All-purpose baseball card thread (part ll?)

[Guest KC]

I thought wolfie or someone started a thread, I can't find it. Maybe it fell off
the end of the forum in one of the archive thursdays.

Anyone have any experiences in getting cards graded? I have about 25 cards
from the 50's, 60's, and early 70's of HOF players. Years ago, I went through
a faze where I bought a nice card of a HOF player every month or so just to have
one on eBay and stuff (kinda bargain hunting) and start a collection up. I'm thinking
of re-starting and would like to get what I have so far slabbed and graded. I know
it's expensive to do small amounts and if anyone knows a place where one can
get a signifcant discount for bulk, maybe I would get the best my sixties Mets team
sets graded as well.

[seawolf17]

It was me, but I can't find it either. Regardless...

I haven't had anything graded. I'm a relatively small-time collector; I'm more interested in building a personal collection than preserving anything of real value. That's why I collect guys like Keith Hernandez and Kevin McReynolds; guys who have value to me, but maybe not to dealers down the road.

That said, there are a lot of grading services out there. PSA is the biggest, I think, but there's a membership fee to get cards graded. You could also find a local card shop or dealer who has a membership and ask them to send them in for you -- you'd probably just pay the grading costs.

From what I've read, BGS (Beckett Grading Services) tends to sell well; they're pretty well-regarded. There are a half-dozen others, some of whom have various specialtes (autograph authentification, pre-war vintage, etc.). If you're looking at regular vintage cards just to preserve them, I think you can probably go with any of the services and you'll be fine.

And you can send any leftover 1980s cards you have my way.

[Guest KC]

I'll probably use Beckett, I don't like card shops and what they've become
and I don't want them to get a nickel of mine.

I was more wondering if anyone had any horror stories or suggestion of things
to watch out for. I'm not a very trusting soul of the card industry.

What kind of 80's stuff is seawolf looking for?

[seawolf17]

I'd say if you're looking to preserve cards for posterity, then your best bet might just be to buy a bunch of screw-down holders online (BCW Supplies is very reasonable) and store 'em.

If you want to display them, BCW has display cases also. I'd only spend the money on grading if your plan is to use them as some sort of financial investment. I know there are online places you can search to see how many of a particular card have been graded (at least by whatever company's site you're on), and you can get a feel if your cards are worth grading. If you have what you think are a bunch of 8s & 9s, and your search doesn't bring up that many, then I'd say go for it. If there are hundreds of well-graded cards out there, it might or might not be worth the cost of grading. Check eBay for searches with the year, brand, player, and "BGS" or "PSA" and see what the going rate is. Beckett removed their free online card price guide a few weeks ago, unfortunately.

My updated card site is in my CPF profile. I sold off the bulk of my collection five years ago to pay bills, and with infinite regret, I'm going back now and piecemealing it back together -- at least the pieces I want. Mostly I'm looking to finish the sets I collected when I was a kid: 1980-1991 Topps.

80: need about 200
83: need 5
84: done
85: need 1 (George Brett)
86: need 2 (commons)
87: done
88: done
81, 82, 89, 90, 91: haven't started reassembling yet

Plus I'm looking to complete the Kevin McReynolds, Keith Hernandez, and Jim Rice collections. (My favorite players as a kid.) I'll pop into the occasional card show around here -- when Ms. Wolf lets me go -- and spend a few bucks picking up odds and ends. But very few dealers sell what I'm looking for these days, unless I go to bigger shows, which for one reason or another, I never do.

Most of the industry is higher-end now; game-used cards, autographs, other relics. There is really some neat stuff out there now, but it's just way out of my price range. If I was living anywhere else in the world and didn't have the expenses I have, I'd have a bigger card budget, because I love doing it. But as it is, I'll buy little lots on eBay and current packs now and then.

At least soon I'll get to use the kid as an excuse to buy cards. We bought one of those 20-card display cases at Michael's last weekend, and I put cards in there to hang in the baby's room:

Row 1 - Mookie, Mex, Kid, El Sid, McReynolds
Row 2 - Reyes, Wright, Pedro, Beltran, Floyd
Row 3 - Kranepool, Buddy, Seaver, Ryan, Mazzilli (don't have any Koosmans, or he'd replace Maz)
Row 4 - Leiter, Piazza, Dykstra, Alfonzo, McEwing (John Franco will replace Super Joe eventually)

I'll probably swap guys in like Wagner and Delgado once Met cards of them exist.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I can prolly help ya out with some 90s and 91s.

My bb card heyday was 72-78, and I've got billions of em (all dinged, defaced and very much loved) in cardboard boxes.

Starting in 89-90 and going to 92 I had a relapse related to the fact I was writing about 'em for work. I don't have the same emotional attachment to those cards, EXCEPT for the debut "Studio" set in 89 I think which I liked and gathered all but 4 cards from and would like to save. Maybe I can pull out that collection and see what I'm missing, maybe we can make a trade.

[Methead]

I sent in a couple batches of cards (44 cards, to be exact) to get graded a few years ago. I used Sportscard Guaranty (SCG). I was impressed with their service and their 100-point grading scale, but disappointed in some of the grades my cards were given.

Thing is, it's easy to look at a card and convince yourself it's better than it really is, unless you start inspecting them under magnification and all that jazz. Once it's sealed in plastic with that big number stamped on it, there's no going back.

Seawolf - I bet you could get late '80s / early '90s sets for next to nothing on Ebay, no problem.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

]Once it's sealed in plastic with that big number stamped on it, there's no going back.

That's gotta be the gayest thing you can do to a baseball card. I can see tucking them in looseleaf mylar sheets for display purposes, but AFAIC, as soon as you lose the ability to make a fort out of them baseball cards lose 70% of their value.

[Guest KC]

Gayest? I guess I shoulda not asked and not told.

The cards I'm talking, like I said, are fifty and forty years old. I swear to ya'll
I ain't building no fort with them or closed-pinning 'em to my bikes' front tire
to make varooom sound. Most of them were bought on the cheap and most
are worth like four times what I paid for them not all that long ago. I haven't
done it a awhile, but if you pick a HOF player you want a nice card for on
eBay and know the card values and bid with some luck you can pick up
some quality cards cheap.

I'm just soliciting opinions of what to do with them. I think they should be graded.

I hope the thread turns to discussion of Mets' cards which I know a lot more
about than 1960 Whitey Fords.

[Frayed Knot]

"Years ago, I went through a faze"

I like this word.
If you go through a phase when you're involved in a fad, it should be described as a Faze.

I'd call the folks at SCRABBLE except that it's already a word under a different definition than my/KC's new one.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Sorry. Difficult not to slip into the perspective of 10-year-old Johnny Dickshot when discussing bb cards. Pay no attention to that poorly behaved homophobic child.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Faze has both fad and craze embedded.

[Guest KC]

Nah, your response was funny. When I was ten I was flippin' baseball cards
at day camp - though I can't remember the rules today - it was a colors thing.

[Methead]

I build forts out of the plastic slabs. They're a lot more structurally sound than the cardboard forts. Waterproof, too.

[seawolf17]

="KC"]Nah, your response was funny. When I was ten I was flippin' baseball cards at day camp - though I can't remember the rules today - it was a colors thing.

Definitely a colors thing, at least when I was a kid. The best cards were the 85 Topps. You'd each have a set of ten or twenty or whatever cards, face down, and you had to match the color called by the card in front of you. For instance, let's say I flipped my first card:



My choices are red and grey. I'd call "red." You'd then flip:



Which would not match. You'd call "blue." (Well, you'd call "orange," because there was very little orange in that year's set, but let's say you called blue.) I would then flip my second card:



That's a match, and I'd get that stack of cards. Then you would flip your next card, and the game would continue.

That's the way we played.

Methead: I know... that's where I've been filling most of my needs.

[seawolf17]

KC wrote: The cards I'm talking, like I said, are fifty and forty years old. I swear to ya'll I ain't building no fort with them or closed-pinning 'em to my bikes' front tire to make varooom sound. Most of them were bought on the cheap and most are worth like four times what I paid for them not all that long ago. I haven't done it a awhile, but if you pick a HOF player you want a nice card for on eBay and know the card values and bid with some luck you can pick up some quality cards cheap.

Then I'd grade 'em.

[Zvon]

At one time, back in the early 90's, I had a collection of every Topps Met baseball card ever printed.1962 to 1994. (Fleer and Donruss too, and started on Upper Deck but the hobby went out of control around that time,imo)
Took quite afew years to assemble.It was my pride and joy.

Most of it was lost in what Ill only refer to as 'the unfortunate purge'.

I was fortunate to have had the oldest and most expensive cards of the collection seperate from the bulk of commons, which were kept in binders.
Any card worth over $100 bucks was stored in a fireproof safebox.

I still have those cards, all in great shape and in hard plastic.

Great story behind the '67 Topps Seaver rookie.
But you'd really have to know and appreciate what a dozen '84 Mattingly Donruss rookie cards were worth in around '87/'88.
Good story behind the Ryan too. Got that card for 45 bucks.
(I can scan these if u wish to see--they are in awsum shape)

I dont sell cards, just collect them, and I can see what kind of shape a cards in easily enough.
And thats all that matters to me.
I would NEVER mail any card I value away to be graded.
(I would do it if I was allowed to stand right there with the person grading it until it was done. But to what end? Im not interested in selling them and their value is what I put on them>IE-I think Seavers hi-number '67 rookie should list at a higher price than Ryans more common '68 rookie)

Two of my brothers dabble more in buying and selling of baseball cards, and did mail some cards to be graded years back. Id have to refresh my memory with the details from them, but they did not enjoy the experience.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: the gayest thing you can do to a baseball card.

Somebody (not me) remarked on another messageboard that when you're a kid, you're collecting baseball cards. Once you past your teens, you're just collecting pictures of men.

[Zvon]

="seawolf17"]

This card may have had more to do with my resurgence into the hobby and the hobby becoming serious than anything else..

I collected as a kid,....70 to,mmmmmm 77ish.
And started again when the Mets had some awsum rookies like Gooden come up.
Getting his 84 Fleer traded set rookie was a quest.
I guess its just a common card anymore.*sob*
I havent looked at price guides for many years.

[seawolf17]

Coulda bought eight of 'em for three bucks.

The Clemens rookie from that year was one of the ones I was missing; it killed me to have to buy one, but I got one on eBay for six bucks, including shipping. I thought that was a pretty sweet deal.

Anyone who has any of the cards on my need list, please feel free to drop me a line.

[Zvon]

seawolf17 wrote: That's a match, and I'd get that stack of cards. Then you would flip your next card, and the game would continue. That's the way we played.

thats the great thing about the cards we grew up with, and why they are the real deal and the golden age of baseball cards.

We stuck our favorites in our spokes,...flipped em, tied em up with rubber bands and stuck in our pocket to go down to the playground and play colors.

Thats why the cards from the 50s,60s,70s,..and yea,..even alot of the 80s are the cards that should REALLY be worth something. All of em.
Cause people werent aware of what they were worth.

Today people are just TO aware.

Baseball cards these days?
Theres a different mindset.
Its more like a mini stock market.

[Zvon]

seawolf17 wrote: Coulda bought eight of 'em for three bucks. The Clemens rookie from that year was one of the ones I was missing; it killed me to have to buy one, but I got one on eBay for six bucks, including shipping. I thought that was a pretty sweet deal. Anyone who has any of the cards on my need list, please feel free to drop me a line.

That '85 Gooden was always a tuff one to find a real nice print of.

Clemens was also in that '84 Fleer traded set, but he wasnt a Met so im sure I used that card to fund my Met collection. last time it was in my hands it may have been worth $100 in the priceguide.
Im afraid to look what its listed for now.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I have that Clemens asshead rookie card, and prolly in decent shape too.

I'd sooner set it on fire than collect whatever it's worth, cuz the former would be more satisfying. Maybe I'll go scan a few.

[seawolf17]

Well, crap. You could have sent one to me and saved me six bucks.

[Willets Point]

The original baseball card thread is archived here. Didn't much action, in fact this new baseball card thread surpassed the original in less than six hours.

[Zvon]

I love that Sidd Finch card.

And Im not a fan of the current hack up stuff and stick em in cards trend.
They are hackin up fine collectables to make smaller collectable bits.

My brothers like em though. They like when they find a Met one that has part of the logo or uni number or ets.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Great glasses, great portrait, great name = great card.

[Willets Point]

He looks about 50 years old and more like a guy who works in a hardware store than a baseball player. Cool card though.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yup. Gene Brabender, among his other remarkable achievements, predicted the rise of Drew Carey by about 20 years.

[seawolf17]

LOVE the '06 mlb.com fantasy preview graphics.



Old skool, baby.

[seawolf17]

Two random thoughts while looking through a random lot of late 80s-early 90s Mets cards I picked up this weekend:

** On the back of Mackey Sasser's 1991 Score card, you'll find the following blurb:

]Along with the surge in Mackey's hitting was an all-around improvement in his play behind the plate. Strong-armed, with a quicker release than previously, he threw out eight of 17 would-be base stealers at one point. To cap his defensive resurgence, Mackey became the first Met catcher to throw out Vince Coleman in 58 tries.

** One of the forgotten guys in the Whitehurst/Tapani deal in 1987 was Jack Savage. He spent '88 as a swingman in Tidewater, going 5-8, 3.18 with 13 saves. But for some reason, he has a 1989 Donruss Mets baseball card. It's too bad he never made it to Shea, because he has a good shifty-eyed blue-hatted photo.