Check your basements

[Coolbreeze44]

I love stories like that. Still lament all the cards my Mom threw away because she thought it was a useless collection.

Yep. I held onto my Tops Baseball and Football cards for about 20 years and then actually chucked them myself a while back during one of my moves. I didn't have any great (rookie cards) and the ones I had were pretty beat up from my games as a kid and the moves/storage as an adult. I'd bet many posters on here still have cards though....what sports, brands years you holding onto and what is your best (valuable) card?

To make money, you literally have to buy stuff and never open the packages or touch them. Good luck getting an 8 year old Carlos Danger not to open up his baseball card packs and eat that delicious (crunchy) gum!

My greatest collections are Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News Magazines from circa 1972 - 1977. I still have virtually every issue and they are in near perfect condition. When they were delivered each week I was a young kid, yet I still made sure no pages were bent and that they were filed away in a box that kept them like new. Two things keep the value down: 1) The address tags on the front cover 2) The absence of autographs. Wish I had the time to tour the country and get some of them signed before the majority of athletes die off. Autographed copies make the value skyrocket.

Interesting. What sort of value do you think that collection has today? I was always a poor collector in that regard. Probably the most expensive things I had sold were my old Tonka Trucks/Bulldozers etc. I had got them when I was a little older and getting into sports - so I never really played with them as a kid. They were in my parents basement forever and my brother took them to an auction a while back and sold them for like $75 bucks each. I had no idea people would pay for stuff like that. Now with eBay, I guess I should try to sell everything vs. throw things out!

It's hard to say what it's all worth. The last time I checked about 5 years ago I believe I figured around $5k. Some of the issues are far more valuable than others, the Ali ones for instance. The hard thing to communicate to prospective buyers is just how great of shape they're in. I mean they are literally in brand new condition without even bent corners.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I remember as a kid getting on my bike (gasp - without a helmet on!) and making the 1-mile trip up to the strip mall on top of the hill where they had a drug store. I'd buy the baseball cards, immediately open them, and stuff the gum in my mouth. Then I'd take them home and rifle through them, studying each card of someone I actually recognized carefully. Then I'd stuff them in an old shoebox with rubber bands holding groups of cards together.

It wasn't until I was an older teenager that I realized there were people that actually curated these things. I had two younger cousins that would ever-so-carefully remove the cards and place them one-by-one into protective plastic folders. Then they would scurry to some special book they had that listed out the going rate for cards of certain players. That was all new to me.

Well, I still have that shoebox full of cards. Needless to say, I don't think they're worth much. And I'm OK with that.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Q, I was that kid... The one who put his best cards in protective sleeves and then into a plastic page that contained 9 card slots. If they were super rare, I'd put them in protective sleeves and then hard plastic sleeves. That's likely why I still have all mine today... still where I put them a decade-plus ago. Fascinating when I think back that I had the presence of mind to do that. One of the few things I was organized about.

[Monster]

The cards that honestly were the hardest to give up were the ones worth the least because they were the oldest ones that were beat up quite a bit from being looked through countless times and used in some sort of made up games my brother played. We were a pretty frugal family but my mom figured every couple weeks she could afford to buy my brother and I each a pack of cards and it was probably a very wise move it kept is busy and was one thing we didn't fight over and actually enjoyed together which was pretty rare. lol

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Q, I was that kid... The one who put his best cards in protective sleeves and then into a plastic page that contained 9 card slots. If they were super rare, I'd put them in protective sleeves and then hard plastic sleeves. That's likely why I still have all mine today... still where I put them a decade-plus ago. Fascinating when I think back that I had the presence of mind to do that. One of the few things I was organized about.

Cousin Bertrand, is that you!? Nah, can't be Bertie. I think you are younger than him. ;-)

Yeah, I was a purist. I just loved the gum and looking at the cards. I never thought that they might be worth something some day.

I also had a bottle cap collection. My instincts were wrong on that too....

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

The cards that honestly were the hardest to give up were the ones worth the least because they were the oldest ones that were beat up quite a bit from being looked through countless times and used in some sort of made up games my brother played. We were a pretty frugal family but my mom figured every couple weeks she could afford to buy my brother and I each a pack of cards and it was probably a very wise move it kept is busy and was one thing we didn't fight over and actually enjoyed together which was pretty rare. lol

I will NEVER give up my Robbie Hummel rookie card. It's framed on my nightstand, right next to my wedding photo. (there might be some photos of kids on there too, but I can't remember).

[Monster]

The cards that honestly were the hardest to give up were the ones worth the least because they were the oldest ones that were beat up quite a bit from being looked through countless times and used in some sort of made up games my brother played. We were a pretty frugal family but my mom figured every couple weeks she could afford to buy my brother and I each a pack of cards and it was probably a very wise move it kept is busy and was one thing we didn't fight over and actually enjoyed together which was pretty rare. lol

I will NEVER give up my Robbie Hummel rookie card. It's framed on my nightstand, right next to my wedding photo. (there might be some photos of kids on there too, but I can't remember).

I don't have anything quite that exciting. How many packs did you have to buy to get that card?!?!?

I have some sports memorabilia that I won't give up. I have my ticket stub from when my brother and I went to KC to see Molitor's 3,000th which was a triple. I have my stuff from going to the last Vikings game at the Metrodome. My parents still have some stuff from when the Twins won the WS although I might give that stuff up or at least eat the Wheaties out of the box. Jk My wife is cool she actually has a homer hankie.

I probably do need to thin out some of the Husker stuff I have from various events I've gone to the last couple years. It's great in some cases to be able to take pics of stuff then let it go.

[Carlos Danger]

I remember as a kid getting on my bike (gasp - without a helmet on!) and making the 1-mile trip up to the strip mall on top of the hill where they had a drug store. I'd buy the baseball cards, immediately open them, and stuff the gum in my mouth. Then I'd take them home and rifle through them, studying each card of someone I actually recognized carefully. Then I'd stuff them in an old shoebox with rubber bands holding groups of cards together.

It wasn't until I was an older teenager that I realized there were people that actually curated these things. I had two younger cousins that would ever-so-carefully remove the cards and place them one-by-one into protective plastic folders. Then they would scurry to some special book they had that listed out the going rate for cards of certain players. That was all new to me.

Well, I still have that shoebox full of cards. Needless to say, I don't think they're worth much. And I'm OK with that.

I was exactly like you in that regard. Save my pennies. Buy a pack of cards (I don't recall how much it was back then, but it was within my meager reach). Rip open packs. Chew that brittle, crunchy gum and study the cards. Then I used to make up games and line cards up to form teams on the "field" which was our living room floor. Kept me busy for a long time. And yeah, rubber bands and shoe box was the storage method of choice. I remember when I went to college, I got my first reality check on the collecting game. I decided I might as well pawn them to get some beer money (they were all 10-15 years old at that point). They studied them and said "well, these are your most valuable, but this have bent corners and frayed edges, so I can't give you much. I was like "what?" I had no idea some people literally put them into protective sleeves from day one. Anyone who did that was one enterprising sumbitch as far as I'm concerned - lol.

To me, it actually became less interesting when they started making stuff specifically for collecting. All the other brands that came along (like Cam mentions Fleer, Upper Deck etc.), I really had no interest in. Topps was it for me as those other brands came along when I was a little older.

One last funny story. When I was in like 2nd or 3rd grade (1970's), my grade school teacher realized we liked collecting cards and told us her son had tons of them taking up space in her basement. She brought them in to give to us. I remember they were Topps from like the 1950s and they were bigger sized than normal cards. Oh - and It was like Roger Maris, Willie Mays, Micky Mantle etc. LOL! We all grabbed what we could get our hands on because we'd never seen anything like that (not knowing their value). Well, the next day, our teacher politely asked for them all back as apparently her son had found out about her giving away his cards and was not pleased! I wonder what those are worth today? I'm guessing kids these days don't have much interest in trading cards.

[whatdtcom [enjin:6685945]]

I use to collect cards in the 80s-early 90s.

Skip the whole 1995-2010 time frame as I was trying to establish myself. There's just too many items to collect!!!!!

[AbeVigodaLive]

I have full sets of Topps baseball cards from 1981 - 1990.

The plan was always to save them long enough to give to my kids someday. The truth is they'll probably pawn them immediately and throw a keg party with the money.