Baseball Cards: Help me restore my youth.

[kevstreet]

Back in college I had a bit of sports betting problem. The problem was that I wasn't very good at it. The end came when I basically had to sell my baseball card collection to get out of the hole.

In approximately two months my wife will be delivering (God willing) a baby boy. I'm kind of sad that I don't have all of my baseball cards so that I could give them to my son someday.

So I want to rebuild my collection a little bit at a time. I've been out of the game for a looong time. A lot has changed, PSA grading, E-Bay, etc. So I'm lost.

Is there anything I should be looking out for? Are there any pitfalls using E-Bay? I'm leaning towards purchasing cards that are graded, is it worth it?

Now a list of cards I'd like back and some new ones. Again I think I want the cards to be graded 8 or better.

What should I pay for (or expect to pay for):

1955, 1957, 1960 Roberto Clemente
1980 Ricky Henderson
1968 Johnny Bench
1993 Jeter Upper Deck

1966 Gale Sayers
1989 Barry Sanders

I can't afford a Gretzky or Jordan rookie, what do you think my best option would be for them besides their rookies?

OK, this list should keep me busy for a while. I know there are a lot of questions but some of you may be able to rattle this stuff off of the top of your head.

If you have a minute to help, I'd appreciate it.

[tdarko]

kevstreet,

You will obviously find 8 or better graded cards but damn its tough to keep them there. I took near perfect care of my 86-87 Jordan rookie and from the human eye it looks near mint--there is a tiny white mark on the bottom right hand corner and that's it. It came back 9-centering, 8.5-edges, 8.5-surface, 6.5-corners: 7 total= Near Mint. Which is a nice score and all but I think I got screwed on the grade, before I got it sent in I had it looked at two places just for an opinion and they both said the same thing, "looks like an 8 but the graders can be very fishy." They told me stories of opening old school packs and immediately sending off two fresh out of the pack cards for grade that look identical and both came back 2 grades apart.

I sent mine to Beckett to get graded and had thought about sending it to PSA for a re-grade but then decided against in case they gave it a worse grade! Near Mint is good enough for me.

[vin17]

t,

What's the book on the Jordan?

[kevstreet]

[ QUOTE ]
kevstreet,

You will obviously find 8 or better graded cards but damn its tough to keep them there. I took near perfect care of my 86-87 Jordan rookie and from the human eye it looks near mint--there is a tiny white mark on the bottom right hand corner and that's it. It came back 9-centering, 8.5-edges, 8.5-surface, 6.5-corners: 7 total= Near Mint. Which is a nice score and all but I think I got screwed on the grade, before I got it sent in I had it looked at two places just for an opinion and they both said the same thing, "looks like an 8 but the graders can be very fishy." They told me stories of opening old school packs and immediately sending off two fresh out of the pack cards for grade that look identical and both came back 2 grades apart.

I sent mine to Beckett to get graded and had thought about sending it to PSA for a re-grade but then decided against in case they gave it a worse grade! Near Mint is good enough for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you, I will definitely keep that in mind.

Do you think buying cards off of e-bay is a good idea?

[nyc999]

[ QUOTE ]
kevstreet,

You will obviously find 8 or better graded cards but damn its tough to keep them there. I took near perfect care of my 86-87 Jordan rookie and from the human eye it looks near mint--there is a tiny white mark on the bottom right hand corner and that's it. It came back 9-centering, 8.5-edges, 8.5-surface, 6.5-corners: 7 total= Near Mint. Which is a nice score and all but I think I got screwed on the grade, before I got it sent in I had it looked at two places just for an opinion and they both said the same thing, "looks like an 8 but the graders can be very fishy." They told me stories of opening old school packs and immediately sending off two fresh out of the pack cards for grade that look identical and both came back 2 grades apart.

I sent mine to Beckett to get graded and had thought about sending it to PSA for a re-grade but then decided against in case they gave it a worse grade! Near Mint is good enough for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've heard some shady stories about PSA grading. For instance, the dealers who send a high volume of cards will get higher gradings than low volume people with identical cards, etc.

[kevstreet]

OK, I won't put too much emphasis on the psa grading.

When I was collecting I went by the Beckett price books for costs of cards, what is used now? Can you count on e-bay sellers to provide some sort of guidance to what cards are worth?

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
OK, I won't put too much emphasis on the psa grading.

When I was collecting I went by the Beckett price books for costs of cards, what is used now? Can you count on e-bay sellers to provide some sort of guidance to what cards are worth?

[/ QUOTE ]

The basic rule of thumb from what I've seen is that a PSA or Beckett grade of 8 is approximately the same as the price listed in the Beckett price guide. Any grade higher than that, and you start to pay a bit of a premium.

Now, as for eBay, overall I do think you can trust most of the sellers on there. That's with a few caveats. Here are some tips that I would utilize:

- Check the user feedback. This seems really elementary, but what's important is to actually read the comments people leave. A user with 10k+ feedbacks is bound to have a few negatives, so it's important to see what they are. Did they have a couple auctions with shipping problems? Or are there complaints about mis-graded cards, or bait and switch types of things? In the positive feedback, do people specifically reference getting a great graded card, etc? Most of the time you can glance through a few pages of feedback and look at some of their past transactions to get a feel for the legitimacy.

- Check out their other auctions. This is something that's more important when it comes to buying unopened materials like I do, but basically you want to just check and see if the auction you're looking at is similar to the range of items that they sell. A lot of times you'll see dealers selling tons of graded cards, etc, so you can get a feel for just how many graded cards they deal with.

- Stick with PSA and Beckett grades. I ignore any of the other random grading services. While there certainly are certainly quirks about the grades of both services, the fact of the matter is each of them sell for the best prices per grade, so they've been adopted as the industry standard for the most part.

- Check the grading number of the card. If you can't see the PSA or Beckett assigned serial number for the graded card, ask the seller. I haven't done this for a long time, but I know in the past you could go to the Beckett or PSA web site and check the serial number, which can help confirm that the card is legitimate.

Just a few things to keep in mind. I think buying graded cards is the way to go, and you should be able to find grades in the 7-8 range for those cards relatively easy (well, except for the Clemente's possibly)

My 2 cents.

[tdarko]

"What's the book on the Jordan?"

I actually don't know exactly and I haven't paid much attention in a long time. I have seen 9's on ebay as high as 1500 and a 10 for an outrageous amount that was even sold. I have seen 8's sell in the 700's. These numbers were from about a year ago when I had my card graded and I was curious about mine. And all of these numbers are over the "book price" I think, which is like 650...but I also haven't looked at a pricing in a very long time so I am not the right person to say.

"Do you think buying cards off of e-bay is a good idea?"

I think it can be. I have a very good friend with a nice collection of quality classics and it was mostly built off ebay. I know what he spent and the amount of effort he took and it was a lot less in both accounts than if he was to hunt down these cards at shows etc. I suck at ebay so am ok with not building a card collection anymore =).

FWIW, I have thought about the whole grading thing a lot and for the most part the average collector or once collector whose cards are now worthless unless shipped off by the crate believe it has ruined card collecting. But we need to remember why there is grading in the first place. Much of the reason was to eliminate the big name cards that were being counterfeited, like the Jordan, Gretzky and Sanders rc's. Grading has eliminated counterfeiting but it has caused a hassle in the process. I blame the [censored] thiefs (cause) that make me hate the newer version of the [censored] thiefs, the graders (effect).

[tdarko]

kevstreet,

Listen to nolanfan he is the best with this stuff.

[kevstreet]

NolanFan, if/when I purchase a card or two off of e-bay would you mind if I posted them (or pm'd you) to see if I took a bath or not? I'll only do it for one or two just to make sure I feel comfortable w/ the process.

Thanks guys.