I'm a coin collector of PCGS slabs, but I just got thrown into baseball memorabilia
Old_Collector
Posts: 151 ✭✭✭
I've collected coins seriously for years, bought an MS64 1914-D Lincoln PCGS/CAC last week, but nothing ever prepared me for this problem.
Not a card collector in the past, but my best friend died 1 1/2 years ago and his widow called today and wants me to have his card, ball, bat, uniform, and glove collection. He inherited his father and grandfather's collection and as a well known chief of police for 3 decades had access to all the major league players through security that were his former officers, and has all authentications on the big items, but we are talking Ty Cobb/Babe Ruth and many other original cards (thousands), signed WS game pitcher uniforms, complete with gloves, hundreds of signed balls by notable figures going back 4-5 decades. So I need to start learning fast. Is PSA the best way to grade at present -- I have hundreds of high value cards to start with and then all the uniforms, balls, bats, etc. Do they do more than just cards?
She is sending me "some" cards (all in plastic screwed on housings (like Capital coin holder I assume), about a 75 pound box of the best stuff to start, but then I need to take a U-Haul down to get everything else. I'm 69 and this is just nuts.
Any advice appreciated, as I never collected baseball or any cards. I expect that I will sell a lot of it through Heritage where I sell coins, once I spend a few months doing grading and figuring out just what I have. How would this be best approached, I have $5-10K set aside for grading as I know this is important now just like in coins and I will only grade high end stuff.
Thanks in advance.
Comments
Rather than taking the time to grade stuff yourself since we are talking big ticket stuff it seems, I would reach out to heritage directly when you have some in hand or if you can get pictures. If it is of the right value potential, they will take care of having everything graded and authenticated, so all you have to do is cash the check! But generally PSA will be the best for grading the cards and authenticating the autos. There is also a PSA associated (seperate company, but they grade under PSA branding) for bats and gloves! Good Luck and keep us posted on the journey!
Good advice. Once I figure out what is valuable I will contact Heritage. I have a very active coin account there as I buy and sell most weeks. I would assume that they get better turnaround times from PSA than individual collectors. I use GC also and they often have my slabs CAC stickered. Thanks for the ideas. I may keep a card or two, she said that there are multiple excellent condition Walter Johnson and Ty Cobb cards, all early and some not even pictures but drawings, in her call a few minutes ago, sounds good to me. I should get the shipment by Friday and I'll update once I get a good look and will post some pictures if some items look particularly interesting.
Also, it seems that some older cards are connected by perforations but have never been separated, another interesting thing to learn about.
edit: this could turn me into a small time baseball card collector. lol
Heritage actually has a PSA authenticator on-site (or close enough), so they can get autographed items precertified at no charge to you (and the real cert is discounted for the eventual buyer). Not sure how it works for grading cards, though. I’ve sold a game used hat through them too and the LOA was from Heritage, so they can do it all for you.
Jim
Good to know. I thought that I would start auctioning with some cards to generate some cash to pay for some card grading on things that I won't sell right away. Most of the autographed stuff is uniforms, gloves, balls, and bats; the uniforms/gloves will benefit from that and those will go sooner than many of the cards. I get the first shipment of cards later this week, but I don't think that many are autographed. AFAIK most of the oldest cards are not autographed, only the mid, late 1970s or later.
I don't know the details on the uniforms other than one: the full game worn uniform and glove that Tom Glavine wore winning the 6th game of the 1995 WS that she says are autographed and in vacuum sealed bags. I'll know more when I get that stuff next month.
Cards not being autographed is normal. Usually the most valuable old cards are not autographed.
The last 33 Goudey Babe Ruth with autograph in a PSA slab with authentic grade and 7 for the auto sold around $250K compared to a raw auth in the same card probably selling around $3-5K. If you have any old on-card autographs those can sell for a lot of money. Good luck. I look forward to pictures.
She is gathering up box 1 and will ship tomorrow, I look forward to see it too. It will be all cards and signed game worn uniforms apparently with authentication paperwork.
The signed balls will follow early next week. Then she has massive amounts of other stuff that I will need to drive 14 hours to pick it up, she thinks that it will fit in the back of my Suburban, when I can arrange my schedule.
Let's see some pics.....
She is moving very slowly in getting stuff to me but here are a couple of signed game worn uniform shots that I took that I got so far, she has 12-15 more. All the signed cards, baseballs, bats, and posters are still being packed up and she is like a turtle.
