The next time someone tells you that base cards from the 90's and 2000's are "worthless", send them a link to this post.
A few months ago I picked up a collection at the flea market and ended up with over 10,000 inserts, parallels, and rookie cards... plus close to 500 memorabilia cards and autographs.
If you're bored, you can read about it here. I It was definitely my finest hobby find.
After the dust settled, here's what was left over (along with some free cards I acquired awhile back on Craigslist)...
Within those boxes were cards ranging from 1987 Topps football to 2010 Upper Deck baseball. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of minor stars and tons of low end rookie cards left inside for someone to find.
I just knew that I didn't want them, which led to my dilemma.
How do I dispose of forty to fifty thousand sports cards?
A. Use them as a tax deduction and donate them to Goodwill.
B. Give them away to my students.
C. Fund my cardboard addiction and sell them on Craigslist.
I decided to test the market and went with the third option. Within 12 hours, I turned these boxes into $100. Not exactly the type of money that will put a person through college, but $100 is better than nothing.
These cards may not have held their value over time, but they're far from "worthless".
Stay tuned. I'll show off the goodies I purchased with the extra cardboard funds.
Happy Monday and sayonara!
12 comments:
I would've suggested Option #1 and #1A... Recycle the cards that are actually printed on cardboard and aren't glossy or foily, and give the rest to Goodwill. When I saw you got $100 for the lot, my eyebrows shot up so high that my hairline receded a tiny bit more.
Looking forward to what $100 buys...
Congrats on the flip!
I've only been mildly successful with moving my extra stuff via yardsales to help pay for moving expenses.
Can't wait to see what you made of it!
If only there would have been choice D.
D. Give them away to the author of the third comment on this post.
Anyways, congrats on the cool $100!
Back in the mid-1990s I donated 30,000 cards to a local children's hospital. I hand packed 1000 team set bags with 30 cards each and pulled them into the hospital in a wagon. I had pre-arranged with someone to drop them off and they gave me a letter for tax purposes. I didn't do it for that reason, but my tax guy said we could deduct a nickel a card based on beckett...the only time I've thought beckett was ok on pricing. That was a nice $1500 deduction off my tax bill that year. I checked back with the same hospital two years later to see if they wanted some more cards and they were STILL giving out the ones I had donated previously. It was a good feeling to know so many kids had a little package of cards while in the hospital.
I'd say you made out quite well with the entire purchase.
I've been scouring craigslist, ebay, etc. for collections like this to purchase myself. Probably wouldn't have paid a Benjamin though....nice work.
Trust me... I was shocked too.
Not a bad idea... but shipping would have been insane ;-)
That's pretty awesome. Maybe I'll do that with my next round, since I probably have another 15k to 25k sitting in my buddy's garage.
I would have taken less... I just wanted to get rid of them.
congrats on the flip, you must have been going crazy going though 90's base cards by the time you were all done...how much of all that did you wind up keeping for yourself?
I ended up with a lot...
3k to 4k football rookies
2k to 3k football inserts/parallels
2k to 3k basketball rookies
1.5k to 2k basketball inserts/parallels
750 to 1k hockey rookies
500 to 750 hockey inserts/parallels
600 to 700 relics & autographs (mostly football & basketball)
Plus enough star cards to keep my students happy and my flea market business running for awhile.
The only downside is that most of the stuff was from the mid 90's to the mid 2000's. There weren't too many new stuff included. Plus I showed up a little too late... because someone else had just purchased the guy's baseball stuff.
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