How Do You Know Weekday Baseball Cards Ate Worthmoney
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Baseball Card Guide: How To Tell If Your Baseball Cards Are Worth Money
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
When I was growing up in the 1980s, baseball cards were my life. When birthdays were budgeted, my parents never asked me what I wanted for my present because they knew what I wanted. Sitting down in my room and tearing open packs was the best part of every altogether. The thrill of the chase, whether I was trying to find a Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookie, a Mark McGwire 1985 Topps U.s. Baseball Team rookie, or later, a Baton Ripken 1991 Fleer card with a 4-alphabetic character-word written on the knob of the bat, was about every bit much fun as a child could take. The advantage for uncovering one of those chase cards felt similar millions of dollars to my 8-x year old cocky.
As I became a teenager and then a young adult, I stopped collecting. The cards that were my advisedly protected, top-loaded treasures were stacked in boxes in a closet in my parent's house. They sat there throughout higher, and so for years after every bit I moved effectually from state to state. I didn't actually recall about them much, but figured that eventually I would grab them and run into if they had any value.
So the COVID-nineteen pandemic happened and I had a life changing moment, when I decided to make a $20 purchase, the first card I had bought since my babyhood.
You may accept a similar story, with boxes of cards sitting in some closet or storage facility that you haven't looked at in years. You take been seeing all the news reports about the resurgence of the sports card market place, but yous have no clue if your cards have any value or how to assess them.
In this article, I will endeavor to help you understand the modernistic day hobby, how to find the value of your cards, and respond some of the questions that I know I needed some clarification and guidance on when I commencement got back in to the hobby.
1. Why invest in Baseball Cards?
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This answer will vary depending on what your goals are.
For me, first and foremost, collecting baseball game cards is a hobby and it'south a lot of fun. Some of my best memories as a kid are going to the local card shop with my dad and brother, frequently coming home with packs to open and bonding over finding some of our favorite players. It's important to remember that while some cards can exist extremely valuable, at the terminate of the day, the goal should exist to have fun, brand memories and enjoy your collection.
For others, information technology's a business. Whether you want to open up your own local card store, buy and sell cards on eBay, or exist one of those people who wait on line overnight at Target and Walmart hoping to score retail boxes to flip for a turn a profit, with the proper amount of didactics and knowledge, you tin make a lot of money in this space.
However, I can not stress enough how important information technology is to exist educated BEFORE buying or selling annihilation. If y'all attempt to enter the hobby without understanding which cards and products sell, why they sell, and how to sell them, yous are near guaranteed to lose money.
The best advice I can requite on how to get educated is to read a lot of articles (like this one), follow all of the big sports cards accounts on social media, consume their content daily, and watch the big card breaking pages Instagram live streams. When you are in the streams, ask questions and interact with people. Making friends and connections is central.
When y'all decide it's time to commencement buying and selling, you volition make mistakes. Making mistakes on less expensive products is much more palatable than on big ticket items. You demand the reps, so you might besides start small and work your way upward.
2. What Makes a Baseball Card Valuable?
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
The almost important determining factor of how much your cards are worth will come downward to condition. There are condition issues that y'all have complete command over, and others that are totally out of your hands.
To start, information technology is extremely of import that y'all store your cards properly. This will include kickoff placing your cards in to protective penny sleeves. These will ensure that the surface of the bill of fare does non get scratched or damaged. The next step is to identify the cards in to a rigid plastic top-loader. Once you accept washed this, your cards should be fairly well protected from the elements.
However, information technology is important to note that fifty-fifty if you have your cards stored properly, they often come with condition issues directly from the factory. Some cards will come out of packs with surface scratches, print defects, dinged corners, and they may even exist mis-cutting and off-centered. In guild to have a truthful mint conditioned card with perfect edges, corners, surface and centering, there is a lot of luck involved.
If you lot have cards that are well protected and in great shape, the main determining gene of value volition come up down to getting your cards authenticated and graded, which is a process in which an independent visitor will assign a score from 1-10 based on how proficient the condition of your card is. For more on grading, check out this article.
The last determining gene for value is simply supply and demand. What led to the crash of the sports bill of fare industry in the 1990s (commonly referred to as the "Junk Wax Era") was a mass overproduction of cards. Present, many of the most valuable cards are series numbered, which ensures that supply stays depression. Studying the PSA population study to see how many of each grade for any particular carte be volition requite you an idea of just how rare your carte is.
3. How To Find the Value of Your Baseball Cards
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
The 2 websites that I use to find the value of my cards are eBay and CardLadder. Both are fairly easy to navigate.
To appraise your card on eBay, there are a couple of steps that yous must take:
- Figure out exactly what carte du jour you have: In that location will oftentimes be small print on the back of your card that tells you lot the manufacturer, what year the carte du jour was produced, as well as a set number. In the moving-picture show above, you lot volition see that this is a "1985 Topps Mark McGwire #401". If you lot type that card in to the search bar on eBay, you will be able to meet what people are request for the carte.
- Filter your search: If you desire to see what the card is actually selling for, all you take to exercise is filter the results of your search by clicking "sold items" in the "show only" tab. It is important to remember that appraising your card is much easier when it is graded. If your bill of fare is raw (ungraded), your best bet would be to zoom in on photos of other raw cards that sold and try to match the condition to that of yours.
CardLadder is an amazing website that will give you all sorts of analytics, PSA population reports, market caps and charts. It is an extremely valuable tool, but they don't have anywhere nearly equally many cards in their database equally eBay does. For a beginner in the hobby, or a person who is just getting back in to it, I would stick with eBay at outset. However, as yous go more comfy in the hobby and are buying and selling, they should absolutely exist on your radar.
4. Rare Cards to Look Out For
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
You may have seen news over the last 12-18 months nigh tape breaking sales in the sports bill of fare hobby. Back in January, the hobby'south most iconic bill of fare–the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie–sold for an heart-popping $five,200,000 to entrepreneur Rob Gough. It was ane of simply half-dozen that received a PSA nine grade, making information technology 1 of the finest examples of that card on the planet.
However, news of cards that accept been selling for half-dozen-figures seems to be dropping weekly, and I wrote this commodity to go along rails of all of the near expensive sales.
If yous have ungraded versions of any of the cards on this listing, it is important to retrieve that you must get them graded for them to have a take a chance of beingness worth anywhere near what those cards sold for. For instance, a 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson PSA 10 is worth $100,000+. A raw, poorly conditioned version of that exact same carte du jour sells for every bit depression as $2.25.
5. What Are My Baseball game Cards Worth Today?
1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. ($110 - $2405)
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
Electric current Value (PSA 10) $iv,101
You may have noticed that the number of PSA graded cards takes a significant dip as the grades get lower than a PSA 8. That'south due to the fact that it simply isn't worth it to have a card graded that won't bring dorsum at least a PSA 8. Check out PSA's Grading Standards to give you an idea of where your bill of fare may course out and what PSA looks for.
Total Graded by PSA: 74,811
PSA x: 3,839 ($2405)
PSA nine: 24,533 ($303)
PSA 8: 31,001 ($110)
1990 Topps Tiffany Frank Thomas ($116 - $2552)
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
But 15,000 1990 Topps Tiffany sets were produced, and they were only made available through hobby dealers, making this Frank Thomas card ultra-rare.
Total Graded past PSA: 896
PSA 10: 101 ($2552)
PSA 9: 414 ($352)
PSA 8: 310 ($116)
1985 Donruss Roger Clemens ($26 - $406)
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
Although Roger Clemens was one of the nearly dominant pitchers in baseball for well over a decade, he is one of the most polarizing athletes in modern history due to his connection to steroids. He has maintained a strong collectors market due to his large market appeal, playing for both the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. If Clemens finally makes the Hall of Fame one of these days, this card could encounter a spike in value. However, the black edge on the card makes whatsoever damage pop and makes bringing back a PSA 10 very unlikely.
Total Graded by PSA: 8548
PSA 10: 519 ($406)
PSA nine: 2197 ($61)
PSA viii: 2851 ($26)
1980 Topps Rickey Henderson ($152 - $180,100)
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
Only .1 percentage of these Rickey Henderson rookie cards grade out to be a PSA 10, making it 1 of the rarest cards on the market today. There are no sold PSA x listings currently on eBay.
"The blue ink backs and the white gloss front near highlight corner and edge wear. Merely even cards that have been locked abroad untouched in packs or boxes are victims of the mill," says Beckett Senior Vintage Grader, Andy Broome. "Centering plagues this set when it comes to condition. Whether it is diamond cut cards or just-off side-to-side, finding a card with gem mint or better centering is extremely tough. It's that perfect storm of condition that is required for a perfect card."
Total Graded by PSA: 20,866
PSA 10: 24 ($180,100)
PSA ix: 1986 ($6877)
PSA 8: 9680 ($1225)
PSA 7: 5123 ($152)
1993 Topps Gold Derek Jeter ($165 - $5900)
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
Derek Jeter, the "Captain" of the New York Yankees, is about as collectible as they come. A superstar who played his entire career under the large lights of New York City. Jeter was a 14-time All-Star and e'er seemed to play his best baseball in the about clutch spots on the biggest phase. Combine these facts with a full population of only 379 total PSA 10s, and yous can meet why the almost recent ane sold on eBay went for $3,000. However, if you have one of them sitting in a box somewhere, the odds are very low that it will grade out as a PSA 10.
Full Graded by PSA: 5934
PSA 10: 379 ($5900)
PSA nine: 2923 ($410)
PSA 8: 1985 ($165)
1992 Bowman Mariano Rivera ($127.l - $730)
Jason Koeppel // ONE37pm
You can copy and paste everything written about Derek Jeter and fill it in for Rivera. The best relief pitcher of all time, doing it on the biggest phase and thriving in the biggest moments. PSA has graded only 6297 of these cards, however, 1398 of them (22 percent) take come dorsum as PSA 10s. This is by far the highest per centum of any of the half dozen cards listed in this article.
Total Graded by PSA: 6297
PSA 10: 1398 ($730)
PSA nine: 3337 ($188.50)
PSA 8: 1150 ($127.l)
6. What'due south Next for The Baseball Card Market?
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Ane of the nearly fun aspects of collecting baseball cards centers around prospecting and trying to stay ahead of the hobby by buying cards of players that you call back will be break out stars.
I recently wrote this listing of my favorite ten MLB prospects and why I think their cards are good investments. You will notice in this article that cards have changed dramatically since the 80s and 90s. Most of the valuable modernistic cards are typically shiny, colorful and sometimes chrome. Some of them come autographed, with serial numbers and all sorts of variations and refractors.
If you are looking to proceed things bones, Topps still produces their standard sets without all of the bells and whistles. Their most current basic set is Topps Baseball 2021 Series 1. Panini besides makes baseball game cards, however, you volition notice that they do not have an MLB license to use the team logos or uniforms, making Topps and Bowman the top dogs in the baseball card space.
I realize that nosotros have covered quite a few topics in this article and that information technology may seem overwhelming at first with then much to learn. However, if you take the time to acquire the products and eat enough content, you lot tin can get up speed relatively apace.
If y'all have any questions, I would be happy to help. Feel complimentary to reach out to @cardtalkpod on instagram or twitter anytime!
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Source: https://www.one37pm.com/culture/trading-cards/baseball-cards-worth-money
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