Estimated Value of Baseball Card Collections

JimCo

First, let me introduce myself - I'm Jim Cowlings. I've been collecting for the better part of fifteen years with substantial breaks in between when a new hobby captures my attention. I finally gave in, got some cards graded and participate in the Set Registry for baseball cards. My collection is to spread out and I'll have to consolidate in the near future. My cards are mainly from the 50's. They're mostly midgrade, but I think from my reading here that one set in higher grades is better than three sets in PSA 4 - PSA 6.

After close scrutiny of the Set Registry and some of the recent auctions by Mastro and Ebay, I've noticed some amazingly valuable collections. I'm wondering how much money people are investing in baseball cards. Would 'Under 5K' equal the majority of collections. Is a 20K dollar collection a rarity or is it simply middleground? There seems to be multiple buyers at every level. Is a 100K collection not unusual?

Anyone want to gve a guess on what type of dollars are going towards baseball cards? Are they investments or simply a reminder of childhood? I can't really tell, but I know there are some very astute mathematicians on the board and I'm curious about what constitutes the average collection, a high dollar input and dabbling.

Thanks and best to all,

JimCo

spacktrack

I think you will find that there are several multi-million dollar collections of baseball and other sports cards. While it is hardly the norm, they are out there.

mikeschmidt

"Well, dear, my silly collection is probably worth $1,000 or so"

I'm sure I've had a conversation something like that.....

mikeschmidt

JimCo:

The great thing about the hobby is that people can collect at every price level. Almost without fail - sports collecting has nearly perfect price discrimination. For any budget - people can collect almost anything they want. You want to put together a T206 set for $20k? You probably can, as long as you don't inclue the big 4 and collect it in Good type condition. You want to put together a NM/MT T206 set? You can, but it will run you a million+. There are probably at least two to three dozen people in this hobby who spend approximately $100,000+ a year on their collections [with some of those spending significantly more than that]. I don't think a 20k collection is a rarity, and I think a 100k collection probably is not either. There are nearly $50MM+ in major baseball auctions a year, not including Ebay and others.

~ms

jimq112

Welcome!

There are a lot of $20K sets, let alone collections here. Like mikeschmidt said, one of the nice things is that everybody can collect. I have a 53 topps mantle, and a Ryan rookie, a lot of guys here have nicer ones but I have one too.

There's a lot of great people and great information here. If you have questions don't be afraid to ask, people answer and help each other here all the time!

alnavman

the great thing about this hobby is if you tire on one thing there is always another challenge out there....I completed a 1960 Topps football set in PSA 8 over the course of several years. Once it was completed I had to sell it to make some house repairs but now I am working on a 1971 set, another challenge....and hopefully this one I'll get to keep....but one never knows priorities change, emergencies arise. I'm an old collector who just enjoys the hobby. I'm sure there are many more out there!!

baseballjeff

All great points!

I am personally a full-time graduate student, in my youth (24 yrs.), and I bought my first PSA graded card over 5 years ago. During these 5 years I've gone from working a lot, making enough money to support my addicition for the "better" cards, to currently making ends meet to just having enough $ for food, gas, rent, and a card or two a month. Any budget can love the hobby! All I can say now is I am too busy with school work to hold a job is thank god for Student loans!

Jeff

MorrellMan

We constantly have laborers in our house, doing this and that. The wife stays close to them when they're upstairs, but if I'm around, they always want to know what's my most expensive card - I always say they're all pretty worthless.

marz

Marc, your 1975 topps mini PSA 12 Schmidt card is worth $15,987.44 ............alone!

Dand52261

I constantly inventory what I have and what ebay liquid values I could sell everything for. Looks to be conservatively now around 15K . I believe I have put more into it than that however.

tkd7

Jim,
Welcome to the CU boards Jim.

You can use the PSA set registry to view the extent of some major collections. Two prominent collectors are Charles Merkel and Marshall Fogel. For example, if you check the set registry for '52 Topps, you can see their sets and you can also click the link to see what other sets they have registered. I would never take the time to do the math, but you can quickly see that the SMR value of their collections is in the 7 figure range.

My humble acheivement is 5th place on the '55 Red Man set registry. But I haven't checked my mega millions ticket yet, so watch out.

Tom

ArchStanton

I got back into this hobby about three or four years ago. I still had a lot of cards from my early collecting days in the 80s. My whole collection is probably only worth a few thousand dollars. The great thing about any collection is that it can be a lifelong pursuit. I have been going to gun shows for about 30 years - as long as I can remember. I know a lot of gun collectors with pretty average incomes and collections that would sell in the range of six figures. That just happens when people are passionate about their hobby for fifty plus years. It is really common to see a collector sell a gun for $8,000 and buy one for $9,000. It is just years and years of deals and trades and accumulation.

Edited to add: Welcome to the Boards.

cardfan07

I just checked some eBay histories for some buyers. One guy had $20,000+ between March 27 and March 30th!!
I would love to be able to drop that kind of coin on some cards. It's out there. Seems like cards and collectibles is about as popular as ever and the people that are into it are flush with cash. Or credit...

wolfbear

Well, if PSA has graded 10,000,000 cards
and the average value of each of those is ten bucks then that's $ 100,000,000 worth of cards right there.

Throw in the cards graded by others and all the raw cards and you can probably double that figure.

So yeah, I'd say there's a lot of valuable collections out there ...

Davalillo

Several multi-million dollar collections are on the PSA Set Registry.

Jim

1954

There are easily over 1000 sets on the registry right now that have a value of $20,000. I bet the top 10% of those are over $100,000. As everyone can attest here, your collection/spending adds up quickly when you are an addict.

Shane
Welcome to the boards Jim!