Vintage cards at estate auctions

jfkheat

I just got home from an estate auction that had probably 1000 early 60s to mid 70s cards. They were mostly commons and not in good condition. The best card there was a badly off center 66 Mantle. The centering was about 80/20 and was tilted. If it were centered better in may have graded a PSA 4. I figured it was about a $50 card, it sold for $140. A 70 Nolan Ryan with a 1/2 inch crease and bad centering sold for $125. Most of the commons were in lots of 81 cards, nine 9 pocket pages per lot. There was usually 1 or 2 bad condition stars in each lot. None of the cards I saw would grade over a 6 with most being 2s and 3s. One guy bought several lots totaling about 600 cards for $550 plus 10% buyers fee. I figured they were worth $100 or so. Below is a link to a picture of the 7 cards that were sold seperately. The Yogi Berra sold for $35. I may have to send them some cards to sell for me.
James


Auctioned Cards

grote15

I'm not surprised. For uninformed collectors who are not familiar with PSA grading and centering, banged up vintage cards of HOFers are worth $$$ just because they're old and star cards. On the other hand, try to explain to one of these buyers that a Pop 1/1 1975 PSA 10 common would go for $500 or more and they'll look at at you like you got two heads.

jamesgotpoorman

I got some that they could sell......