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Collecting and Selling Sports (and Wrestling!) Cards


Kevin Wilson

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3 minutes ago, Death From Above said:

Jose Reyes is trash so it's only right to rip his rip card.

I had failed to consider this.

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9 minutes ago, OSJ said:

Nothing quite like saying "our regular product is garbage".  Sorry, but with most of my adult life spent in marketing, that has to be one of the stupidest concepts I've ever heard of (and believe me, I've heard of some really asinine concepts.) 

Eh, it's a pretty silly gimmick, but harmless otherwise. My least favourite card gimmick was the 80-81 Topps hockey set having scratch offs over the names of all the players. Hey kid, you like that Ray Bourque rookie? Well you can have it either blacked out or with scratches all over it.

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1 minute ago, elizium said:

Eh, it's a pretty silly gimmick, but harmless otherwise. My least favourite card gimmick was the 80-81 Topps hockey set having scratch offs over the names of all the players. Hey kid, you like that Ray Bourque rookie? Well you can have it either blacked out or with scratch marks all over it.

As I refused to have anything to do with hockey cards until Upper Deck got involved, that one flew under my radar. Yeah, that may be even dumber than the rip card idea. Basically, anything that implies your core product is worthless is none too bright an idea.

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21 hours ago, OSJ said:

I have to chuckle about someone decrying the cynical marketing of sports cards on one hand and defending Magic the Gathering on the other hand. That was what made me tap out of the business, I gave in and sold the lesser sports like basketball, football, and (God forgive me) hockey; becaudon't partner was throwing a fit about it. However, when he showed up with a case of Magic, I pulled some stuff out of the display case, handed him my keys and said "Good luck with that."

Not defending magic just pointing out it has a function that sports cards don't and it created a bigger value for the cards because they can be used for more than just being stared at. There were 3-4 places where I bought cards from as youngling, the only one still in business is the one who switched magic. Even today outside of Wal-Mart i only know of one store selling sports cards but there are several stores where I can buy magic at.

To anyone who knows, how much impact did the steroid and drug issues hurt the card scene in regards to mlb?

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I can't profess to "know", but my gut feeling is that the steroid and drug issues had a minimal effect compared to the manufacturers killing the golden goose. The horrendous over-production and over-pricing that chased kids away was far more damaging than any issues of guys sticking needles in their asses. One anecdote that I use to illustrate the over-production is as follows... I mentioned that I maintain "player files" of my favorites, essentially this means having every card of a given player (I no longer do this for anyone active post-1990 for reasons that should be abundantly clear). Anyway, one year (I forget which) I realized that I had no less than thirty different Frank Thomas cards. Now I like Big Frank enough to have a file for him, but thirty cards in the same year? For me, set building and player files are the two most basic, fundamental things a collector can do. When it becomes impossible for an adult with plenty of disposable income to do either of these things people are going to say "Fuck it" and walk away. Set-building was hurt dramatically by short-printing a key card or two, (I know I have one set of Fleer something-or-other that's missing just the one short-print card, a Pujols RC if memory serves). Once the manufacturers were allowed multiple brands the genie was out of the bottle and there was no going back. I can see five or so licensed manufacturers, I can get behind a dozen chase cards of a superstar player, but no one needs thirty cards of one guy issued the same year. The only thing that kept me going is that my files are based on who I like as opposed to value, so for every Barry Bonds I have a Matt Williams, for every Willie McCovey I have a Norm Cash or Joe Adcock, so at least half the time the file is very do-able with maybe one expensive card to deal with (Adcock 52 Topps and 62 Fleer, Cash 59 Topps), or a lot of mid-range pricey cards (Banks and McCovey), but nothing too ridiculous. My spending limit thus far has been $365.00 and that for an autographed Chuck Klein (300-HR Club). I gave that project up for two reasons... 1. Gary Gaetti hit his 300th and I realized it was no longer in any way shape or form a "special number" and (2.) I was down to needing Foxx, Gehrig, Ruth, Hornsby and Ott among the retired players and that was going to be a really expensive five cards.

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Baseball rookies card hurt it more since when the player debuted in the majors you had to figure out many year back were there true rookies.

For example Derek Jeter won rookie of the year in 1996 he had RCs in 1992 and 1993 the big one in 1993.

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6 hours ago, Hail Sabin said:

Baseball rookies card hurt it more since when the player debuted in the majors you had to figure out many year back were there true rookies.

For example Derek Jeter won rookie of the year in 1996 he had RCs in 1992 and 1993 the big one in 1993.

I have always been baffled by the RC craze. A baseball card essentially has two things of worth about it, statistics and a photograph (or painting, whatever). Assuming all things are equal in the graphics department (which since Upper Deck upped the ante in 1989, blurry, hastily shot pics became a thing of the past.) What you have left that's of interest are stats. The RC by definition isn't going to have more than one season of stats so from that standpoint I'd rather have the 1969 Topps Mantle card which covers his entire career on one card as opposed to the 1952 Topps RC which is basically a picture of a kid from Oklahoma wearing a Yankees uniform. Stats? Well, he hadn't done anything yet so there aren't any. Of course, the hobby disagrees with me and the latter card is worth a fortune, while the 1969 can be had for a couple of hundred bucks. This is why I refused to collect Bowman back in the day, pretty much a bunch of high-school and college kids standing around often as not in street clothes. No thank you. If one really wants minor league cards, there have always been plenty of them out there, just not done by major manufacturers. (True story, I recall Seattle Rainiers cards packaged in Oscar Meyer hot dog packages. Yeah, nothing like a piece of cardboard dripping hot dog juice to enhance the value of your collection... Okay, in fairness they did have a wax coating so it wasn't quite as grotesque as it could have been, but they still stank to high heaven.

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I bought my dad that 69 Mantle last year for his birthday. Only cost me about $100 (Canadian) and its in great condition, I was quite surprised. I figured it would be one of his most expensive for sure.

Been buying my dad cards of his favourite players, also got him a Terry Sawchuk card and for his birthday next month just bought a Ray Nitschke card (it is his RC, even though he looks about 45 on it).

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Funny you mention that, I have done that for my parents for years too. And both like them (obviously I don't go overboard with it), they both have a little display and I am really selective of course to only get their favorite players. My mom's favorite card is a shiny Doug Flutie, he is one of her favorites.

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On 7/7/2016 at 4:33 PM, Kevin Wilson said:

I had absolutely no idea where to put this, but since it is a bit of a passion of mine I wasn't sure if I was the only one since I can't recall it ever being talked about here.

I do the somewhat difficult combination of re-selling cards while collecting cards at the same time. Kinda like a drug dealer that does drugs. Usually I'll buy a few boxes of higher end wrestling or football cards, keep my personal favorites, and then sell everything else to re-coup my cost (in theory). 75% of the time or so I am able to per shipment I get, unless the best card in the box is one I keep which makes re-selling the rest for a profit difficult (I pulled an Asuka autograph in 2016 WWE Topps, which of course I kept) or I just get a bad hit box. So a lot of cool cards come across my desk but most don't stay there :) I am not making this thread as a way to sell the cards but most will be on Ebay. Unless its a Buffalo Bills player (shut up), Asuka, Sting, Vader... or Shawn Michaels. Or Liger.

 

Kind of curious what is your method of selling stuff back.  Clearly Ebay isn't the best way doing it anymore (if it ever was). Did you have a local stores that you worked with or just waiting until a card show came

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47 minutes ago, hammerva said:

Kind of curious what is your method of selling stuff back.  Clearly Ebay isn't the best way doing it anymore (if it ever was). Did you have a local stores that you worked with or just waiting until a card show came

I use Ebay. Its not the best, but by opening a shop and meeting some criteria, I have the 'final value fee' down to 7% which is a lower percentage than if I got a case in a shop or something like that. Funny timing as this just happened which is crazy but could only happen on Ebay:

Spoiler

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That is just a base card, not autographed. So the benefit of Ebay is if you have two crazies that really want a card, it can go up higher than you could ever dream of if you sold it for a set price in a store. Its the best method to get a card out on a national level, I wish there were better options but there aren't really any as even if I had my own URL I'd have to find some way to point people to it which would cost advertising and stuff.

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I bet you guys were just thinking "I bet by now, Kevin found another good price on a case of WWE cards and brought more to re-sell" and you'd be correct! I already have 60% of my money back on the last case with 60 or so cards still posted, so what the hell. Nothing epic in this case but some solid stuff, these were the top cards:

Spoiler

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That's about $500 worth of cards on the market, so I'm pleased.

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You can totally tell that Charlotte has yet to figure out how to sign her name naturally. It looks like a cursive test that she ran out of steam on in the back half.

I was looking at a box of Undisputed, but even with 10 hits, $300 was just too high a price to talk myself into. Even looking on ebay, I'd still be in that range once you add shipping.

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1 minute ago, elizium said:

You can totally tell that Charlotte has yet to figure out how to sign her name naturally. It looks like a cursive test that she ran out of steam on in the back half.

I was looking at a box of Undisputed, but even with 10 hits, $300 was just too high a price to talk myself into. Even looking on ebay, I'd still be in that range once you add shipping.

I got a case (eight boxes) on Ebay for $1,350 shipped, so $168.75 a box. Still expensive, but more do-able.

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That'd be about $220 in my shitty Canadian money, much more in the range of what I'd be willing to pay. I was in Minneapolis 2 weeks ago, I should have looked around for a box, I stopped in a couple card shops, too.

Bought some more Allen and Ginter, nothing terribly exciting. Best of the bunch was a framed Jon Lester mini relic and a Matt Harvey relic that would have been much better to get 2 years ago. One card did stick out though (just gonna use a stock image though, not dedicated enough to you guys to scan and post it)....

Spoiler

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BOOM! Motherfucking Marlins Man. I bet I could get 50 cents for this beauty!

 

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17 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I got a case (eight boxes) on Ebay for $1,350 shipped, so $168.75 a box. Still expensive, but more do-able.

I have yet to find a box of those for under $200 so that is a steal if you can afford the case price

Are you actually keeping any of your stuff

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1 hour ago, hammerva said:

I have yet to find a box of those for under $200 so that is a steal if you can afford the case price

Are you actually keeping any of your stuff

The theory is that I set aside the ones I'd rather keep (really just Asuka in this case), sell the rest and if I am already in the black then I just consider the card I wanted a bonus for my collection. But generally I sell them unless I get something really special I can't part with. If I had pulled the Macho Man cut auto for example that would be hard for me to sell.

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On 7/22/2016 at 10:58 PM, elizium said:

Eh, it's a pretty silly gimmick, but harmless otherwise. My least favourite card gimmick was the 80-81 Topps hockey set having scratch offs over the names of all the players. Hey kid, you like that Ray Bourque rookie? Well you can have it either blacked out or with scratches all over it.

1980-1981 was a terrible year for great rookie years and card designs.  I ruined many a great Magic Johnson (and maybe Larry Bird) rookie cards because I ripped the perforations and made the one card three separate little ones

 

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I was in Target today, and the 2016 Topps Opening Day packs were being cleared out at like .74 a pack. I might grab some if they have enough packs that I could potentially build a base set. At 7 cards a pack, that's going to be tough. I'll keep you posted if I pull any wacky chase stuff out of them.

Edited by grilledcheese
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  • 2 weeks later...

I went ahead and got two boxes of the WWE Heritage (boxes, not cases). I wasn't going to get any since I think they are a bit ugly but I'd still like to pull an Asuka for my own collection if possible. This set has a lot of kiss cards but most are mid-range or lower wrestlers like Mandy Rose so its a bit weird. I'll post some pictures on Wednesday when I get them.

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I have absolutely no idea how Jim Neidhart of all people has cards in all of these sets when he is about as low level of a legend as one could possibly get and hasn't had a storyline on TV in recent memory. So he made my boxes not great since I kept pulling him, but at least beyond that I got a decent variety.

Spoiler

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Fuck yeah, the 86 Topps design I really liked. Not quite as much as the 85 Topps, but a damn good-looking set nonetheless. Damn, now that I am thinking about it, there's a lot of sets from that timeframe I really like. 88 Score, 89 Donruss, 1990 Leaf, 1989 Fleer. As far as Topps goes, basically every set from the 1980's except for the 81 set I think is just incrdibly good-looking.

Anyway, sorry for bouncing off into nowhere, keep the scans coming, I like seeing what you are pulling.

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