<< <i>What kind of things am I looking for that may be valuable? >>
With sports cards from the 90s and later, you are looking for the following:
1) Rookie cards. These can often be quite difficult to discern as it's not always obvious which card is a player's first card. Generally, if you look on the back of the card and there's already stats on there from the major leagues, it's not a rookie card. With modern rookies, their first card is usually printed BEFORE they get to the majors and thus wouldn't have any major league stats on it.
2) Autograph cards. Cards autographed by the player, or with a sticker on them autographed by the player. Note that a lot of cards have facsimile autographs on them - these are not collectable. Only cards with hand-signed autos by the player himself are valuable.
3) Game-used cards. These are cards with a chunk of bat, ball, jersey, shoe, base, whatever, on them.
4) Serial-numbered cards. As their name indicates, these are cards with a limited press run, with each card individually numbered. Generally, you need something #'ed to 100 or less to be of any value, unless the card is also autographed or has a jersey on it. If it's JUST a #'ed card, it has to be low-numbered to be valuable.
5) Insert cards. These are often not numbered, but differ from the main set in some way. They usually have some sort of writing on the front indicating the name of the insert set and the numbering on the back will be different as well (i.e. "1 of 5", "R7") as was already mentioned.
<< <i>Big Name Players? >>
For the time frame of the 90s you mentioned, you're looking for:
Roger Clemens Alex Rodriguez Barry Bonds Ken Griffey Jr Greg Maddux Derek Jeter Nomar Garciaparra Mike Piazza Sammy Sosa Mark McGwire
THere's others, true, but those are probably the top guys. I'm sure I missed a few as well.
<< <i>Speciality Type Cards? >>
See my answer above.
<< <i>And also, is there a good, accurate price guide online? >>
You can only search one card at a time unless you want to pay for it, however. But it IS free and it lists every card in every set (basically), unlike their monthly or quarterly guides that only list stars & rookies.
<< <i>I don't know exactly how you can tell what the year of the cards is, but looking at copyright dates, most are from throughout the 90s. >>
The easiest way to tell is by looking at the stats on the back. If the last year of stats is from 1997, the card is a 1998 card. If the last year is 1999, the card is a 2000, etc. Copyright dates won't necessarily work as cards are often printed in the fall before "their year". That is, 2005 cards were already in stores in the fall of 2004.
<< <i> and almost all of the cards are in mint condition, look like they came right out of the packs.. >>
Condition is extremely important on modern cards. Even the slightest ding on a corner, or a card being off-center, will hurt its value a lot.
If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Comments
<< <i>What kind of things am I looking for that may be valuable? >>
With sports cards from the 90s and later, you are looking for the following:
1) Rookie cards. These can often be quite difficult to discern as it's not always obvious which card is a player's first card. Generally, if you look on the back of the card and there's already stats on there from the major leagues, it's not a rookie card. With modern rookies, their first card is usually printed BEFORE they get to the majors and thus wouldn't have any major league stats on it.
2) Autograph cards. Cards autographed by the player, or with a sticker on them autographed by the player. Note that a lot of cards have facsimile autographs on them - these are not collectable. Only cards with hand-signed autos by the player himself are valuable.
3) Game-used cards. These are cards with a chunk of bat, ball, jersey, shoe, base, whatever, on them.
4) Serial-numbered cards. As their name indicates, these are cards with a limited press run, with each card individually numbered. Generally, you need something #'ed to 100 or less to be of any value, unless the card is also autographed or has a jersey on it. If it's JUST a #'ed card, it has to be low-numbered to be valuable.
5) Insert cards. These are often not numbered, but differ from the main set in some way. They usually have some sort of writing on the front indicating the name of the insert set and the numbering on the back will be different as well (i.e. "1 of 5", "R7") as was already mentioned.
<< <i>Big Name Players? >>
For the time frame of the 90s you mentioned, you're looking for:
Roger Clemens
Alex Rodriguez
Barry Bonds
Ken Griffey Jr
Greg Maddux
Derek Jeter
Nomar Garciaparra
Mike Piazza
Sammy Sosa
Mark McGwire
THere's others, true, but those are probably the top guys. I'm sure I missed a few as well.
<< <i>Speciality Type Cards? >>
See my answer above.
<< <i>And also, is there a good, accurate price guide online? >>
Beckett has a good, free price guide online at:
http://www.beckett.com/priceguides/lookup.asp
You can only search one card at a time unless you want to pay for it, however. But it IS free and it lists every card in every set (basically), unlike their monthly or quarterly guides that only list stars & rookies.
<< <i>I don't know exactly how you can tell what the year of the cards is, but looking at copyright dates, most are from throughout the 90s. >>
The easiest way to tell is by looking at the stats on the back. If the last year of stats is from 1997, the card is a 1998 card. If the last year is 1999, the card is a 2000, etc. Copyright dates won't necessarily work as cards are often printed in the fall before "their year". That is, 2005 cards were already in stores in the fall of 2004.
<< <i> and almost all of the cards are in mint condition, look like they came right out of the packs.. >>
Condition is extremely important on modern cards. Even the slightest ding on a corner, or a card being off-center, will hurt its value a lot.
If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Tabe
www.tabe.nu