How can i sell my old basketball cards

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13 Best Places To Sell Basketball Cards

When it comes to selling collectibles for cash, you definitely have a lot of options.

This is especially true for trading cards.

I mean, people have been selling Pokemon cards, sports cards, and all sorts of trading cards since the concept was invented.

But when it comes to selling sports cards, old basketball cards are some of the most popular and lucrative cards out there.

So, if you’re wondering where to sell basketball cards, this is definitely the post for you.

We’re covering all of the best places to sell basketball cards whether you’re selling online or in-person.

Before you start selling basketball cards that can rise or drop in value, it’s important to know what factors influence card prices in the first place.

This is important because like any selling side hustle, you need to accurately price your cards and know when there’s an opportunity to flip your money.

Here are five factors that influence basketball card prices:

1. Condition: How well kept is the card? (Mint, Near-Mint, Very Good, etc.)
2. Rarity: How many cards were originally manufactured?
3. Player Popularity: How well known is the basketball player?
4. Team Popularity: How elite is the basketball team?
5. Player Performance: How is the player performing currently and over time?

Other factors like winning a championship, breaking NBA records, or the age of a card can also affect basketball card pricing.

Older rookie cards for players who are now considered the best in the game have the highest prices.

Check out the example above: According to this roundup post, the highest selling basketball card of all time was a Stephen Curry 1-of-1 rookie card that sold for $5. 9 million!

The majority of basketball card sellers prefer to sell online because of how easy it is.

Plus, most cards aren’t rare enough to require an in depth inspection of the card that needs to be handled in person.

So, here are some of the best places to sell old basketball cards if you want to earn money online.

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling Yugioh cards, ancient coins, or even something like Beanie Babies; eBay is one of the best places for selling collectibles.

eBay has a massive platform for flipping any item, and basketball cards are no exception!

The website even has its own unique section for selling basketball cards where you can filter things like rarity, player history, and card manufacturer.

Plus, eBay makes it easy for beginners to post their cards for sale without having to worry too much about getting ripped off.

One nice aspect of eBay is that you can research previous card sales to learn more about how you should price your basketball cards as well.

Doing this research can help you price your own cards or understand which ones to buy in the future in order to sell for a higher profit.

A buddy of mine uses eBay to sell his basketball cards around the $200-$500 range and says it’s his preferred site for selling.

And, for very rare basketball cards, eBay’s auction feature can be incredibly useful if there’s a competition between buyers.

Just note that eBay charges around 11.5% on most trading card sales, so you have to factor this fee into your pricing!

Beckett is a sports cards collectibles website that specializes in basketball and baseball cards.

The website also has a marketplace where you can list your cards or you can sell directly to Beckett if the site wants to buy your basketball cards.

If you have a box with a ton of random basketball cards, this can be a great site for you to sell your entire collection for some quick cash.

One perk of Beckett is that it also has a tool that helps you estimate the value of your basketball card collection.

Furthermore, Beckett pays for shipping if you’re selling basketball cards that are worth $50 or more, and it even has a grading service for expensive cards.

If you’re planning on selling individual cards, they also have a handy tool that lets you organize your cards digitally so you can clearly see everything you own.

Beckett also caters to serious card sellers since you can pay to become a registered dealer which unlocks tools like real-time price guides and more organizational tools.

While the site for Dean’s Cards looks a bit vintage, it’s actually one of the best places to sell basketball cards online.

This is because Dean’s Cards is a sports cards trading platform that specializes in vintage player cards.

If you don’t know where to sell basketball cards that are vintage, definitely consider this site.

In fact, Dean’s Cards wouldn’t even buy a newer card from you; the company only purchases individual basketball cards that are older than 1978.

But, with a great team of genuine sports card fans and a “best price guarantee” for older cards, you can’t go wrong with this trading platform if you have rare basketball cards to sell.

You use an online form to submit a sale request from Dean’s Cards.

This includes information like how many cards you’re selling, the years, and if you have any special cards like rare rookie cards or Hall-of-Famers.

From there, Dean’s Cards might reply with a quote if they want to buy your basketball cards. If you accept the quote, you ship your cards to Dean’s Cards to get paid via check.

It’s impossible to write a list of places that buy basketball cards without mentioning Dave & Adam’s.

This website is a well-known trading cards platform that specializes in packs, hobby boxes, and bundles of rare cards.

Now, Dave & Adam’s doesn’t just specialize in basketball cards, but this sport is still quite popular on the platform.

The main thing to know is that Dave & Adam’s only accepts two kinds of cards:

• Modern cards must be professionally graded or valued at $50+
• Graded or raw vintage cards from 1970 or earlier are accepted

However, once you submit your card collection to Dave & Adam’s, you get a quote you can choose to accept if you think it’s a fair price for your basketball cards.

And, if you have a pretty expensive order, Dave & Adam’s even covers shipping. You don’t pay seller fees either so it’s a more lucrative option than marketplaces like eBay oftentimes.

One advantage of Dave & Adam’s is that you can also get paid with PayPal money, store credit, or check after the company receives and accepts your cards.

COMC (Check Out My Collectibles) is a massive trading cards platform that specializes in extremely high value cards.

So, if you have a rare basketball card that is worth thousands of dollars, consider listing the card on COMC to see if you get any bites.

I’m not joking either: some of the most expensive basketball cards on the site are going for over $100,000!

If you want to know the best place to sell basketball cards that are worth a lot of money, Check Out My Collectibles is your best bet!

Just note that you pay processing fees of $0.50-$2.00 per card.

On the bright side, sellers don’t pay shipping fees, and the processing fee isn’t too bad if you’re selling very valuable old basketball cards.

Plus, COMC’s website has a ton of tools, filters, and guides to help you price your cards properly and maximize your earning potential.

With every popular hobby comes a Facebook Group where fanatics can get together and share everything related to that hobby.

So, unsurprisingly, Facebook is one of the best places to sell basketball cards if you know where to look.

A simple search on Facebook for “basketball cards groups” or “sell basketball cards” brings up plenty of groups with thousands of members.

These groups are an excellent way to connect with other fans who care about the hobby or to sell cards to people who actually understand them.

You can also try selling on the Facebook Marketplace if you want to sell basketball cards to people near you for cash.

Just be careful since Facebook selling can result with a lot of low-ball offers, and you also have to spend time negotiating with buyers.

PSA Card is another reputable place to sell basketball cards online that can also help you find more international buyers.

The PSA Card forums are full of eager members who are willing to purchase rare items or very specific cards that match their taste.

Basketball cards aren’t an exception here, and there are plenty of novice and experienced collectors alike on the site.

Just note that many people selling basketball cards on PSA Card forums are actually  just linking to eBay listings.

However, you can try the same tactic if you’re selling on websites like eBay or Mercari and want to increase your listing exposure.

If you don’t have a very specific type of card that only a rare fan would want to purchase, you’re better off with other sites on this list.

But if you have a rare card and want to negotiate with individual buyers directly, you can consider PSA Card forums for finding the right buyers.

Investacard is the #1 sports card investor marketplace that helps you sell your cards much faster than many other marketplaces.

Really, Investacard’s goal is for traders to only worry about buying cards while Investacard handles the selling side of things.

When you sell to Investacard, the company actually promotes your basketball cards and sell them at events, shows, online marketplaces, and other channels.

The downside of selling basketball cards with Investacard is that you need to apply to become an approved seller through an online form.

Plus, all of this promotion comes with a cost, so Investacard is best for serious repeat sellers who know what they’re doing.

The platform can take as much as 50% for certain basketball cards they sell for you (depending on pricing and where they sell it).

In my opinion, I would consider selling with Investacard if you have a few high value cards or collections that you’re  having trouble selling on your own.

OfferUp is a popular online marketplace for people to sell new and used items with emphasis on in-person transactions.

However, you can still sell stuff to online buyers with OfferUp, so it’s sort of a mix between the Facebook Marketplace and apps like Mercari where you sell online.

In any case, you can list your basketball cards for sale on OfferUp for free to see if you find local or online buyers.

Potential buyers can contact you to ask questions, and overall, it’s a great way to sell old basketball cards to fellow fans in your area.

Listing is also free, although OfferUp charges a minimum of $1.99 or 12.9% of the sale price if you sell online and ship your cards.

In any case, the benefit of selling stuff on OfferUp is the size of the platform. In other words, you’re more likely to have a lot more eyes on your listings!

Another quick way to sell basketball cards for cash is to sell through Sports Cards Pro.

This free marketplace pays you directly through Paypal and doesn’t have any listing fees or processing fees.

In some cases, you need to pay PayPal fees, but this isn’t a direct fee from Sports Cards Pro so it’s not a downside of the site.

One advantage of Sports Cards Pro is that is also has numerous selling tools to help you price your collection and find buyers.

These tools include:

• Lot Value Calculator
• Hot Cards Finder
• Collection Tracker
• eBay Deal Scanner
• Card Centering Calculator

The eBay deal scanner is particularly useful, and it’s nice you can track your collection or trending cards as well.

If you want a low-fee way to sell basketball cards to online buyers, you should definitely consider Sports Cards Pro.

If you’d prefer to sell your basketball cards in person and don’t want to deal with shipping costs, these next few options are definitely for you!

Here are some of the best local places that buy basketball cards.

11. Pawn Shops

Basketball cards make for one of the best things to pawn for money as long as the cards have a high price tag.

And, most cities have a few pawn shops, so you have a few options for where to sell your cards.

Overall, pawn shops aren’t going to give you a great deal because the shop has to turn a profit too.

However, pawn shops are useful for selling off your collection quickly, and you can always pawn off other valuables as well to make money fast.

Just do your research and call up the shops around you to make sure that they accept sports cards.

Every pawn shop is different and some only want very specific items like antiques or electronics.

It never hurts to go in and see what they are willing to pay for it.

Extra Reading – What Can I Pawn For $500 Or $1,000?

If you’re still wondering where to sell basketball cards, your best bet might be to attend basketball card conventions.

Attending sports card events is by far the most lucrative way to sell basketball cards for cash.

You’re surrounded by a massive group of people who are there for the sole purpose of buying and selling cards.

This is where you’ll find the real fans of the hobby and where you’re most likely going to sell an expensive collection or high priced individual card.

A simple search for “sports cards trading events” will yield you a ton of local places with dates, times, and other details.

Take a look at this search result for Los Angeles:

As you can see, there are numerous sports card events throughout the year, so you can bring your whole collection to one and rent a table to try and find buyers.

Another buddy of mine attends a massive Las Vegas show for basketball cards every year and always comes out with thousands in profit.

He swears by these trading events for the high priced cards!

Craigslist might be pretty old, but it’s still one of the best places to sell basketball cards online or in person that you can try.

Many people sell collections of cards on Craigslist, so you can always post your cards up there to see if you get any attention.

There are a few individual cards for sale (some for over $1,000), so it can’t hurt to list a good card on there along with a few other marketplaces.

Again, this is all for getting cash and meeting in person. If that’s something you value, definitely consider Craigslist to sell your cards.

Now that you know where to sell NBA cards, here are a couple of tips you can keep in mind to make the process much easier.

1. Do Your Research: It’s important to know an approximate price for the basketball cards you’re selling so you know how to negotiate and what your bottom price is.
2. Try Multiple Marketplaces: If you’re not in a rush for cash, try listing on several marketplaces rather than just accepting a quick offer to shop around for higher prices.
3. Value Your Time: If people lowball you endlessly, move on and don’t waste precious time negotiating. This is also why it’s important to know what price range you’re willing to accept for your basketball card collection.

If you want more tips for how to sell basketball cards, you can also watch this video from YouTuber Graded Card Investor.

In this video, Graded Card Investor shares his tips for how he flips basketball cards on eBay.

This includes the type of cards he looks for, how he prices his listings, and the entire eBay selling process as well!

Extra Reading – How To Turn $100 Into $1,000.

Hopefully these marketplaces, websites, and in-person events gave you an idea for the best place to sell your basketball cards.

The most important tip for selling is to do as much research as you can before listing a single card.

Find out your estimated card value from multiple sources and list your card on multiple platforms.

This way, you’ll be sure to maximize your profits.

Good luck selling your cards!

Looking for other selling side hustles? Checkout:

• How To Sell Disney VHS Tapes.
• Where To Sell Used Sports Equipment.
• How To Sell Board Games For Cash.

Daniel Friedman

Daniel is a 22 year old blogger from Los Angeles with a huge love for everything entrepreneurship, finance, and investing. When he’s not blogging at Modern Teen, you can catch him playing volleyball, shooting archery, or finding new ways to make money.

Baseball cards - a whole empire: Americans have been collecting them for 150 years, speculators trade them on the stock exchange - His foot - Blogs . In the US, the main collectible fetish is cards. The scale of this cult is amazing: they have been collected for a century and a half, exhibited in museums, books written about them and sold for space money.

💵 Cards were invented by marketers. They have nothing to do with sports

🏴 ̠ ̠ ̂ ̂ ̂ ̂ ̂ ̂ ̆ ̂ ̂ ̂ ̂ ̂ ̂ ̆ ̂ ̂ ̂ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ˆ ̶-̆ ̶-̠ ̶-̠ ̶̶-̠ ̶-̠ ̶̶ ̶̶-̠ 110002 ． In England at one time they were more popular than in the USA

🎬 Madonna and Tom Hanks can be found on baseball cards

⚾️ The popularity of cards grew due to boomers - the first post-war generation (the same ones that were born after World War II)

First the cards had leaders, birds, national flags instead of athletes

– I had a large collection of baseball cards. Everything was stolen.

– Did you take something else?

Yes, money. But let's focus on the essentials. I had a Topps card with Mickey Mantle, a unique piece. And others in good condition: 60/40 on the front and 90/10 on the back. All my cards were in packages, and if you take them out and take them, God forbid, with greasy fingers, they will instantly drop in price. I know the first 48 hours are the most important in this kind of investigation. The more time passes, the less likely it is to find them.

Dialogue from the first episode of the second season of Better Call Saul is a great illustration of how baseball cards are treated in the US. The unlucky collector went to the police because of the loss of an impressive and very expensive set, despite the fact that he himself was tied to the drug trade. But the disappointment of losing Mickey Mantle is much stronger than the fear of being caught. Many Americans would probably do the same, because a Mickey Mantle card in good condition can be worth $3 million.

Sports cards are a by-product of tobacco companies. In the 19th century, cigarettes were sold in soft paper packs: they were easy to crumple and damage the contents. The solution was found by the American company Allen & Ginter, which placed a cardboard stiffener in the package. Such protection had almost no effect on the cost of cigarettes, but it became a serious advantage for the buyer. Later, the innovation was adopted by other companies.

Cigarette liners about Russia

To stand out from the competition, Allen & Ginter began to add a bonus to cigarettes: instead of a boring gray cardboard, a smoker was expected to have a beautiful postcard that he could leave as a keepsake. Millions of firms use such a primitive marketing ploy today, but in the 1870s it was a revolution. Manufacturers "hooked" smokers not only on cigarettes, but also on the excitement of the collector.

At first, the most neutral images were placed in the packages: nature, animals, birds, flags of the countries of the world, leaders of states, Indian chiefs. Sports had not yet taken such an important place in the life of Americans, although baseball was becoming more and more popular. In the late 1850s, the first major organization of teams in and around New York City, the National Association, was founded. Ten years later, professional athletes appeared in baseball, and in 1876 a league was created that would become the basis for MLB at the beginning of the 20th century. Growing interest in the game prompted tobacco manufacturers to replace leaders with athletes.

Ball game in New Jersey in 1866. Note: Initially, "baseball" was spelled in two words. The company sold sports equipment and printed price cards to educate customers about the products. On the other side, a player was looking at a potential buyer. And although such cards are considered the first baseball cards, they have not yet received wide distribution. Not everyone was interested in sporting goods, but Americans of the late 19th century loved to smoke.

One of the first baseball cards was issued in 1869 on a Peck & Snyder booklet. This spurred interest in the cards

It is easy to find a picture of any athlete on the Internet. But in the second half of the 19th century, when the first series of baseball cards appeared, this was more difficult. Allen & Ginter approached the clubs directly to send pictures of their best players. By that time, the first photo studios had already appeared in New York and other large American cities.

As a matter of fact, tobacconists placed cardboard boxes with pasted photographs in packs, and did not print them in a typographical way, so only a few copies of the first cards have survived to this day. The quality of photographic paper was then at a low level, and the Americans themselves did not yet realize the value of the collections. By the way, almost no one called inserts cards: then they bought and exchanged baseball or cigarette pictures.

Card set for the 1887 season

The most famous set of inserts of the time was produced in 1887. It was called World Champions, and today the original cards from that collection are selling on eBay for $2,000 each. Interest in photos of players in 1887 was fueled by the events of that season: Detroit became the first superclub in the United States after it was acquired by the owner of a pharmaceutical company, Frederick Stearns.

For the new project, Stearns bought out the entire Buffalo roster, including top Dan Brouters, Hardy Richardson and Jack Rowe, the stars on the World Champions cards. The businessman was not only interested in sports tasks, he wanted baseball to become a popular sport in Detroit. But he did not have enough money and time: after winning the 1887 World Series, Stearns announced the end of funding. Evidence of the rise and fall of America's first superclub was cigarette inserts.

Panini - the successor of cigarette cards in Europe

In the same 1887, the British firms W.D. &H.O. Wills and Ogdens - they have gone through the same evolutionary path as Allen & Ginter. In England, one of the first series was called Guinea Golds, it was dedicated to famous people - writers, politicians and scientists. The people called the cards the worker's encyclopedia, as they were more accessible than books, and on the back there was a brief note on why the portrait of this man was placed in a pack of cigarettes.

The originals for Guinea Golds were taken from the National Portrait Gallery in London

In 1896, a new line appeared - sports, but not yet football: W.D. &H.O. Wills produced a "50 Cricketers" series which was in good demand. The tobacco company was doing so well in those years that from 1886 until the beginning of the 20th century it opened three large production facilities. And this despite the fact that at the end of the 19th century smoking was not yet a mass phenomenon in Great Britain: the bad habit took root already during the First World War. In addition, cigarettes were quite cheap: at 19The 00s pack (sold 10 pieces each) cost two pence - one and a half times cheaper than a pound of sugar and twice as expensive as a box of matches. Now a complete set of those very cards with cricket players is valued at five thousand pounds.

Football cards from Manchester Marcus & Company soon appeared. In response to a series of W.D. &H.O. released its own football line, which included 66 cards of the most famous football players of those years - George Clowley from Tottenham, Matt Kingsley from Newcastle, George Headley from Sheffield United, Jimmy Crabtree from Aston Villa and so on. Singleton & Cole enters consumer race with 19 series05 years. A hundred years later, it was reprinted specifically for retro fans.

At the beginning of the 20th century, almost every tobacco manufacturer issued such cards. But the companies tried to differ from each other: the liners of the cheaper cigarettes were black and white, the more expensive cigarettes were colored. Churchman produced them horizontally, and John Player & Sons used caricatures. Already in the 1920s, not just portraits of players, but illustrations of episodes of football matches began to be placed on the cards.

Birmingham defender Frank Womack on the 1914 card

English inserts ceased during World War II when Britain faced a paper shortage. In the second half of the 20th century, cards were no longer considered an appendage to tobacco, they began to be sold separately. And then the idea was rethought by the Italian company Panini: in 1961, she released a series and an album for stickers dedicated to the national championship. Nine years later, the first set was released, timed to coincide with the World Cup.

Baseball card production may have disappeared due to robberies and monopolies

Allen & Ginter also had a following in the US. The system of licensing and sale of rights was then still in its infancy, so almost all market participants began to offer cigarettes with inserts to customers. At that point, the cards stopped having the desired effect, and many firms printed them only because others did.

From the 1890s, the American Tobacco Company dominated the US tobacco market, seeking to expand into foreign markets dominated by the British. The monopolist has taken over small businesses, and Allen & Ginter is no exception. At the same time, baseball cards were no longer added to cigarettes everywhere: there was essentially no one to fight for the consumer, and the idea itself, as it seemed to many then, had already exhausted itself.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the number of smokers was actively growing in the United States, but fewer inserts were produced. For example, in 1898, a large study by German scientists came out that linked bad habits and lung cancer. The cards were an incentive to buy tobacco, and the inserts were also popular with children. In the 1890s, each state had its own laws that related to the minimum age for buying cigarettes: from 14 to 24 years. And in 15 states, at different times, there was even a ban on the sale of tobacco.

It got to the point of absurdity: American newspapers wrote about teenagers who robbed stores, took cigarettes, took out all the cards, and left the rest at the crime scene. Such stories also pushed manufacturers to abandon the liners.

Sweets manufacturers cut cards in half for better sales

Sweets are not as strict as smoking, so Americans continued to be fueled with new cards. As soon as the tobacco companies began to print less of them, the Lancaster Caramel Company became more active. At the end of the 19th century, inserts with the image of baseball players appeared in packages of Hershey sweets. After the largest players in the market merged into the American Caramel Company, cards were already everywhere.

Just then, marketers came up with another move: the buyer received only half of the card, and he had to buy something else, in the hope that there would be a second part of the insert. It is difficult to calculate how much sales increased due to such tricks, but the American Caramel Company felt great until the First World War, when they had to stop making liners for several years. In 1927, the last series of baseball cards inside candy boxes came out from the American Caramel Company.

The appearance of inserts in sweets spurred children's interest in cards

In the interwar years, the culture of sports cards was again in decline. But it was no longer only about baseball, but also about other sports. In 1910, Imperial Tobacco Canada produced the first line of hockey cigarette inserts, but by the 1920s, their production was no longer so large-scale.

NHL inserts can trace not only the careers of players, but also major historical events. Canada entered World War II at 1939th, and the United States only two years later - therefore, wartime laws (for example, on saving paper) in Canada were adopted earlier. NHL player cards north of the border became smaller and black-and-white, and the United States issued the same inserts as before the war for two more years.

Canadian wartime card. They were produced by the O-Pee-Chee company until the takeover by Nestle in 1996.

American football was also gaining popularity, where manufacturers of cigarettes and sweets rushed. In 1884, Mayo Cut Plug Tobacco produced the first such set with 35 portraits of athletes. Later, images of football players appeared on packages of chewing gum, cereals and donuts.

As soon as statistics were placed on the cards, it became easier for Americans to play with them.

In the second half of the 20th century, Topps became the main card company. At first she was engaged in sweets, but later she completely focused on cards. An innovation introduced in the 1950s helped to become the market leader: they began to print player statistics on the back.

At first it was just a line about how the athlete spent the last season, but since 1957 they began to put statistics for all years there. Bowman (Topps' most famous competitor at the time) immediately copied the idea, and within a few years almost all sports cards contained statistics.

The best way to find out how a baseball player performed in the past is to look at the back of his card. Since the end of the 19th century, Americans have been building playing decks from inserts and inventing the rules themselves. The appearance of statistics on the back made it possible to unambiguously determine which card is older.

On the cards of 1974 there are players of a non-existent team

The Panini album cover for the 2018 World Cup featured Kokorin. The company simply did not have time to change the layout after Alexander tore the crosses. In 1974, Topps made a far more unforgivable blunder. She released a set of cards for a club that never existed.

The San Diego Padres baseball team was a total underdog, finishing last in the division time after time. Against this background, negotiations began to move from California to Washington. May 1973 years the club was sold for a then-record $12 million. The new team - "Washington" - was supposed to play in MLB as early as next season.

Uniforms were sewn and photographs of the players were held. Soon the pictures ended up in Topps, where they immediately set up the production of cards. Since only a handful of baseball players participated in the photo shoot, Topps also took old shots of the players still representing the San Diego Padres, but added the caption "Washington" to them.

Pitcher Dave Freisleben cards are the main curiosity of season 1974 years

At the last moment, the deal fell through, but the conveyor was already running. Topps had to urgently issue cards with old photos and old uniforms. At the same time, the Washington edition was already sold with might and main, and many collectors with special pride keep cards with the image of the players of the never-existing team. True, there were so many of them that the price of each copy rarely exceeds $ 10.

The baseball card bible comes from the museum

Cards from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are equated with works of art. This is the only way to explain why one of the largest collections is kept in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It bears the name of Jefferson Burdick: all his life the American collected almost everything that caught his eye: posters, postcards, cigarette packages. And cards, and not only sports ones.

Rembrandt, Degas, Van Gogh and baseball cards are all masterpieces of one museum

Burdick donated the collection to the museum at the end of 1940s, but only after he prepared an extensive guide to all the collected cards - this was the requirement of the museum. The book "Catalogue of American Cards" among collectors has received a cult status. It is full of information about both sports inserts and other cards issued in the 19th and first half of the 20th century.

The catalog not only described their origin, but also systematized the search. Many cards have received an inventory number, which usually consists of a letter (denoting the manufacturer) and several numbers (indicating the series). The marking is still used today, and sometimes a number is enough for experienced collectors to understand what kind of rarity they are talking about.

Jefferson Burdick and his catalog

The last edition of the catalog was published during Burdick's lifetime, in 1960, and no new editions have been commercially available for the past half century. Since then, there have been regular conversations about the need to supplement the list with new cards. There are a number of inaccuracies in the book, and the numbering system is considered outdated. In addition, Burdick indicated in the catalog prices that, after half a century, have lost their relevance.

Today, a special company determines the value of a card. It has already issued 80 million certificates of authenticity

In the post-war years, sports cards became popular again, especially among children. They were treated like toys, and collecting was more like how schoolchildren in the 1990s collected caps: they look cool, you can show off in front of friends, but hardly anyone exaggerated their value.

The feeling of nostalgia changed everything. By the 1970s, the children of the post-war generation had grown up, dug up old boxes of cards, and formed a whole culture around inserts. If at 19In the 60s, a dollar could be offered for a rare copy, but a few decades later, a real industry arose, in which millions of Americans were involved.

In 1991, US residents spent more than two billion dollars on sports cards. They were now considered not only part of the collection, but also an investment. Price dynamics indicated this: the cost of some mid-20th-century Topps sets has increased in price by 10 percent annually since 1981. The Americans logically assumed that this would always continue and not only with old cards. The main thing is to ensure the safety of the artifact, for which they no longer buy albums, but cases, organizers, and the most valuable rarities are wrapped in strong plastic protection.

In 1992, for a promotional film about women's baseball, the film studio released a series of cards with Madonna and Tom Hanks. Its employees, like appraisers in a pawnshop, carefully examine the goods and set a price according to certain criteria. In 1998, PSA processed a million cards, and today on eBay, those lots are valued primarily where there is confirmation of authenticity from this company. More than 80 million such certificates have already been issued, however, some of them relate to other sports attributes, such as autographed balls.

The Baseball and Card Crisis

And yet, in the 1980s and 1990s, the industry was filled with people who were not particularly interested in sports, but really wanted to make money. Collectors bought up fresh copies in the hope of selling them in a few decades and providing old age or college education for children.

Increased demand spurred companies to print hundreds of thousands of cards. Topps succeeded (or even overdid it) in this matter: in the 1990s, it flooded the market with a large number of cards, supplementing them with player autographs printed on the printing house and colorful design solutions. But the value of those collections is unlikely to ever be significant: that time was nicknamed the Great Bubble or the Age of Trash Cards. Now collectors are warned on the packaging: "Topps makes no guarantees as to whether the cards will rise in price in the future."

A full set of cards from last season of MLB (and there are 700 of them) costs about $50

The lockout in the 1995 season was an additional blow to the industry. Because of the athletes' strike, that MLB season ended in August instead of the fall. This affected card sales, and Topps, which owned the licensing rights, tried to refocus on other sports. Then came the NHL and NBA lockouts, causing the economic bubble to finally burst.

The boom in the baseball card market was followed by a disappointment in the sport itself. Playing with bats, bases and pitchers seems boring to the new generation against the backdrop of basketball, American football, hockey and even soccer. In MLB, events unfold slowly, there are many matches, and in terms of decibels in the stands, baseball hardly overtakes golf. It takes a lot of patience and endurance to watch the match from start to finish. At least that's what some young Americans think. And if they are not interested in baseball, then they are unlikely to enjoy collecting cards with portraits of players.

One of the rarest sets of the 1990s was released in connection with the Gulf War

The non-stop circulation of baseball cards has led to a paradoxical situation: collectors are willing to pay much more for a set that is at least somewhat different from the standard one. Thus, the Desert Shield, a special edition released in 1990 for US troops, is considered an extraordinary rarity.

The name of the set refers to the Gulf War. Desert Shield is a military operation inspired by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Tens of thousands of soldiers went to the Middle East, and some received a set released for the MLB 19 season with them on the road.91 years old.

On the left is a card for 20 dollars, on the right - for 14 thousand

It was issued by the same Topps company, which, however, on the occasion of the war, slightly supplemented the appearance of the cards: a small logo of the military operation was applied on top. They did not go to retail; a total of 7000 sets were produced, which is noticeably less than the standard circulation. Moreover, some of the cards were sent to the Middle East by plane, and, perhaps, not all sets reached the place of deployment of the American army.

The soldiers hardly realized that in the future the cards would be very valuable, so many threw them away without much regret. Perhaps somewhere in Iraq a fortune is buried in the sand: in 2018, a complete collection of 792 pieces was sold for $100,000. The regular cards of the 1991 MLB season are absolute garbage.

The first attempt to trade cards as shares on the stock exchange was unsuccessful

Topps started by selling gum with liners. Now cards are her main business. In order not to go broke, in the early 2000s, the company came up with a new way to earn money: for 12 years in the United States there was an online card exchange, where each lot existed in electronic form.

The 1909 card is the most expensive card in baseball history. An image of Honus Wagner was sold for $3 million

Collectors were offered what looked like buying securities. An investor does not need to keep a share of the company in a safe, because it is accounted for in his brokerage account. eTopps, a platform for those who invest in sports cards, worked on the same model.

The actual cardboard copies were kept in the warehouse of the company, which was ready to send the purchase on demand, but it was assumed that the buyers only needed to know what they owned in order to later sell on the same exchange. The model did not work, and in 2012 the project was closed. All buyers were offered to order the delivery of cards and trade them on Ebay.

The cards have their own market index - just like the S&P500

The "major league" of baseball card collecting has formed around the PWCC. Under this mysterious abbreviation is a company that not only evaluates rare items, but also tracks their value. This is how the index of the most expensive cards was formed, which, by analogy with the S & P500 (the American stock index, it is compiled by the analytical agency Standard & Poor's) was called PWCC 100.

On the graph of the growth in the value of assets, the user of the service is hinted that baseball cards are more profitable than stocks of the five hundred best US companies. Since 2008, shares have risen in price by 100%, and the most expensive cards have become even more expensive by 250%.

Thanks to PWCC, there is a renewed interest in selling collectible sets in the USA. It just got harder to make money. Only the rarest specimens can generate income, but now it is much more substantial. Say, in 2017, $50 million worth of cards were sold through the PWCC platform.

Entrepreneur Brady Hill is one of those who made a fortune from this hobby. In his youth, he sold cards to buy a car and drive it to Louisiana to study at a local university. Years later, Hill decided to find out how much the cards he kept in the safe were worth, and he was pleasantly surprised. In the early 2010s, he invested 20% of his family's capital in rare pieces, hoping that this would be a good investment.

Brady Hill with million dollar cards (only in hand)

In 10 years, the 1952 card with Mickey Mantle (there are only 33 of these in the world) has risen in price seven times. Image of Hank Aaron 1953 - at nine. All of these cards are in the Brady Hill collection. In 1983, he watched the young and promising Darryl Strawberry of the New York Mets play. He failed the match, after which the 13-year-old Hill became disillusioned with Darryl. On his father's advice, he traded the Strawberry card for the now retired Mantle and Aaron. At the PWCC auction in May of this year, the Mantle card 19The 52nd was sold for $97,000.

However, it is very difficult to determine in advance when and how the price will rise. Many cards from the list of the most expensive over the same period have significantly fallen in price. “I have cards that cost between $600,000 and $700,000 in total,” Brady Hill said. “But besides them, there are a thousand other cards in my collection that cost noticeably less. In this case, supply must meet demand. There is no point in buying the rarest card if no one wants to buy it from you.

Bradley's passion is balancing between art collecting and trading. It's pretty hard to make money on this, although many Americans hope to one day go to eBay and see a card from their collection with a crazy price tag. Perhaps for this reason, clickbait headlines such as "The 10 Best Baseball Cards to Invest" or "If you have THIS card, you can become a millionaire" are regularly thrown to American fans on the Internet.

***

In 2006, the Allen & Ginter brand (the one that made Americans love sports earbuds) was revived by Topps. But cigarettes under this trademark are no longer produced, now it specializes only in baseball cards. A by-product and the desire to interest the buyer with a pleasant trifle in the form of a beautiful insert determined the image of the company. In the view of Americans, Allen & Ginter is not about tobacco, but about sports.

Photo: Gettyimages.ru/Chris McGrath, Steve Exum, George C. Beresford; The New York Times/Ruth Fremson

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