The Cardboard Investment

The Flame Reignited

  The year was 2007, I was halfway through college and was given the opportunity to live in an abandoned convenient store apartment that was owned by my friends grandparents. It was across from one of the few manufacturing facilities in the area, and I am sure at one point was a busy store for the workers to grab lunch and a pack of cards for their kids when they went home. The convenient store part was still packed with boxes of old inventory, leftover family relics, freezers, signs and display cases. We were told that if we wanted we could sell anything we found in their and we would split the profits with my friends grandparents. One of the things we stumbled upon was a large box of sports cards from the mid 1970's to the mid 1980's. Included in the box was an old pricing magazine showing the astronomical prices of some of the cards that were in this box. Pulling out multiple Rickey Henderson rookies the magazine was showing these valued at $300 a piece. I thought we had hit the jackpot. I sorted through all the cards and organized them by years and then made stacks of all the cards that appeared to be worth money. This took multiple evenings, but the more I sorted out, the larger the dollar signs were being fabricated in my mind. I had almost all the major rookies from the late 70s and early 80s. Multiples of rookies such as Paul Molitor, Eddie Murray, Ozzie Smith, and Cal Ripken. Loads of cards from hall of famers such as Carl Yastrzemski, George Brett, Robin Yount, Willie Mccovey and Nolan Ryan. The fire for the hobby was reignited.

  Now being more than a decade removed from card collecting, and no longer knowing anyone else involved in the hobby, I took to the internet to find out how I could sell these cards. I stumbled upon a few sites advertising that they were buying collections. I corresponded with a couple, and couldn't fathom selling the cards to someone over the internet who was going to turn around and sell them for more money themselves. One of them wanted me to mail them the cards and they would then send me a check for what they were willing to pay. I didn't know anything about the current card market, but knew that if people were willing to buy them to resell, I could just as easily sell them myself for top dollar. I decided I would try and find a local card shop to sell them too. It would be immediate cash in my hands and the price guide I was referencing showed I had thousands of dollars worth of cards. When I was a kid there was a handful of card shops within an hours drive of my house. The closest one I could find with an online presence was over an hour drive. I loaded the cards up in my car and made the trek to the closest card shop with dreams of stacks of money being presented for the collection.

  Once at the card shop, I inquired if they were buying cards. They were hesitant, but said they were willing to look. I showed them the ones that I thought were the more valuable ones and they quickly flipped through and then politely declined. I couldn't believe it, they were completely uninterested with all these hall of fame player cards and a bunch of rookies. They should be worth even more than what the old price guide had said. I told the shop owner how I had seen that especially the Rickey Henderson's were worth $300 at one point. He gave me a quick history of how cards from the 80's and 90's were no longer worth what they were 10-20 years ago. I was told I would be lucky to get $10-20 per Henderson rookie I had. I wasn't sure what to think of this revelation, but I left disappointed. Despite the disbelief of what I had just been told, I was not deterred by this encounter and continued on with my search for how I would sell these.

  I got back online and through my research found that Ebay was loaded with people selling cards. Some of the cards I had people were asking a lot of money for. I had never sold anything on Ebay and it was still mostly known as a place to sell used garage sale items, but I decided to give it a try. I listed small lots of some of the players and auctioned them off. Some of them sold for pennies and I lost money once paying to have them shipped out. A few I was able to make a little money on, but this was not the thousands of dollars I was expecting. It was a disappointing experience, but I continued to learn about Ebay and how to list, as well as how to actually see how much things are selling for. Quickly I learned that the shop owner was right and most of the cards were selling for a fraction of what they were valued at in the price guide we had found with the cards. There was still enough value there to slowly sell what I had. I was able to move the majority of the cards and come out with a few hundred dollars.

  It seemed a lot had changed since I had left the hobby. The internet had revolutioned how people traded cards, and this opened my eyes to how prevalent most of these cards everyone had were. My love for technology combined with my reignited passion for sports cards, created a new world that I quickly dove head first into.