Vintage buying getting tough..
olb31
Posts: 3,932 ✭✭✭✭✭
It used to be you could find some decent 1983 and older cards at shows or on Ebay. But it appears those days are far behind us. I started concentrating on 1975 and older cards about 10 years ago. At the Chantilly show and a few others, you could find really nice cards 8's or better. Now, just junk, off-centered. Mantle's that would grade 1 or 2 for asking $500.
Also, the shows are getting less and less fun for me. No order to sellers cards, typically just boxes of 2024 and cards for $1 apiece in no order. Then they display their cards all over the place. No chairs to sit in (although Chantilly does and that helps tremendously).
Maybe Ebay has spoiled me.
Work hard and you will succeed!!
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Even the nice graded cards that are 7's or higher of 1975 and back are way off centered not well centered. very tough to find a really nice centered 1974 topps nolan ryan graded or not. For example.
Was a time when the reservoir was overflowing. We paddled and floundered in the flood. So much stuff we could barely catch a breath before sinking. Haha.
Welcome to a new age. The good stuff is hidden away somewhere in a bunker. You want great cards now? Better be ready to fight for 'em.
Its very tough. The last two large shows I went to ( 2024 and 2025 Anaheim Convention Center with about 700 tables) there was maybe 10 tables with high grade quality vintage for sale (Pre 1981). 95 percent of the vintage cards were PSA 6's and below. I had a list of ten PSA 9 hall of fame rookies I was looking for from the 70's and I could not find one in the entire convention. Plenty were available in PSA 7 and lower plus in raw condition.
If a collector wanted to buy a 86 Fleer Jordan rookie there was over 100 high grade Jordan rookies for sale and plenty of Pokemon cards.
ANYONE THINK THERE A LOT OF FAKE 9'S IN HOLDERS - 1986 JORDAN I AM REFERRING TOO.
Not beyond doubt that it would have been very easy to pop open an old holder to remove the original graded card and substitute a fake.
So many cards being sold on Socials - FB in particular - plus all the auction houses.
I stopped buying on eBay and haven’t bought from a show ever… and have made my most significant purchases the past 6 months.
awesome 80's. i used to make a lot of purchases from craigslist. so i can see where facebook would be very useful.
Last time I purchased cards at a card show was 25 years ago.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ohio State Buckeyes - National Champions
I was just thinking about this last night. I’m on all the Steelers sets on the registry and it’s been a long time since any of us have upgrade our sets. Usually during the football season I see updates all the time but nothing good is coming up for sale anywhere. Finding good vintage is getting hard and I think everyone is just holding on to their cards right now.
T> @coolstanley said:
Card shows are great for purchasing plentiful cards usually for cash only and at 3x-5x FMV.
Lot of pumping threads here recently
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
If anyone ever needed an amazing find, right now it’s all of us. The private sector was a place to uncover what existed in attics, closets, storage and any shoebox that didn’t contain shoes. Those days are just about done.
I think that we are still not past large scale disgorgement of vintage cards from original collections. By that I mean, the kids who collected Topps cards in the 1950's and 1960's are, for the most part, still alive. Those Boomers are in their 70s now, just hitting 80. I suspect there are a phenomenal number of them that put their cards in a shoebox, stuck them in their attic or closet, and they are still there. I understand that the huge push in the 1980s that caused people to go on "treasure hunts" in their parents' homes for their childhood cards did most likely cut loose a huge bulk of surviving cards. There are probably still lots of people who either forgot they still had their cards, didn't know they still had their cards, or simply didn't care that the market wanted their cards. Those are the people I'm talking about.
I think that we have another 20-30 years of Boomers dying or moving into retirement homes and their children finding boxes of childhood cards in closets and attics. I don't think that we should anticipate there being mass hoards of gem mint 52 Topps cards surfacing, but I do think that there are likely some great condition 50s and 60s cards that aren't in the market and won't be for a while. I know guys who collected as kids in the 50s and 60s who did take the time in the 80s to buy albums and sheets for their cards, or stuck them in penny sleeves and Card Savers, but who still have their cards. I've seen them, and some of them are in really nice shape. I know they aren't the only ones who did that. They like their cards, they still have their cards, and the market is blissfully unaware. Those collections are the ones that will break loose from their original owners in the next couple of decades. Topps made millions upon millions of these cards, and it was a "thing" during those decades to collect. That's why so many of these cards still exist. I suspect the quantity of cards that still reside with their original owners would surprise all of us, though I grant that the majority of surviving cards have probably circulated into the market over the past 40 years.
Just my 2 cents.
kevin
Well I doubt any surface in my family. My late grandmother burned all of my dad's 50's and 60's baseball cards when my dad was in Vietnam.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ohio State Buckeyes - National Champions
Mr. Mint sold many 1952 Topps series runs with the mantle rookie from his FAMOUS 1980's find (I think like $4000 got you like 100 or so mint 1952 cards)....It seems he had about 30-40 runs if i can remember right from the sports collectors digest ads...Card grading didn't take off until like mid to late 1990's so I'd say only 20% of those cards have been graded. What I want is Mr. Mint's CUSTOMERS LIST throughout the years as he sold some of the most amazing condition cards...His "customers list from the 80's and early 90's i'd pay about $5k for (NO Joke) as just one of those 1952 find runs graded at todays prices is well north of $1 million dollars. Thinkers become Drinkers
A surefire indicator of the OP's contention happens when semi-rational thinkers become incoherent ramblers.
Incoherent ramblers become other peoples reality when faced with the thought of thinking for themselves. so let the toy elves play.
I believe many folks are just holding their "high grade" cards from the 70's primarily because the majority are already slabbed with older certs and they don't want to subject themselves to insults of "not legit 9", "no way today", "it's off centered", etc., etc... many of these cards weren't worth grading even at 6 bucks a pop. And we all know that the population reports are far from accurate due to multiple crack & resubmit of the same card.
The biggest pain in the rear is for 70s set collectors like myself who simply want to upgrade some centering issues to a few cards in our high-grade sets. I've been at this for like 15 years. It's a never-ending process that I look forward to finally being done with and never having to think about again!
I think that tulsaboy has a point about some boomers collections coming out of the closet in the next 10 or so years. I dont think there will be millions of high grade cards though. I think that starting in the 80s (with Mr. Mint) baseball cards were a known commodity. Mint did news segments/was on TV talking about throwing money around for old baseball cards. people outside of the hobby knew it was a thing. for at least 35-40 years now.
I remember in the late 80s of my grandmother even knowing that baseball cards were "worth a fortune"
that said, i do think that there are long term collections still fresh to the hobby that will come out. but the hoards of vintage and pre-war i think have already hit.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I think there are two reasons there is a void in quality vintage material hitting the market. The first is most of the already graded material that is solid to high end for the grade is already tucked away in people's collections. Second, the super high grading fees and grading inconsistencies are preventing people from submitting raw cards to introduce new slabbed product into the market. In my case, I have a lot of high grade 50s-70s graded cards that I have owned for 10, 15, up to 25 years. A card with a population of even 100 in a high grade wouldn't take many people like me to consume that inventory and keep it out of the market for decades. I also have thousands of high grade raw cards that I refuse to submit for $20 per only to get back a 6 or 7 because the grader doesn't know how to grade vintage paper. So those cards could either feed my graded sets or circulate back into the market to help other set builders complete their sets. Instead, they remain raw, waiting for a day when the vintage submission equation tilts back to be more favorable to the submitter.
"What I want is Mr. Mint's CUSTOMERS LIST throughout the years as he sold some of the most amazing condition cards.."
I heard a rumor a Mr someone would send a buyers flyer for baseball card to recent widows.
If a list did exist Im sure it was already sold.