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MurphDawg Old Forum Member back after 10 years...

Not sure if anyone might remember me. My old user handle was MurphDawg and I was a pretty active member of the forums from around '05-'07. Couldn't figure out how to log in under my old account so had to create a new one but surprisingly was able to search and find some of my old thread posts (didn't know it would even go back that far). Just joined PSA again as a CC member after nearly 10 years off the grid.



Did a number of deals with other members of the forum during that time, not sure who all is even still around. Had some interesting stories to share. I lost my dad to cancer in 2005 and he had been a lifelong sports card and memorabilia fan and collector. I had grown up with an interest in sports card collecting myself. Some of you might remember my story about my mother inheriting a rather large vintage card collection and memorabilia collection from my dad after he passed and I took it upon myself to grade and sell most of the items which took nearly 2 years to complete.



Will never forget a few months after my dad passed my mom went to the bank and dad had a few different large safe deposit boxes, some of which she had no prior knowledge of or what was in them but he had told her there were valuable cards inside and she obviously knew about his years of collecting cards and memorabilia. When she came home from the bank and set down a large cardboard box on the counter full of cards and asked me what they might be worth, I could have never imagined what I was about to lay eyes on for the first time (cards that had been sitting in the SD box for many years undisturbed). There were no less than 1500-2000 vintage mostly baseball and some football cards from 1952-1960. The cards had just been sitting in the SD box with no protective sleeves/holders and my mother had just stacked them in a cardboard box and carried them out of the bank to bring home for me to look at. Here were a few highlights:



- 8-10 Mantle cards, three 1953 Topps, three 1956 Topps, two 1957 Topps, one 1958 Topps (unfortunately no '52 Mantles)

- 8-10 Ted Williams

- Multiples of just about every HOFer from that era (Robinson, Aaron, Mays, Ford, Clemente, Koufax, etc.)

- hundreds and hundreds of vintage commons that would mostly all later grade out at PSA 6-9 range.

- that's not to mention the 50-60 autographed memorabilia pieces I found in the house that were also submitted to PSA for authenticating. 6 Mantle signed baseballs, 7 Ted Williams signed balls, 3 DiMaggio balls, 3 Mays signed balls, and so many other autographed pieces it would take forever to list.



Will never forget those next few days of just going through all the cards in that box as delicate as possible to see what treasures were inside. At the time I had never heard of PSA but when I started researching how to sell a valuable collection like that, and grading seemed like the only option that's when I discovered PSA.



Here are a few highlights of some of the big grading hits back then:



- 1957 Topps Mantle PSA 8

- 1957 Topps F Robinson RC PSA 8

- 1953 Topps Mantle PSA 5 (other 2 graded at 4's I believe)

- Numerous 1956 Topps Stars PSA 7's (Clemente, Mays, Aaron, Banks, etc.)

- 12 1957 Topps PSA 9 commons (some low pops even 1 of 2 or 1 of 3 at the time)

- numerous other vintage PSA 9 commons from '59-'60 Topps

- hundreds of vintage common PSA 8's in '56, '57, '58, '59 and '60 Topps



At the time I was not a seller on ebay so I had to enlist the help of Lloyd Taylor and Jay Wolt I believe to list many of these cards on ebay, not sure if those guys are still around. I also sold what I could via the buy-sell forum.



So much has changed for me over the last 10 years, got married, took over a successful business, had 2 beautiful kids, etc. At that time 10 years ago I was just 26 and was too young to have lost my dad but working on going through that collection and selling over the next 2 years helped me to get over the loss some and brought some great excitement seeing those gems come back from grading.



I held on to some of the stuff for the future (a few Mantle cards, signed photos and balls, etc. but a majority of the stuff was sold at the time. Probably all told by the time it was said and done it was easily $50k-$60k+ of realized sales but man looking at some of the prices for those same cards today I really should have held on to some of them because they have skyrocketed in price. One example is the '57 Topps Frank Robinson PSA 8, heck I think I got close to $800-$900 at the time and looks like on ebay it's going for between $2500-$4500+ now, ouch! Same for the '57 Mantle PSA 8, know it went for around $3500 in '06 on ebay auction but no telling what it would do today. Oh well, they weren't mine to begin with and I made a nice commission off selling them and I hope those who bought them are enjoying them today if they still have them. I remember one submission in particular my PSA grading fees were $3000 (was around 350-400 vintage common card submission).



Anyways, I'm back as I've recently discovered some of the stuff I kept and never got around to grading and it's just been sitting in boxes at the house for these years. Nothing near as exciting as those just mainly early 80's baseball and football stuff, some tickets, and other random things but I think there's some stuff worth sending in for grading and maybe selling.



Will be lurking around the boards some and posting occasionally. If you do happen to remember me from back then give a shout out.









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