Card Collectors? Baseball, Football, other trading cards and memorabilia

[jetstream23]

I've got a middle schooler who has started to become obsessed with card collecting.  It's kind of cool because that wasn't a big hobby of mine when I was younger although I have a decent stash of 1983-84 O-Pee-Chee hockey cards.  Anybody here into card collecting?

He's telling me about things called "box breaks" that people pay to participate in, essentially a lottery where trading cards are broken out of a new box and everyone who paid gets assigned a team.  All the cards from your particular team that are pulled from the box go to you.  There are "hit" cards which are the higher value ones and are either autographed or have a patch of game-worn jersey fabric embedded in the card.  All of this stuff is new to me but the boy is throwing $100's of birthday money and savings into this hobby this summer.

Just curious if there are any knowledgeable/serious card collectors around here.

[Lith]

Would not call myself a knowledgeable collector, or even a collector at all any more.  I collected as a kid.  Still have a lot of my old baseball cards from late 60s/early 70s.  Probably worth some money, but I don't how much.  And I just can't get rid of them.  I also collected World Series programs at one time.  Probably have a couple of dozen of those stored away.

Also collected autographs as a kid, but it was so much different then.  It was a hobby.  Not a business.  We used to write to playes/teams and they would send autographed pictures in the mail.  No way of knowing if they were actually signed by the guys we sent them to, or by staffers on the teams.  But it didn't really matter much when you are a 12 year old kid.  A lot of the old timers who played in the 40s/50s -- pretty sure those were genuine signatures.  Would actually get hand written letters from some of the retired players who were glad to know that kids who never saw them play knew who they were.  Got a really nice collection, but again, no way of knowing which are real and which are not.  Except for the ones signed in front of me.

[Peace Frog]

I have a Nolan Ryan rookie card, a bunch of Mets cards from 1967-1975 and the entire Topps sets from 1991 and 1994 when my 2 sons were born.  

[southparkcpa]

I have a Hackenburg rookie card. What's it worth?

[peebag]

I was hot and heavy into in late 80's early 90's.   The market got really inundated with product so most of the cards starting in that time frame aren't worth much except for the one offs.

 

[peebag]

On 8/10/2019 at 11:02 PM, Lith said:

Would not call myself a knowledgeable collector, or even a collector at all any more.  I collected as a kid.  Still have a lot of my old baseball cards from late 60s/early 70s.  Probably worth some money, but I don't how much.  And I just can't get rid of them.  I also collected World Series programs at one time.  Probably have a couple of dozen of those stored away.

Also collected autographs as a kid, but it was so much different then.  It was a hobby.  Not a business.  We used to write to playes/teams and they would send autographed pictures in the mail.  No way of knowing if they were actually signed by the guys we sent them to, or by staffers on the teams.  But it didn't really matter much when you are a 12 year old kid.  A lot of the old timers who played in the 40s/50s -- pretty sure those were genuine signatures.  Would actually get hand written letters from some of the retired players who were glad to know that kids who never saw them play knew who they were.  Got a really nice collection, but again, no way of knowing which are real and which are not.  Except for the ones signed in front of me.

You can always have the graded/authenticated by a service - PSA comes to mind:

https://www.psacard.com/

[Villain The Foe]

I was heavy into card collecting in the early 90's. 

That died out in the late 90's 

Got quite a few Kobe, Garnett, Duncan, Iverson, Shaq, Kidd, rookie cards. Basically all of the basketball legends drafted in the 90's I most likely have their RC's. 

 

[Jet_Engine1]

Rolling around somewhere in my parents house is a baseball signed by Steinbrenner and Trump. I know its authentic because I was the one who walked up to them sitting in the box seats at the old West Palm Beach Municipal Stadium and had them sign it on 1984 or so. 

 

Also have a Sadaharu Oh signed ball.