baseball cards Archives - Lazy Man and Money

The follow is an article by staff writer, Kosmo

I began collecting baseball cards when I was a kid. One of the first cards I remember having was a 1985 Gary Gaetti card that a friend gave to me. I have no idea what happened to this card – I assume I traded it at some point, since I’m not a Twins fan. Another early card I had was a 1985 Ryne Sandberg card. Sandberg is my all-time favorite player. My cousin gave me this card. It’s well worn, but it’s still prominently displayed in one of my albums. I could replace it with a better copy for a few bucks, but I’ve kept this one to remember that it was a gift.

This is a Ryne Sandberg 1983 Fleer, not a 1985 Sandberg

I fondly remember collecting the 1993 Topps set. There were “black gold” special cards that year. I kept pulling cards that could be redeemed for sets of 11, 22, or 44 of the special cards. I didn’t really care for them, and traded them (at book value) to my friend Justin for unopened packs of cards. Many times those packs contained winners, which I would again trade to Justin. I ended up putting together two complete sets of the 1993 Topps set for a total investment of about $5. My godson (and nephew) was born in 1993, so I gave one set to his parents to give to him when he was older.

The inevitable market crash came – due in large part to the companies printing cards like they were the Weimar-era German mint. The market became flooded to the point where supply exceeded demand, and the cards of this era became just pieces of cardboard with pictures of players. Editor’s Note: The Economist has a great article on the baseball card bubble.

I still collect today, but in a different way than I did 25 years ago. I don’t try to put together complete sets. I pick up a few cards for the current players I like, and I buy occasional cards from decades past. I don’t buy too often, but when I do, it’s far more likely like I’ll buy a card from pre-1950 than from the current day.

Over the years, I’ve had a couple of people give me their entire collections. At some point, many people outgrow the hobby and simply need to storage space. Luckily, I’ve always been able to find the space.

In the cache of cards I got from a friend, I discovered that I had a complete Topps set from 1976. In the condition it’s in, it’s probably worth a couple hundred bucks.

Instead of selling the set, I decided to go a different route – I decided to give it away. I decided to give away a team set to a fan of each team. There were 24 baseball teams at the time (currently, there are 30). I switched allegiances from the Cubs to the Rockies in 1993, so I actually don’t have a team represented in the set. I’m going to keep the Cardinals set for my seven year old, and gave the Cubs set to the 10 year old across the street. The other 22 went (and are still going) to people I’ve gotten to know over the internet. Some of these are people I’ve interacted with for a decade or more and some I’ve only become acquainted with more recently. I’m going to cripple the Brewers set by taking the Hank Aaron card – because I don’t have any Aaron cards, and I want one – but all the other sets will be complete.

My out of pocket cost for this venture is about $3.60 per team. The boxes cost about 85 cents (including the shipping costs) in bulk, and it costs $2.76 for postage.

The Red Sox cards went to a personal finance blogger who walks dogs to make a few bucks and is a big fan of the New England Patriots. Editor’s Note: That guy sounds like a jerk ;-). What’s especially cool is that I was born in 1976..
The Expos set went to a prominent sports writer who is perhaps the best known Expos fan in the world. Those of you who are baseball fans may know who I’m talking about.
The Reds set – absolutely loaded with stars from the Big Red Machine of the 1970s – went to a pastor in Indiana.
A college baseball coach in New Jersey got the Oakland A’s set. His dad happened to be in town to help with a household move, and they spent some time reminiscing about guys like Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers.
A guy who advises congress on matters related to pensions was the recipient of the Phillies set. Although I never asked for anything in return, he sent me a hat for a local minor league team.

There are plenty more stories about where the cards went, but the key point is that they went somewhere where they were appreciated, instead of cluttering up my storage room. Sure, I could have cashed in and made a few bucks, but I was able to send gifts to a couple dozen people instead, at a fairly low out of pocket cost.

You might ask why I’m going this? Not only am I giving up the ability to sell the set, but I’m spending money to give it away. Well, I am getting something out of it. I’m getting some entertainment value out of the process. I enjoy seeing people receive their small gift and gush about how cool the cards of their favorite players are.

And you, reader, are also a part of this story. The Great Baseball Card Giveaway eventually turned into this article. I get paid by Lazy Man, who in turn gets paid whenever you use his links to buy things. So, in a way, you are helping to fund my giveaway. A couple dozen complete strangers thank you.

What Kosmo doesn’t know is that more than 5 years ago, when I lived in California, I found a small collection of around 100 cards for sale at a flea market. It was mostly hockey and football players who weren’t as heavily printed and collected as baseball cards. I probably would have skipped it, but I saw one particular card (pictured in this article) that I thought a friend would like. Like many things in my life, I put it aside and forgot about it. Maybe, he’ll get a surprise back in the mail.

Confession time! I’m a collector.

My collecting habit started innocently with bottle caps. I may have been 4, 5, or 6 – my mother probably knows better than me. I would go on bottle cap hunts while my older brother was in little league. I had filled up a few tubs that had to have been at least a couple gallons each… or maybe they were smaller. I’ve come to realize that my memory of size at age 4 was different than at age 24.

I was 100% focused on finding new bottle caps that I hadn’t seen before.

At some point, maybe from 7-10, I moved on from bottle caps to coins. Specifically, pennies. I tried to have one from every mint from 1900 to present. That was only 80+ years at the time. My favorite was the 1943 steel pennies. Who ever heard of a steel penny? That’s nuts. In all the searches my loose change, I couldn’t find the rare bronze 1943 penny. I have some nickels and some dimes, but buying pennies at coin dealers fit my 8-year old budget best.

I was 50% focused on collecting every penny and 50% focused on the value that the coins would have some day.

In 1987, age 11, I started to collect baseball cards. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but it surely fueled by watching the 1986 World Series with my father. I remember my father negotiating with my mother some kind of nap schedule so I could cheer on the Red Sox with him.

Back to 1987, my favorite player was this player named McGwire. I had seen his name at the top of the leaderboard with 3 homeruns. It was crazy for a rookie to have that kind of start. For the next 3-4 years, I collected every kind of baseball card imaginable. My birthday and Christmas presents were complete sets from Topps, Donruss, and Fleer. I continued to collect McGwire cards though. It turned out that he was talented. By 1991 when my baseball card collecting phase ended, I had over 200 different Mark McGwire cards. Baseball fans know the highs and lows that followed.

I was 50% focused on the riches that collecting baseball cards would bring and 50% focused on the cards made my passion (following Major League Baseball) even more enjoyable.

I don’t remember collecting much for the rest of high school. In college, I collected CD. Columbia House, BMG, and a young woman, played a large role in that. My collection of Aerosmith bootlegs and demos are second to my Mark McGwire collection. I try to work the phrase, “You’re one step away from walking on Danger Street” into conversation every couple of months.

I don’t think I had any particular focus (other than the woman).

Music CDs are the last thing I can remember collecting.

You must be asking: That’s great, but what’s the point?

I recently came across this article in The Economist about baseball card collecting being a classic financial bubble. It stirred up all those thoughts from 30 years ago about how those baseball cards were going to be worth millions someday.

If you are a baseball fan or an investor of any kind, it’s a great read.

Baseball cards aren’t the only bubble. Here are some examples of similar bubbles from children’s toys: Cabbage Patch Kids, Tickle Me Elmo, Beanie Babies, and Pogs. There are probably a few more that I’m forgetting.

I find it interesting that these things are all consumer-driven bubbles. People may have collected because they thought they’d have a greater value in the future. Also there was some scarcity at the time. The scarcity became unimportant because the companies could simply create more supply to meet demand and put money in their own pockets. With baseball cards, more and more companies popped-up cashing on selling a few cheap cardboard pictures for a buck or more.

I tried to think of what today’s collectible bubble is. I couldn’t come up with anything. I asked my wife and she couldn’t think of anything either. Her thought was that everyone is watching HGTV and trying to have a minimalist lifestyle. I can’t argue against that, but I wonder if that’s just in my social bubble or if it’s a nationwide trend.

Hopefully she’s right. We don’t need people losing their savings over some cardboard or a cheap stuffed animal.

Your Turn

Have you been a collector? Are you still a collector? Have you seen your collection go up in value?

I want to read all the details in the comments.

The Great Baseball Card Regifting

Ask the Readers: Are You a Collector?

Your Turn