Garage Sales and Estate Sales

Browntoni

Do any of you ever peruse the garage sales and estate sales in your areas for boxes of cards or old collections? I remember going to flea markets and antique stores 10-15 years ago and buying great old stuff. Seems as if ebay and PSA have taken away the ability to find good deals like the old days.

Any suggestions on how to buy large lots before they hit the auction sites. Thanks.

jerster

Its all luck!

I haven't run across any sizable decent "find" in my area in years.

Jerster

FB

I gotta agree with Jerster.

Not much of anything at garage sales anymore - and anytime you come across something - they think that its gold! My wife is a garage sale junky - and I have to say that I'd enjoy it more if there were a few more card finds. I'm not greedy - maybe one per month...

Had one good find last year - I picked up a run of Kellogg's sets, a bunch of 70 and 71 Supers and some other oddball stuff from an advanced autograph collector whose wife said "ENOUGH!!! - Sell some of this before you buy more!!!".

diamantedude

It's bone dry at garage sales, swap meets, heck even storage auctions don't have them. The best bet is to open a baseball card shop on the side and buy collections in-store or through advertising, but who wants to do that?

Browntoni

I thought about advertising, but could not really get a feel for whether or not anyone responded to ads.

uniship

I've advertised once or twice each year for the past 4 years. The last 2 ads have yielded ZERO. The first 4 or so ads yielded something - but nothing close to a motherload. A couple of nice finds, but nothing like Mr. Mint or even the recent BMW finds which seem amazing. I still try to plug away. I am still trying to find that one awesome collection of vintage cards - in any condition for that matter.

FB

The last ad that I ran in the regional newspaper - I received one call from an elderly woman that was selling her sons Yankee card collection. It was around 1992 and her son was 55 at the time. So, I hightailed it over to her place and sure enough - she had every Bowman Yankee from 1948 to 1952 and a few Topps Yankees from 52 and 53 (No 52 Mick though) in roughly EXMT condition.

Each and every card was glued onto 2 - 2'x3' pieces of cardboard. And not just a dab of glue... little Timmy wanted to make sure that those cards never ever came off, so he covered the entire back.

I was sick for a week.

Virtualizard

<< <i>...Each and every card was glued onto 2 - 2'x3' pieces of cardboard. And not just a dab of glue... little Timmy wanted to make sure that those cards never ever came off, so he covered the entire back.

I was sick for a week. >>



That's why I use push pins - much easier to relocate cards.

JEB.

interchanges

I used to do shows and advertise just before hand that I would be buying, as well as hit garage sales, and FB is right. Everyone thinks that their stash of VG commons and semi-stars are GOLD!

It's hardly worth advertising anymore. People call you all hours of the night thinking their early 80's stash they set aside is going to pay for their kid's college.

Comics are the same way. word got out long ago that they're valuable and people think whatever they have is going to be the equivilent of hitting the lottery.
Significant "finds" are on everyone's wish list, but reality will keep them in dreamland.
I'm not saying no one will come across anything decent, estate, or garage sale wise, but is does become evident it's not really worth the time. (for me anyway)

Mitochondria

I placed a small ad in Little Rock about 5 years ago and I received a sorts of calls. The ad basically asked for cards pre-1980, and I got calls from people all the time either not knowing what year their cards were or having cards that were in fair condition. In addition, I met my share of "testy" folks who thought they were sitting on buried treasures.

A local baseball card shop in North Little Rock came across some nice finds (vintage cards as well as unopened packs). I recall walking in there one weekend to see that they purchased unopened rack packs from 1968, 1969 and 1970. They evidently sold a boat load on e-Bay before I arrived and I bought the last four 1969 rack packs they had left. Unfortunately, I did not have enough to buy the 1968 and 1970 packs as well. In any event, their store paid off for them in that people knew where to go to sell their "finds".

Ron

GoSoxBoSox

I had a decent find last summer. It was a word of mouth find. The guy that cuts my hair knows I'm a collector so he turned me on to a friend of his that's 72 years old. The guys wife wanted his stuff OUT (as he put it)!!

The guy is an LPGA board member. He sold me everything he owns for a low 4-figure number. The find included the entire 1940 & 1941 Playball sets, a load of Bowman's from 1948 - 1951, 68 HOF autographed baseballs, 3 autographed jersey's (Aaron, Mays, Ryan), tons of autographed pictures and flats from HOFers, and just about every card of every baseball HOFer from 1963 and 1990.

I was in heaven for 2 months going through the stuff. My wife however.....she's still pissed!!

goodriddance189

ive stopped trying with flea markets, garage sales, estate sales, etc long ago. i think the last deal i found was a mid 1960s Max McGee Packers pennant i got for 10 bucks.....i think i sold it for something like $12.

I have had some luck with buying large lots (either older stuff or newer jersey/auto etc) on ebay and turning around and selling the cards individually. a few times i have made a good chunk of change, but usually it isnt worth breaking them up and taking the time to sell em all.

purelyPSA

I'm a PA native, and in that part of the country it seems that there are literally dozens of estate sales a weekend. I used to go through the listings thouroughly; some of the stuff I came across was a '68 Cards ball with a nice Maris sig that I bought for 24 bucks, "opened" vending boxes of '80 Topps cards that were mostly commons, except for the 7 Henderson rookies ($4) and a few other nice $100 or so values I picked up for minimum bid. Someone else had a vintage Wes Covington flannel jersey that I went for under $100 (which was over my budget even then, as I was still in HS). I quit looking because of time constraints, but I think that while picking up cards this way might be a bad idea, you could still find some nice memorabilia. I found that the auctioneers of such items had no idea what they had.

gemint

I haven't bothered with the flea market/yard sale route for years since the effort required vs the likelyhood of success is extremely low. When I was a kid in the early 80's, my mom took me to a flea market when I lived in PA. There was a dealer there who sold cards every weekend. Fortunately I passed over all his Fernando and Tim Raines rookies and locked onto an album of vintage cards he had for sale. I bugged my mom all day to buy it. I think he wanted $40 for the binder but my mom offered $20 after getting fed up with my complaining. He took out a few cards like a Marichal rookie and sold the rest to me. I held them for several years and then submitted some of the nicer cards when the grading fad hit. That album produced a PSA 8 1965 Harmon Killebrew, a PSA 8 1966 Jim Hunter and a PSA 8 1967 Ernie Banks. I still remember another dealer at that flea market who was selling a 1952 Mantle in about EX condition for $800. Of course $800 was like a million bucks for a 12 year old kid!