Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Collecting...baseball cards

I guess if you're cursed with the collecting bug, there's not much you can do about it. It's in your blood. I've made a few pit-stops in my collecting history before settling on toy soldiers. One of my first collecting loves was Baseball Cards, which I'm sure several of you have had your fair share of.

I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, so it was compuslory to be an Atlanta Braves fan. When I moved to Indiana when I was six, I carried that love of the Braves with me up here to "basketball" country. There was a baseball card shop in town that I could ride my bike to, and I'd hit em' up every couple of days, looking for any Braves card I could lay my hands on. My parents encouraged it, and pretty soon I was a hard-core collector, or at least as hard-core as an 8-9 year old could be. I collected pretty steadily from 1986 to 1994... complete sets, specialty cards, older cards of select players (I have the most amazing Dale Murphy collection, maybe in existance!). But then in 1994, well, you probably know. They went on strike. Pretty crushing to a 14 year-old that has a wardrobe made up entirely of Atlanta Braves t-shirts. I never looked back.

Anyway, my mom let me know the other day that she'd like that section of the basebment back, the one that is stacked from floor to ceiling with baseball cards. Are these things worthy anything these days? Will they ever be worth anything? Should I hold onto the whole lot for sentimental value, or simply keep a select few, and give the rest to the Dempsey Dumpster? If there is a collector out there that knows more about this stuff, I'd be interested to hear. Some I'm not willing to part with (the Dale Murphy collection), but the rest... well, they broke my heart in 94'....

4 comments:

jac28 said...

Beau, I too, have been a baseball card collector.. I have quite a decent collection of Cincinnati Reds.. A couple are from the 1930's... My son has tons of baseball cards from roughly the same time period as you do.. As far as worth - I'd say any rookie cards (of really good players) are going to have some kind of value - like Ken Griffey, Jr. and many others... also any special card might be worth something.. I don't think I'd toss any of them. You could put together large batches and sell them on ebay.. Start 'em out really low and see what happens. The problem is that was the time everyone was salting away complete, mint in box sets and planning to send their sons and daughters to college on the proceeds of selling their collections.. Hey - what Reds do you have :-)

Hope this helps..

Jim

Anonymous said...

Ebay Ebay Ebay

Beau said...

Jim,

I had a pretty sizable Pete Rose collection! And your Reds have really shown up to play this year!

I have looked at baseball cards on ebay, but they don't seem to be going for anything at all. The whole hobby seems pretty off right now. Too bad really. Maybe I'll try to find a local show at some point...

Anonymous said...

Right now with the economy being what it is, the market may be off, but ebay is normally the way. I had a sizable baseball card AND comic book collection. When I went off to the Army my dad (also a career soldier) came home on leave and decided to clean my closet out - burned the entire batch (I had the entire 1968 AND 1969 St Louis Cardinals (my team being from that area) sets...

We won't even talk about the comics I had. I saw an original Fantastic Four #1 go for sale for hundreds almost twenty year ago. Mom hasn't let him live it down...

I agree with Jim, keep your favorites, post the rest on ebay, whatever you get is more than you had - and you can use the money to re-paper the baby's room - or buy more soldiers!!! Wayne