Anyone collect World Series tickets?

Bunker

I have 4 1970 World Series tickets and was wondering if it would be worth paying to have them graded. Is there much value in them?

MooseDog

I had some 1970s World Series tickets in similar condition but when I sold them barely covered the grading fees. Unless the ones below the top one have razor sharp corners and no surface issues (think card condition) I'd sell them raw. The market for WS tickets and stubs is starting to strengthen, while the DS and CS series stubs go for pennies still.

I'd be interested in buying or trading for them by the way. PM me if interested and let me know what you collect.

baseballfanatic

Unless they are full tickets or from a highly desirable game, series stubs sell better ungraded. The value is as volatile as anything in collectibles. One day they will go for 10 bucks a piece and two weeks later 35.00 then back down to 10 bucks. A very trendy item now a days. Id be interested too if you want to sell them.....

alnavman

I don't collect world series tickets but when my wife's father died her mother gave me a ticket from the 48 series that I've had PSA grade and slab. It's probably not worth a whole heck of a lot but the value to me meant a lot since she gave it to me. I will pass it down to my son and hopefully it will remain in our family for a long time.....and best of all the ticket is from a game and series that the Indians won.

alnavman

I forgot to mention, the 48 World Series ticket is just the stub, not a complete ticket......and check out the price......a buck for a bleacher seat back at old Cleveland Stadium......what a deal!!

Stone193

Bunker

I'm kind of confused - why are they stubs?

The Pirates didn't play in the WS in 1970.

I'm thinking those are torn phantoms?

mike

edit: I think a 1960 game 7 WS ticket or stub would be prized by Pirate fans considering the Maz HR to win the game if memory serves?

WinPitcher

Mike I'm even more confused, as Bunker is showing a Reds Ticket.

Steve

Bunker

Where do you see Pirates at? The game was played in Cincinnati, Ohio at Riverfront stadium. I thought the 70 World series was Cincinnati and Baltimore?

Thanks for the replies

Stone193

My bad Steve

I saw the name of the stadium and thought of Pittsburg for some reason.

mike

Stone193

Now back to reality...

The Standard Catalog of Memorabilia give a range for the ticket stubs from the 1970 WS at $15 - 70.

Sorry about my brain drain - it's the end of the day.

To compound my brain cramp - anyways - back in 1970, I believe the Pirates were still playing at Forbes Field.

mike

Piman58

Stone...Pittsburgh played in Three Rivers Stadium at the time so an acceptable error.

Bunker....Love the 71 Topps Series cards. The 70 series is one of my best memories of a young
12 year old. Brooks was a vacuum at third during the series. After my beloved Tribe
those Oriole teams in the late 60s -early 70s were a favorite of mine.

WinPitcher

I would have them graded.

Steve

MooseDog

Mike -

Three Rivers Stadium and Riverfront Stadium were essentially carbon copies of each other so easy to confuse.

MooseDog

As 'fanatic said in an earlier post, the prices for World Series stubs are all over the place. Sometimes you can find great deals and sometimes they go for unbelievable prices. I've been trying to fill a few holes and have noticed that key games and pre-1950's stubs are going for big prices. By key games I mean games such as

Larsen Perfect Game 1956
Mays Catch 1954
Amoros Catch 1955 (and all 1955 games as it was Brooklyn's only Series win)
Clemente's Last Game 1972
Kirk Gibson HR 1988
Fisk HR 1976
Reggie 3 HRs 1977

Stone193

I like old stubs from WS of stadiums that are no longer with us.

mike

stevek

Careful Mike, you're starting to sound like that "Berk Ross" guy.


I think baseball tickets and some other tickets are really so undervalued it is ridiculous. One day I think these items will explode in value although I have no idea when - could be next year or two decades from now, who knows? For sure, tickets are fantastic collector items.

Bunker

Hey Mike those are pretty cool and only 6 bucks to see the game

A761506

I never really realized how rare high condition WS tickets are until I attended the World Series in Detroit last week and started doing some figuring...

First off, how many of these things are even printed to begin with? Well, Comerica Park had a paid attendance of 42,479 for game 1, 42,533 for game 2. However, only season ticket type tickets are desirable, so any box office and ticketmaster type tickets as well as e-tickets printed on a sheet of paper are immediately excluded. Really, it's hard to imagine the Tigers had any more than 20,000 seats taken by season ticket holders who would receive the desirable form of tickets, so that makes approximately 40,000 tickets available to begin with.

Next - the tickets were mailed loose in a large mailing envelope, so the upper left corner on Game 1 tickets was bent pretty good on most of them. On top of that, the strip containing all possible playoff tickets was perforated, and separating the tickets without damaging them was nearly impossible unless you took a fresh exacto knife along the perfs to separate them, and I doubt many people did that, so many of the tickets have slightly folded over edges along the perf sides. Additionally, because the tickets were full color along all of the perf edges, the edges chipped noticably if the perfs were pulled apart rather than cut.

Now, if that wasn't difficult enough to start with, I was watching to see how people handed their tickets once inside the gates... I would say perhaps 5% of the attendees were wearing a necklace with a clear flexible holder attached that hung in front of their chest. These tickets had the best chance of survival in top shape, however, I noticed many of the tickets in these type of holders showed evidence of bending just from all the different positions they were put in, between being bumped by people on the concourse and all the sitting and standing that went on. The other tickets that were not held in these types of holders were put into pockets... I witnessed several people who had folded them in half because they are rather bulky in size.

Combine all this with the final piece of the equation, of the people who actually kept their tickets in nice shape, many of those people will keep those tickets for their entire lifetime as a momento, thus, they will never even hit the market.

It's amazing when you really think about it, how approximately 40,000 tickets that were originally printed just a couple weeks ago may actually translate into less than a couple dozen that have survived totally unscathed that have a chance at grading as 9 or 10, and there's no guarantee those will ever even reach the market.

It's kind of funny - I paid $250 face for the 4 tickets I had (2 to each game) and all 4 of mine have a shot at 10's since I took all the precautions to keep them perfect and lucked out that my Game 1 tickets didn't get bent in the mail... and they are going to be more valuable now that the game has been played. Game 2 should be especially valuable, as it should remain well known in World Series lore as the suspicious brown spot game which happened to be the only one the Tigers could win in the series.

Of course, I won't sell them, so there goes a few of the few nice ones from the market.

Stone193

Great analysis Josh

Have ya got a scan? How were the graphics?

How does that work? You show your ticket at the gate but they don't tear off a portion?

mike

A761506

Stone -



They do not tear anything, the tickets are simply scanned by a hand-held scanner. It's actually a huge problem that they don't make any sort of identifying marks on a ticket that has already been scanned, as some shady people had been passing their tickets through the gates to someone on the outside (after they were already in the park), and the outside person would resell them, whoever buys them would have no reason to question their authenticity, but then when they go to enter, they are rejected because the ticket has already been scanned.

I think it's only a matter of time until tickets are issued on pieces of plastic similar to credit cards with a magnetic strip in them, and a system that would simply punch a small hole in the card once it's been scanned. It would probably be extremely cheap to make them this way, and it would kill the market for selling fake tickets.

Stone193

Thanx Josh

And I agree about the tic thing with respect to a credit card tic.

Of course, the purists would foam at the mouth!

But, that's progress.

They are in great shape.

Did you say whether you want to get them graded?
mike

tkd7

I think WS stubs make a great collectible and I expect their value to rise. However, I don't think encapsulation will help prices, I think it will mainly serve as a means of authentication. As was stated, the tickets/stubs are limited in availability. I would only getting a number grade assigned to unused tickets, as I don't think stubs will grade highly as the nature of thicket is to get torn which will lead to tears, bends, etc.

I have one ticket right now but I've been looking for a nice example of the Larsen perfect game stub. I hope to buy one raw and get it encapsulated. Some day, a run of stubs, one from each year. I can always think of more than I can collect!

Bunker

<< <i>I can always think of more than I can collect! >>



Isn't that the truth