Looking at old Beckett Prices.......

BigRedMachine

Loved the thread with the old Tuff Stuff advice on cards. In reality, cards have been a way to make a fortune if you could foresee the future. I pulled out an old Beckett from when I was a kid. Turns out, this was Beckett's 11th issue and the prices are phenominal.
Looked like this in September 1985



Inside, an article on Oddibe McDowell, who "has the potential to join with the ranks of Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson before this young man is through with his career".....Pretty strong words. Must be why when this came out in '85, Oddibe's rookie jumped up to .50 cents while the McGwire guy dropped to .15 cents.


Even now after the fall of McGwire, to think you could've bought a stack of 100 for $15.00....well, that's a nice profit margin.

Even the oldies have increased slightly...


Imagine buying at these prices. Makes me want to go ask my old man why he spent $100 on a word processor for my 8th grade graduation. For the same price he could've got mint Sandy Koufax and Harmon Killebrew rookie cards!!!

All the prices are making me laugh. And the hot list includes names like Mark Langston, Alvin Davis, Tom Brunansky, and Kevin McReynolds. Seems I saved more of these than I did the others. Live and learn.

shawn

baseballfanatic

Lets see. I'll take 10 55 Bowman Mantles @42.00 ea, a 54 Bowman Mantle for 85.00, 3 1954 Aaron's, a couple of 55 Koufax's, and a couple of..............

Downtown1974

Shawn, Thats funny to see the price difference of those cards. Wish I had a time machine. Thanks for sharing.

Bob

BigRedMachine

For some of you big spenders who don't want to buy the '85 topps Clemens rookie for .70, you can upgrade to the 84 fleer extended. It's at $1.10.

shawn

EagleEyeKid

LOL. McGwire .15 and dropping......sheesh.

kcballboy

The Alvin Davis and Phil Bradley RC's were tearing it up in 85! Get 'em while they're hot!

BigRedMachine

Okay, I don't feel so bad now. I've been beating myself up for 19 years for trading my Nolan Ryan rookie to a card shop
owner for a box of '87 topps and a $20 bill.

Go figure, it was only worth $42 bucks just 18 months before.


Sadly, the next page has the 1969 Mickey Mantle white letter variation for a whopping $80!!

shawn.

smallstocks

A bought most of my raw 1955 Topps set in 1979 and 1980. Ah, the good old days!

baseballfanatic

Tough decision. A 100 card lot of Roger Clemens at 25 cents each, Phil Bradley at 40 cents ea, or Dwight Gooden at 2.50 ea?

Boopotts

<< <i>LOL. McGwire .15 and dropping......sheesh. >>



That's about where it is now anyway

BigRedMachine

<< <i>

<< <i>LOL. McGwire .15 and dropping......sheesh. >>



That's about where it is now anyway >>



Granted you're being a smarta$$, and admittingly these prices have fallen to next to nothing, buying at .15 cents would probably still get you ahead, as this recent auction indicates.

Mac PSA 9

Anyone know what a PSA 10 goes for?? Just curious.

Stingray

1954 Kaline $67???? Please come pick me up off the floor.


Stingray

Lothar52

alot has happened the last 21 years.....once the boom of the 90's hit those vintage prices hit the roof!!!

Loth

Stone193

I remember this all too well...

I was stationed in St. Louis in 1985 - my NCOIC - a really good guy - and I were talking about baseball sets.

I told him that the prices had gotten too high and there's no way I'ld pay those kind of sums!!!

What an ass!!!

5STAT

this was the era that I started dealing....now look at my stock today....multiply it by 400X and figure out what I sold back then for next to nothing...lol

I rememer selling 5 1982 Topps rack packs with Ripken rookies on top.....$100 for the 5.....thought I was a king!! lol
Think I even took my girl out for lobster that night to show off.......OUCH......the cards are gone and so is she.....

originalisbest

Ah well, I wasn't collecting cards at the time, and even had I been - where would I have gotten a "truly" NM item, vs. a probably trimmed-and-futzed-with example, with my then-inexperienced eyes, that would to this day irritate me...

I remember very well, just before high school commenced in '85, wanting very much a NM copy of Crypt of Terror #17 for the sum of $400 (so said the Overstreet Price Guide) - indeed that would have been a good buy, assuming I got a very strictly graded example - as a nice NM would now be in a 3-4,000 range.

Ah, but then, where would I have found such? No local sources that I was aware of would've fetched me an example, and even if I had been aware of several national dealers - then as now, some were/are more trustworthy than others, in delivering a properly graded product. There were no grading services then - not for cards, comics or coins (slabbed ones) - PCGS came about in '86. So really, luck would've played a strong part.

I think you may as well not beat yourself up too badly about it - taken to an extreme, my dad should've bought a few factory sets of '71 Topps when I was born - or heck, some wax boxes of it for "no real reason." And the same for my brother born in '55. And for that matter, if he hadn't been so interested in Tarzan, he coulda picked up an Action #1 for a dime in 1938, when he was nine, and liable to read such stuff.

All that said - it is fun to wonder "what if." Of course, in '85, I was 14 and some figure like $100 would've been a pretty hefty amount for me. Who really knows what I'm buying, or not buying today, that 20 years from now I'll wish I had made a different move? Ah heck, who knows.

TheCARDKid

I have a sportscard book by Tony Galovich from the early 90's (I think '91 or '92).

He actually made some pretty decent predictions. He advised buying numerous 70's and 80's football rookies on the theory that they were undervalued.

I'm paraphrasing, but he said that "one day, an 86 Fleer basketball case could be as rare as a '52 Topps case". The price at the time was like $20 k! It's gone straight up to $125k+, not bad.

I'm glad I don't have 10,000 Alvin Davis' sitting in my closet....

ldferg

i've got some old pacific card company mags. they've got the 86f bkb complete sets for 2.99 and sticker set for .99. if i could only see the future.

scooter729

I thought the future was going to be in 1987 Topps rookies. Anyone need 200 Kal Daniels or 500 Pat Dodsons these days?

helionaut

Can we please hurry up and crash the market so we can go back to these price levels?