. I haven't done much lately because I've needed my leisure dollars for other stuff. That's why trading is right up my alley.

I'm not a condition freak. I'm just trying to put together sets that range from EX or EX-MT condition. Maybe even VG-EX on the 71-72 sets. I can take fuzzy corners, but I do try to avoid creases if possible.

I don't have my want lists together, but this gives me a good reason to make that a weekend project sometime soon.

I also am working on the Kellogg's cereal cards from the 70s, although I'm finding them fairly tough to locate.

eTopps got started with a Primate doing the stats for them.

Did he get fired for totally screwing up Vernon Wells' career numbers?

i have a nomar rookie card, well i should says pops has, but all of his old cards are here, and we even have a don baylor with the A's i think

Kit Young does starter sets. I need to work on 51-72.

I have all the ones from 1973-2004.

That is Topps regular series. There are a few strays I need - Like a 78 Ozzie and a 75 Yount.

When I went home, I looked at my baseball cards, Man, I sure wish Gregg Jeffreies was as good as advertisec. I have over eleventy thousand of his rookie cards.

My interest in cards declined with the decline of the wax pack.

Also, when they stopped listing a guy's entire career on the back of the card, and limited it to the last five, three or one.

if you're looking for commons, i'd suggest going to bill henderson, "king of the commons". a great guy as well...

SLUs are virtually worthless today, unfortunately. macfarlane collectibles (esp. the 'variations') are the in-thing among those type of figurines.

I used to collect the Kellogg's cards, but I dont know how many remain. Very few, I imagine, and I was never a condition junkie, so several were cracked pretty badly.

Pretty much all my cards I let my brother take over. Like a fool, his sloppiness while moving allowed someone to steal the binder with all the Bonds, McGwire, Boggs, Gwynn, etc rookie cards in them, so I dont know what remains.

Anyway, I do have a precious few cards here at my apartment, mostly 90s Upper Deck IIRC. I need to get rid of them; I havent had the interest in a zillion years and this semester I'll be extra poor. The only card I really want to keep is my 68 Clemente.

My interest in cards declined with the decline of the wax pack.

Also, when they stopped listing a guy's entire career on the back of the card, and limited it to the last five, three or one.

I didn't even know that they did this. That sucks!

I remember buying JT Snow's 93 Upper Deck for like 4 bucks. Oops! At last I got Brett Favre's 91 Stadium Club for 20 the same day.

Man, I should've sold my Upper Deck Griffey rookie card years ago.

If anyone wants anything from the late 80s I'm your guy.

As long as you aren't picky about condition. And you shouldn't be because I'll just give you the damn things for free.

I stopped seriously collecting when the only cards worth having were 7 bucks a pack. And everyone was insert crazy. Now it's even worse. Extremely short printed rookies? Pro grading? Memorabilia cards? Even more expensive packs? I can't believe people have bought one of a kind memorabilia (I recall one such item being Georges Vezina goalie pads) and CUT THEM UP. That's absurd. I do like how there's retro sets. I got a pack of Cracker Jack throwbacks, and I would've snagged some of the tobacco card throwbacks but they were sold out.

Man, I sure wish Gregg Jeffreies was as good as advertisec. I have over eleventy thousand of his rookie cards.

Same here. And I must have over twelvety thousand Phil Plantier rookie cards.

My cousin has about 330 Mark McGwire cards. Should be worth a small fortune when he cashes them in.

I liked when Donruss had the puzzle pieces. I remember buying a lot of packs with the money I saved just to finish the Yaz portrait.

I agree with Paul S. Its all crass commercialism now. I stopped collecting when people began differentiating between Mint and Gem Mint.

Topps lists an entire players career. And they list minor league stats in the old days.

Today I got a card I had never seen before.

How much does it cost for a pack of Topps?

Nice call on this thread, Chris. I must be the only guy on here that's bought some newer cards, but I guess that makes sense considering that I'm still an idealistic youth. Got some of the new Topps cards (Pale Hosed, I think they're $3 a pack or so) for Christmas, and was enamored by the fact of snagging a Che Guevara autograph. Alas, I wasn't able to pull the "1/1 Political Leaders Signature". Rats.

I've contented myself by making a few small purchases here and there on the 'net -- snagged myself a piece of Bernie Williams' sweaty jersey for a couple bucks, a great bargain even if it's not quite a guitar pick from the budding Hendrix. With autographs and all of these inserts going so cheaply, I've got a bit of a delusion that I can get all the bargains and then maybe turn around and find guys who actually want an Onil Joseph autograph and make myself a bit of cash. If not, I could certainly have more expensive habits.

I had a griffey UD rookie, signed by Griffey.

I sold it for $100 and a bag of weed.

The cards $2 a pack (12 cards).

That political leaders thing is crazy. I think the guy who pulled Nixon got 8 grand for it.

The leaders for 2005? I wonder whether they were all found last year (Presidents) and really am hoping for a Yitzhak Rabin!

Sometime in 1986-86, I collected autographs for about a month. I bought my stuff from a local guy who would correspond with players; at that time, most people would sign what you sent if you included a SASE and maybe a little cash (notable exceptions being Gary ####### Carter and, IIRC, Willie Mays). The old players were especially amenable, since this just before card shows became such a big deal. Anyway, I was a deeply suspicious kid, and so I went to the guy's house and saw him open mail when I was there -- that day, at least, he'd gottan signed cards back from IIRC Ralph Citarella and Rick Horton -- not HoFs, to say the least, but it substantiated his story enough for me. So I bought or traded from some of his autographed cards (using crappy Sears HoF cards, usually). I still have Eddie Matthews, Roberts, Hubbell, Spahn, Berra, and Feller. I had Bill Terry but sold it for 10 bucks. I cant authenticate any of this stuff. Is it completely worthless?

My memories of "Rookie Sensation" Busts...off the top of my head

1986- Billy Joe Robideaux, Teddy Higuera, Danny Tartabull, Mark Eichorn, Floyd Youmans (pitched in the independent leagues last year!), Wally Joyner

1987- Corey Snyder, Mike Greenwell, Chris James, Kevin Seitzer, Mike Henneman

1988- Joey Meyer, Walt Weiss, Greg Jeffries, Sam Horn, Jody Reed

1989- Rickey Jordan , Hensly Muellens, Carlos Quintanna, Louis Medina, Milli Vanilli, Jerome Walton, Dwight Smith

And remember how cool the "rated rookies" and "topps future stars" and topps "all-star rookies" and Sportflics were...and the cheezy "Perez-Steele Diamond King' Pictures...Man, those things made Hannah-Barbarra look like Van Gogh...Anyhow, in my mind, the introduction of Upper Deck in 1989 was the begining of the end for the industry (or it least my love of it!).

Just curious,...Do the current Topps "Base" sets include cards for most players...For instance, are there any 2005 Topps Pat Borders cards,...or do you have to be a 16 year old prospect or 50 Home Run Superstar to get cards made these days??? I'm curious.

gary carter used to be a *great* autograph signer. i was sending out between 82 and 87, and he was awesome. so was feller and brooks robinson.

no, the autos aren't completely worthless.

i actually got back into cards a few years ago collecting reprints and art cards (ie. the diamond kings). however, donruss decided to make their new sets have multiple levels of tough cards...not even the 'parallel' cards, but just to get a base set. they'd make the last 25 or 50 cards of the set short prints...and then they'd throw in 10-25 rookies in a totally different set later in the year, and they'd be super tough to get.

that stopped me from collecting them at all.

I cant authenticate any of this stuff. Is it completely worthless?

Pretty much. They are probably worth something to you, however.

I've heard that the authenticated stuff is often faked too b/c players would just have their agents sign the stuff for them. Really, then, you're just paying for the seal.

Come to think of it, I sold a lot of my valuable cards when I was in college (Henderson Rookie, Mattingly Rookie, Boggs and Gwynn rookies). And what do I have to show for them?

Beer tabs. what a waste.

I was really into cards in the early 90's (if anyone is looking for cards from this time, especially '93 and '94, give me a holler). To me, the beginning of the end was Topps Finest in 1993. IIRC they were... 5 card packs? They originally retailed for like $7, but they were already $10 by the time I got a few and they just went up from there.

It is just not fun at all anymore; you can almost forget about RC or cards as an investment. Still, I've often thought about getting a bunch of base-level packs, or some particularly well designed cards, just for fun.

I've heard that the authenticated stuff is often faked too b/c players would just have their agents sign the stuff for them. Really, then, you're just paying for the seal.

Exactly, you're not really paying for the sig or the piece-of-a-jersey, you're paying for the little "3/5" and seal of authenticity.

Retardo,

I actually did a similar thing in the early-mid 1980's. My neighbor bought a "sports celebrity" adress book and we sent out truckloads of SASE's to our favorite players past and present....Off the top of my head, I recall getting several autographs from

Bobby Doerr (accompanied by religious literature)
Lou Boudeau
Nolan Ryan
Albert Hall (my neighbor had a fascination with Hall, who later missed a lot of time due to his Coke Habit)
Yogi Berra (Yoggi was great about this)

I recall that a lot of people suspected that many of the superstars (especially Nolan Ryan and Jose Canseco) used an "autopen" to fulfill request...Players like Doerr proabbly were authentic as they likely received less mail and were probably enthusiastic about receiving the fan mail....
Anyhow, I'lve done some ebay research and non-authenticated autographs demand very little money...In fact, many baseball cards prices will DROP as the result of a "non-authenitcated" autograph "Damaging" the card's condition....
If they were authenticated (I think PSA/DNA has a service) then some of the cards of players that have passed on....Hubbell, Spahn, etc. might command a small amount of money...Likely not much more than the cost of authenticating....
If you are just holding them for sentimental value, but are curious about the authenticity, you could look at past ebay auctions of "authenticated" autographs from those stars, and check if there is any resemblence to your autos at all.

Wow SLU's are worthless now, will the market ever be there again? eventually. my parents are going to want to get rid of the 25 boxes of them in the basement.

Does anyone remember when Topps released the "Desert Storm" cards, they were the same as the 91 or 92 cards, but with a desert storm, support our troops stamp on them.

Is this just me? I can't find any info on them.

1991 Topps...The Chipper Jones Card is worth about 100 dollars as only 5000 were produced (compared to the 1 million r so of the standard issue)

Thanks ron, when I was home for Christmas I saw that I have the roger clenens cards, where he is leaning agaisnt the green monster.

Are French-Canadian cards of any interest? Late 70's, early 80's Topps, I think.
Does anyone collect baseball books? I have a few books from the fifties and a collection of good baseball books. If they are worth anything, I would send them to someone who collects for the price of shipping.

Anyone read 'Short Season' by Jerry Klinkowitz?

Rick Mc - O-Pee-Chee cards. I have like hte 1987 version.

I cant authenticate any of this stuff. Is it completely worthless?


Not worthless, but not ultravaluable either. I collect, though - I'm not an investor. I have a bunch of autographs that come with a story, not a seal.

As I have always collected, I have a ton of the DesertStorm cards. Don't know about the Chipper Jones one though.

I also have the baseball address book - it's put out by Jack Smalling.

I will be publishing a want list here soon enough.

The bilingual "Topps" cards were made by a printer called "O-Pee-Chee" (O.P.C. in the copyright notice), which licensed Topps's card designs and images. They're worth a very, very small premium over the Topps version in the same condition; for many dealers, nothing more. I generally don't distinguish between them in filling out my sets, although O-Pee-Chee didn't make every card for every year, sometimes only producing the better-known players for a total of half the Topps set or so. Consequently, they have different card numbers. I'm unusual in that regard, I would assume.

This is a bunch of memories. I've got a closet filled with good cards from the 1970s-1980s, and I'm completely on the fence as to whether to have them graded so I can sell them. On one hand, selling them ungraded is pointless unless I'm just looking to unload them. OTOH, getting them graded is (well, was, last time I checked) expensive and involved, and if you get back a bunch of cards that were only NRMt instead of Mint (or Mint+ or whatever else there is), then I've basically shelled out for the pretty cases and a bunch of cards that no one wants.

Does anyone have a *good* grading experience to share? BGS or the other guys (not even remembering who they are now)?

OTOH, getting them graded is (well, was, last time I checked) expensive and involved

From your description of your collection you gave a couple of months ago, I would think it's worth the cost. You could unload those things for a few months rent in Bangor.

If only you'd dumped your Bonds collection before the BALCO stuff dropped...

True, and my Griffeys back when he had two good legs.

I'm mostly interested in grading some of the older stuff. I've got Carlton, Ryan, Bench, et al rookies that are in pretty good (though probably not Gem Mint+) shape. I've also got a beautiful Ernie Banks rookie across the top of which one of my "friends" in high school saw fit to write his name. In blue ink.

Back in the mid-90s I collected autographs by mail. I collected various sports, but primarily baseball. I probably sent out well over a thousand SASEs in that time and probably had a success rate or roughly 40-50%. Of course, you do better with non-star players (or "bums" as the guy who ran the local card shop called them when I'd come in for a batch of commons to send off in the mail).

I found that baseball players are reasonably good signers through the mail, especially retired players and younger players. I had some pretty good luck with star players at times, but Bruce Dal Canton was a surer bet to show up in your mailbox than Sammy Sosa (who I did get in '96 after writing him in Arizona during Spring Training).

Of all the sports, golfers are the best signers by far. This is true both in person and through the mail. I got some true legends (Palmer, Nelson, and Sarazen to name but three).

Of course you can never be sure anything is authentic unless you see it signed in person, but a trained eye can usually spot autopens, ghost signers, and stamps. I probably had to throw out 50 autographs that I knew were not authentic, including some I desperately wished were real (Aaron, Nicklaus, T. Watson, and T. Bradshaw come to mind).

It was a lot of fun now that I'm thinking about it. It was a blast to open the mailbox and have four or five of my SASEs in there. Sort of like Christmas several times a week.

I've got a few binders full of cards from 1987-1993, but, like Guapo, they're about 400 miles away. And here I was tempted to organize them and attack eBay.

A lot of it is commons, with some Mattinglys, Ryans, Griffeys, etc. The Mattingly I got for 27 Mel Halls. Yeah, twenty-seven.

A lot of it is commons, with some Mattinglys, Ryans, Griffeys, etc. The Mattingly I got for 27 Mel Halls. Yeah, twenty-seven.

Hey, the Frank Thomas rookie!

And yes, the binders are sitting in the next room over. I have no motivation to organize them.

first post here ... i jumped on this thread immediately since at the moment i'm (severely under)employed at a sports collectibles shop in alabama, where i've done little since new year's eve except price cards. (just now affixed a $15 price tag on jeter's most expensive rookie card [that i know of] -- $10 less than manny's! isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?)

of course, i'm still trying to recover from my discovery about 10 days ago that a certain omar vizquel memorabilia card (i.e. one with a bit of uniform or bat) from '04 lists for, oh, maybe $8, whereas the comparable card for miguel tejada isn't listed, tejada being, y'know, a mere "semistar." riiiiight -- who *wouldn't* take vizquel over tejada any day of the week?

Someone wanted 27 Mel Halls?

Someone wanted 27 Mel Halls?

I've always found it more funny we had 27 Mel Halls... and knew where they all were...

Someone wanted 27 Mel Halls?

I wonder if anyone has tried to corner the market on a specific card.

So, I've got the Cal Ripken Topps rookie card (the Future Stars card where he's between like Wayne Krenchicki and Joe Nolan, or two other guys who were not future stars) and I've got the Billy Ripken Topps F###Face card.

Which one is more valuable?

There were rumors that Mike Comrie (Edmonton Oiler) and his dad were trying to buy up his best rookie card. It was in a set taht only 100 of his rookie were produced and supposedly his dad is some kinda investor or banker in Canada. The first 5-10 auctions on ebay all went to the same username for more than they should have.

i did the autographs-through-the-mail thing as a kid back in the early '70s, which is why i sit here today with a bunch of yellowing 3x5s with bearing the scrawls of the likes of lefty grove, red faber, stan coveleskie, burleigh grimes (so i had a spitballer fetish ... so what?), rube marquard, roger maris, dizzy dean, earl averill, harry hooper, joe mccarthy, charley gehringer, etc etc etc. not to mention a decent number of then-active players with whom i was inexplicably enamored, like enzo hernandez, lee stanton, richie schleinblum & dick billings (what a name!), along with more obvious luminaries like nolan ryan, harmon killebrew & pete rose.

as a diehard aba fan, though, i'm probably happiest with the autograph i got from dr j while he was a 2nd-year virginia squire.

those were the days ...

I wonder if anyone has tried to corner the market on a specific card.

I don't know about reality, but there is a Rocky & Bullwinkle where Boris tries to buy up all the the least valuable card and destroy all but one, therefore making it the most valuable, so that he could sell it and gives the funds to Fearless Leader

I don't know about reality,

Rocky and Bullwinkle isn't real?

>>Which one is more valuable?

cal -- $50. billy -- $20.

I've also got a beautiful Ernie Banks rookie across the top of which one of my "friends" in high school saw fit to write his name. In blue ink.

At the very first card show I ever went to, in Memphis in about 1979, I bought an Ernie Banks rookie card for twenty-five cents. It's only in good or very good condition, but it's still the best investment I've ever made.

There was a Mickey Mantle rookie card there, too, for five bucks, but that was too rich for my junior-high blood.

Come to think of it, I sold a lot of my valuable cards when I was in college (Henderson Rookie, Mattingly Rookie, Boggs and Gwynn rookies).

you probably did all right by the boggs card, at least. the first time i ever looked in a beckett, boggs' rookie (the only decent thing in the box of '83 packs i'd bought from a price club back when they were new, only to forget about them for more than a decade) was going for something like $40. now it's a whopping $12. whether his sterling showing in the hof sweepstakes will contribute to reversing that trend, who knows?

I wonder if anyone has tried to corner the market on a specific card.

I mentioned 1993 Topps Finest earlier. Each "regular" card had a different version called a "refractor". The refractors were produced in pretty low numbers.

I heard that Andre Dawson was buying up all of his refractor cards from that set, and sure enough the price went up in beckett. I have no idea if this is still the case.

Speaking of a one-time baseball player:

Back in the day (1986), I bought one pack of Fleer basketball cards (the only time I ever in my life bought NBA cards).

Michael Jordan 'rookie' card.
Sold it about ten years later for $500.

*THAT'S* nice ROI :)

(Got a Ewing rookie in the same pack, but I doubt it's worth much)

I bought the Henderson rookie in 91 for $11.

Actually, I traded an LT rookie for it, plus $10 back at a flea market.

I am positive I sold it for 3 figures my freshman year in college.

I am positive I sold it for 3 figures my freshman year in college.

If you can't remember, that's a good indicator of what you spent the money on :)

i wounder how much the nomar card is worth

(Got a Ewing rookie in the same pack, but I doubt it's worth much)

around $30 mint, actually.

i wounder how much the nomar card is worth

Probably less than my Pedro and RJ rookies. None of them are probably worth that much.

I need 1986 Topps Marty Bystrom!

Dan, are you serious? If so, how do I get one to you? I am sitting here with my 1986 Topps extras and have three Marty Bystroms. Fairly good condition.

I have 9 Billy Samples from that year. Good grief. I have so many baseball cards....

Anyway, the trivia fact on the back of Bystrom's card is:

The latest inning in which a home run was hit in Yankees history was the 22nd inning by Jack Reed, June 24, 1962.

>>Which one is more valuable?

cal -- $50. billy -- $20.

Man. Only $50 for a Cal Ripken rookie? I guess I should start increasing my contributions into the 401(k).

I also used to have a bunch of 1976 Reggie Jackson Oriole cards, but ripped them all up when he joined the Yankees. They probably wouldn't be worth too much now, I guess. Mostly just worth it for the novelty of remembering that for one brief season, Reggie Jackson played baseball for Baltimore.

I remember when my dad was helping my grandmother clean the attic, and he found his old baseball cards.

I don't think I have ever seen a grown man happier.

I've never paid more for a card than its marginal value in a pack. I have 30,000 cards total -- about 25,000 of them baseball. I also have a lot of football cards from late 70s and early 80s. My baseball card years spanned from '78 to '90 -- the best years being '82 to '87. I wasted every dime of my allowance on those damn things.

I've got them all in my basement and don't mind browsing through them, so if I can help anyone complete a set I'd be more than happy to do it.

oh yeah, and that reminds me. My mom was into computers when I was a kid, so as soon as people started buying them, we had one. My mom was also into lists and inventories and the like. So, I spent the summer of '86 entering all my cards into a database -- about a year later the computer died and my data died with it. It was disheartening as hell.

anyone see the outside the lines special regarding the "Sports Illustrated for Kids" cards?

I believe there was a Tiger Woods card that was going for above 1000k. Some dude had like 10 of those issues. he cleaned up.

that should be 1k of course.

Yeah, and my SI for Kids supscription started two months after that issue.

True story.

The F-face card has like 5 variations. The white out one is most valuable, I think. Oh man, remember when error cards were big? If you can see Luis Salazar grabbing his nuts on Paul Gibson's 89 Score card you own a collector's item, my friend!

I need to find the Beckett I bought in the summer. I just wanted to be depressed at the price Griffey and Thomas are going for now. I paid 30 for Griffey and 40 for Thomas in 93. They're probably close to that once again. I also have Sammy's Leaf RC (it was in the one pack I bought of them before the price of the set went crazy.) In 98 I looked for it and found... a Coke stain on it. Must've been from when I was sorting my cards alphabetically in 93 and spilled Coke around a bunch of them. Oops!

Also, my best card is a Gretzky rookie. Paid 500 for it out of some money my mom decided to use to get us some cool investments. She got herself a George Brett rookie.

My best pulls. I got a Larry Johnson signed card of some draft pick set. I traded it for a box of something. I also bought one pack of 93 Score Select Update for $14 and pulled the Nolan Ryan card that's like one in 350 packs. It's one of those ones with that neat refractive effect. I forget what it's called. I also got a Michael Jordan in 92-93 Topps Gold.

The only shoebox finds were an O-Pee-Chee Sandberg rookie and Ron Francis and Dalw Hawerchuk rookies. My dad's shoebox was lame. Why didn't he buy cards earlier than 1982?

I'm looking at Jeter's Bowman rookie and it says he threw 85 MPH across the diamond and had a time of 4.1 to first. He really is a deity! I wish I had the Upper Deck SP one which is crazy hard to find because its edges easily chip. At least I have Javy Lopez... chipped.

I probably have a complete set of Birmingham Barons cards with Frank Thomas somewhere. I also pulled a really pretty George Brett card with a copper border of which Donruss printed only 10,000 in the early nineties. It's not in good shape, but if I could dig it up I'd be willing to mail it to any Royals/George Brett fans. E-mail me if you're interested, otherwise I probably won't go through the trouble of digging through the attic of the garage.


I mailed off cards with SASE to Travis Fryman, John Olerud, Andre Dawson and fellow Peoria native Jim Thome. Only Dawson returned my cards, but they were signed which was cool. Also he gave away autographs in exchange for a donation to fight Sickle Cell anemia.

The 91 Donruss Elites. Oooh. I wonder what the odds of getting one of those was because that set had one of the highest production runs ever.

I don't think companies now are being greedy. They produce such limited runs of everything. I think they're just catering to the high dollar collectors. The set with the best rookie cards are ridiculously overpriced, and they're short printed anyway. The average person has no chance of getting one. It's as if they're trying to pump up the collectabilty of their product and are shutting out most people in the process. Griffey's Upper Deck rookie was hot as hell, yet anyone could get one. They think that they can recreate that buzz by making things obscenely rare, and they dwindled down their market to the people who want that and are willing to overpay for it. It's elitism, not greed.

I also forgot a Gretzky card in Upper Deck SPX in my list of pulls. That set was like 10 dollars for three cards, and the Gretzky insert was like 1:300. I have good luck with ridiculously overpriced packs.

I've got some newer more prospect based cards, some autographs. I'd be willing to discuss trades for some newer Twins stuff.

Sounds mostly like people are talking older stuff here but I have some cards that fans other teams might find interesting that I really don't.

I've thought of trying to start my own card company, as a sort of non-profit venture catering to old time collectors who'd just like to have cards of current players that actually look like baseball cards. I'd sell subscriptions to the set, then if I got enough for the MLB and MLBPA rights fees and to do the print run, I'd run the number of sets that were ordered. I wonder if such a thing would actually work.

I'm sure the MLBPA rights fees aren't cheap, assuming you would have to sell quite a few sets.

That's what I sort of assume, but I wonder how I'd find out what the fee actually is.

I also used to have a bunch of 1976 Reggie Jackson Oriole cards, but ripped them all up when he joined the Yankees. They probably wouldn't be worth too much now, I guess.

not too much, no, but operating under the theory (unlikely, i know) that they were in mint condition, you were essentially ripping up a tenner & two singles with every card ...

Yeah, but not till the '80s, so you'd have been doing just as well to put the amount you originally paid for them in the bank.