what to do with 90's baseball cards

[jschris]

I traded a nine-pocket sheet of early 60s HOFers to my local card shop guy for the elusive 86 Donruss Canseco rookie way back when.

 

Today, just the empty plastic sheet would probably be enough to make the deal.

[hart attack 2006]

Good topic. I've been thinking about cards lately as I've been downsizing my possessions ahead of a move. Like most of you, 99% of my cards aren't work anything as they are late 80's/early 90's. It's a little ironic though...the cards of this era are nearly worthless but this was the height of collecting. Nearly everyone I knew had cards. Even people marginally interested in sports or cards had a binder and would take part in trading among friends and neighbors. The high amount of interest in cards at that time seems to have resulted in cards values that won't be seen again. Remember the asking price of some of the cards back then? Cards that were out of my wheelhouse at the time (Yount and Molitor rookies, Uecker, Aaron, Spahn, and Mathews cards that would go for $20-50) I have since picked up on ebay for $5-10.

 

Besides the crazy amount of product and higher pack/box prices, I believe that ebay was a game changer. It pretty much took the pursuit out of the hobby. I used to spend hours trading and going to the card shop looking for whatever I was chasing at the time (I liked Donruss Diamond Kings, and of course Brewers). If I was collecting now, I would just find them on ebay. No more buying packs, poring through friend's binders, or stacks of cards at the card shop. Unless you're looking high end inserts or graded cards, there's no chase left. That was a lot of the fun.

[JimH5]

I traded 3 or 4 early 70s Hank Aarons (back in the 70s) for a desk lamp one of my friends had in his basement.

 

Not sure of the value of those Aarons, but the lamp is sitting in a landfill somewhere.

[BrewersSuperCollector]

I think what killed the hobby was when 1992 Donruss came out. The Diamond Kings were inserted 3 or 4 to a box, and the completists got fed up. That was the last straw for quite a few people I know. A few years before that people were able to collect it all, and the chase of the Diamond Kings turned people off.

 

The Rattlers did the same to me when they had the 5 bobbles on opening day.

[Bikeage77]

 

The Rattlers did the same to me when they had the 5 bobbles on opening day.

 

At least one person on these boards will say they had 6. PREACH! PREACH!

[RockCoCougars]

In my view, the first death knell of card collecting as it had been came in the early 90's with the introduction of Stadium Club cards. These were 3 bucks-plus a pack right from the get go, and priced a lot of people out. Next, the 'chase cards' were the second death knell. I remember Gold Leaf rookie cards seeded a few a box and then the Fleer 'Rookie Sensation' cards went nuts. I remember when the Frank Thomas was a fifty dollar card. Obviously, the overproduction that started in the mid-80's basically caused the hyper inflationary effect on values that drove almost everyone from the hobby after a few years, including me. Not only were they printing oodles more cards, everyone was keeping them in binders as an investment and no one threw them out. Since scarcity and condition are everything in card values, pretty much everything from this era is worth less than it was the day that it came out.

[RU Rah Rah]

It's really amazing (and kind of sad) to see how cards have come to be viewed primarily as an investment. My son is 7, and is somewhat into collecting -- a good thing, in my book. But he's constantly asking me things like, "How much do you think this Chad Billingsley card is going to be worth?" It's a struggle to get him to think about just enjoying the cards for the sake of enjoying them -- it's like an alien concept today. Everything is about PSA grading, etc.

 

I was looking at my old cards (mainly 1976-82) the other day and realized that I possess a bunch of hockey cards. One of them is a 1979 Wayne Gretzky rookie card -- the Topps version, not the rare O-Pee-Chee. I was appalled to see what people are paying for the O-Pee-Chee card -- in the ballpark of $100,000, in one case. It's completely bizarre.

 

My favorite card is still my first: 1973 Richie Scheinblum.

 

http://www.vintagecardprices.com/pics/1860/145970.jpg