How Do You Decide What And How To Collect?

When you start collecting it can be a lot more fun if you pick a team, player or set to collect rather than trying to collect everything.

For instance an extreme would be a friend of mine who would collect the autographs of coaches. He had first base coaches, third base coaches and even bullpen coaches. He would either get a rare card or send to them asking them for an autograph. It was a very unique collection.

You can also pick a particular product and try to complete the entire set.

I know someone else who gets the first card of every set that comes out. He has a #1 for just about every set since 2000 in baseball cards.

You might just want to collect players from your favorite team or of your favorite player. A collection of just Greg Maddux or Albert Pujols cards would be quite valuable.

Do you have a special collection? I'd love to hear about it.

Why is a Mother Teresa Autograph in a pack of Baseball cards?

In 2007 a Mother Teresa cut autograph card was found in a box of 2007 Topps Allen & Ginter's. It sold for over $10,000. The product it was in was a baseball product.

What kid opening a pack of baseball cards would be excited about getting a Mother Teresa card rather than an Albert Pujols card?! The answer is none.

The sports card companies Topps and Upper Deck have gone in the wrong direction trying to improve the hobby.

They have given up on trying to get kids to buy the cards and are just going after the adult market. What they fail to realize is that without the kid market there is no future market. Its short sited.

There are no longer cheap products that kids can get for a $1 a pack. Everything is $5-30 a pack now. What kid can spend money on a pack of cards anymore?

It was about wanting to grow up to be Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron or Willie Mays at one time. Now if a kid gets into card collecting he is dreaming of being the next Warren Buffett.

While it is nice to have a kid want to be the next Warren Buffett maybe that should be left to his parents and the school system and not the card companies trying to make him feel his cards have to be kept in a pristine case.

How many people remember when we played with our baseball cards? Flipping, bike spokes or just carrying it in our pockets.

If I buy a pack of baseball cards I want baseball players and not Mother Teresa or George Clooney or Grover Cleveland.

This is a plea to Upper Deck and Topps...Make Card Collecting fun again!

Guide To Pricing Your Baseball Cards

If you want to know how to find out the price of your cards for any sports card you need to go to http://www.beckett.com/ Beckett magazine is the card that everyone in the trading community uses as their guideline.

Some will use other guides like Tuff Stuff but do not be fooled as Beckett is the gold standard.

You can get a price on any card that you have at Beckett.

The internet guide is much easier to understand as you can just put in the name of your card rather than having to search the magazine for the price.

The website and the magazine will also keep you up to date on the latest news in the hobby.

Baseball Card Horror Stories

Everyone tells how their mother threw out their baseball cards. When they do this they lament how if they had them they would be rich today.

What no one realizes is that if we had all the cards that were thrown out then they would have no value. Its because they were thrown out that they got their value.

Today everyone saves them and the market is flooded with them and the value is not the same.

For me it was my father who threw them out. He was moving and I told them I would pick them up at his new apartment. I told him not to forget them but he did. That's how it goes sometimes.

Do you have a horror story about your cards being thrown out?

Rooting for Sports Teams or Corporations?

I've begun to wonder why we root for sports teams. There was a time when it was about the game and hero worship. Now its all about money and corporations. When you root for the New York Yankees or the Pittsburgh Pirates you are rooting for a company. The players even the ones that play poorly are paid 6 - 7 figure salaries. I read an article today that said Manny Ramirez is getting ONLY 42 million a year instead of 45 million. People are going hungry around the country and Manny is only getting 42 million. Poor guy. How much do the owners make per year? What no one discusses is how over paid Bud Selig the commissioner of baseball who makes in the millions per year. Under his watch we have witnessed the steroid boom.
Why do we stay fans when the people who run sports are abusing us?
Another example would be the NBA giving the contract for basketball card to Pannini and Italian company rather than an American company. Its a game created in the US. The commissioner of basketball David Stern can only think of the European market and the money that draws rather than the fan who comes to the games in the US. Something is very wrong with the picture.
The prices for tickets to a game are out of reach for most people now as are the concessions. The only ones going to games now are the wealthy. Less and less kids are fans of sports everyday and the reason is they don't get to see any games in person anymore. They can't afford a pack of cards anymore either. The system is money driven now and not for the fan.
Even the players make you sad to be a fan. Pedro Martinez said, that he would not play for $1 million a year. He would rather go fishing. Pedro says he has enough money to be happy. Then why play for a million or more? He doesn't care about playing but about money.
The system is broken.

Baseball Cards Only. No Celebrities or Presidents!

The new 2009 SPX is out today and I don't know about other fans of sports cards but isn't it annoying when you get a box of baseball, basketball, football or hockey cards and you get celebrity autographs, material or common cards.
A box of baseball cards should be just that and nothing else. If your a baseball fan you want baseball cards and not cards of a long dead President like Grover Cleveland or an autograph by Carrot Top.

Sports Cards and Steroids

Has the steroids admission of Alex Rodriguez affected your card buying?
Were you a fan of Bonds, ARod, Clemens or McGwire and stop buying their cards or did it have no affect?
The players are taking the brunt of the abuse but the owners and Bud Selig should be getting the majority of the blame. They could see by the size of Sosa and McGwire and the sudden increase of home runs that something was wrong but they did nothing because both Sosa and McGwire solved the Major League financial problems with their home run chase of Roger Maris.
Why doesn't the press question the owners and investigate them rather than giving all their attention to the players?