Hey guys,I recently decided to get rid of all of my basketball/baseball cards.
I have 10,000+ from late 80s all the way to 2004. I don't know anything about them or how to value you them nor do i have the time to do the research and sort through them. How could I go about figuring out what is worth money in the lot? Aside from obvious ones like autographs and jersey cards.
Actually without doing research there's really very little you can do, im sure others could point you out to collector websites as well as appraisal sites or some such but you still need to research, there's a few collector/appraisal books out there, perhaps consulting your local library could be a good first step.
I think you have much better chance of striking gold in the 80's-90's cards than with the ones past '00, but that's just my uninformed guess based on how i have seen collectors salivate over 80's cardboard
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i hate to break it to you, but your cards aren't likely worth much.
as sepiriel said, the older cards are more likely to sell, but then again only specific ones. however, i'd say nearly all 90's cards are relatively worthless (>US$2-3 to fans, >US$.50 to others). this is because there were too many card makers, flooding the market. prior to the early '80's, there were only two companies producing cards: topps and fleer. the market was fairly stable, as product was relatively rare. donruss entered in the early '80's, and it didn't screw with the market much. by the beginning of the '90's, the number of companies doubled, then nearly doubled again by the end of the decade. the packs got progressively more expensive as new card stylings were created, pricing them out of the range of the original primary market: kids.
let's say derek jeter were a rookie in '76, '86, or '96 (actual). his '76 rookie would probably be worth in the $20-$30 range, '86 $15-20, and '96 $5-10.
the sports card market is fairly dead, and has been for quite some time.
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Well in that case should I just toss them? I really hate the clutter. Or should I put the entire lot on ebay and hope to score a couple bucks?
definately don't toss 'em. you'll get something for 'em, just not as much as you would expect (god of cyanide pegged it = the Baseball card market became saturated in the late-80's thru the 90's (Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Upperdeck, Score, Bowman....)). I'm in the same boat.
And heck, you never know.... X amount of years from now they may be quadruple in price.
Selling the lot on Ebay would probably be your best bet; perhpas going to a card convention will help; however, when I went to one two years ago, most vendors didn't even want to look at my collection just based on what era of cards I had. :/
Another option is to sell bulk packages at a garage sale. When I still collected sports cards, I always found gems at yard sales. Its likely avid collectors do the same, a parent will by some for his/her kid, or a kid will buy some random bulk packs with his/her allowance.
Seriously though, don't just toss 'em away....
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I have 10,000+ from late 80s all the way to 2004. I don't know anything about them or how to value you them nor do i have the time to do the research and sort through them. How could I go about figuring out what is worth money in the lot? Aside from obvious ones like autographs and jersey cards.
I think you have much better chance of striking gold in the 80's-90's cards than with the ones past '00, but that's just my uninformed guess based on how i have seen collectors salivate over 80's cardboard
as sepiriel said, the older cards are more likely to sell, but then again only specific ones. however, i'd say nearly all 90's cards are relatively worthless (>US$2-3 to fans, >US$.50 to others). this is because there were too many card makers, flooding the market. prior to the early '80's, there were only two companies producing cards: topps and fleer. the market was fairly stable, as product was relatively rare. donruss entered in the early '80's, and it didn't screw with the market much. by the beginning of the '90's, the number of companies doubled, then nearly doubled again by the end of the decade. the packs got progressively more expensive as new card stylings were created, pricing them out of the range of the original primary market: kids.
let's say derek jeter were a rookie in '76, '86, or '96 (actual). his '76 rookie would probably be worth in the $20-$30 range, '86 $15-20, and '96 $5-10.
the sports card market is fairly dead, and has been for quite some time.
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definately don't toss 'em. you'll get something for 'em, just not as much as you would expect (god of cyanide pegged it = the Baseball card market became saturated in the late-80's thru the 90's (Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Upperdeck, Score, Bowman....)). I'm in the same boat.
And heck, you never know.... X amount of years from now they may be quadruple in price.
Selling the lot on Ebay would probably be your best bet; perhpas going to a card convention will help; however, when I went to one two years ago, most vendors didn't even want to look at my collection just based on what era of cards I had. :/
Another option is to sell bulk packages at a garage sale. When I still collected sports cards, I always found gems at yard sales. Its likely avid collectors do the same, a parent will by some for his/her kid, or a kid will buy some random bulk packs with his/her allowance.
Seriously though, don't just toss 'em away....
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