Anyone remember these? Probably the set where I really got going as a card collector. Unfortunately I don't think they were ever worth anything for some reason. Remember when cards used to be like 30 cents a pack, with a big stick of gum? I think the time I lost interest in baseball coincides directly with the cost in baseball cards going thru the roof. Sucks. I really loved that. Collecting cards really helped me get into sports. It really did. Do they make cheap cards anymore? I don't really care about how much they'll be worth someday, I just think it's a great and fun way to get interested in sports (and for my kid to do the same). 5 bucks a pack for 5 cards or whatever it is nowadays really pisses me off. IMO it really took the sport away from the kids.
Should have bought the basketball cards instead. 81 Fleer was triple players on a single card. Magic/Bird Rookie card with Dr. J on it. Worth major bank now.
Yup, that was a great series. I used to collect when I was younger, but am turned off by the way that the prices are out of most kids range. Plus the market is so saturated now, it's almost impossible to keep up with the game anymore. I remember when I could walk in a Sam's Club or Cosco (Cost Club) and buy and entire box of cards for $10....now I can't even buy 2 or 3 packs for that much. Oh, and to make matters worse, they only put like 8 cards in a pack now.
I used to be a huge collector until recently, It really has turned into a huge business now. Everyone is only interested in getting the insert cards, so no one cares about putting a set together anymore.
Ahhh... Baseball Card Collecting, those were the days... I started in the late 60's and collected thru '75. Bought some since then but nowhere near what I did in those years. Like Freak said, I did it for the fun of it, not for the profit. I still have almost all my cards and have no idea of the value of any of them, nor do I care to know. I collected to get my favorite players, Clemente, Cedeno, Seaver..etc. I once traded a Babe Ruth card for a Clemente card that a friend had, that no matter how many packs I bought, I could never seem to get. The Ruth card was an All-Star card that came out in '71 (I think). Back in those days they only had Topps cards. I also collected Football and Basketball cards as well.
I have a lot of cards from the 80's in football. I tried getting back into collecting in the 90's, but gave up when the Beam Team crap came out. It seemed like that's about when everything went insert-mania. I kind of want to go back and buy some rookie cards of basketball players now, but can't make myself fork over the money for them. I may go out and buy some old comics I wanted to get as kid, too. I doubt I'll ever get back into collecting again... too much garbage out there to wade through.
I started collecting back in 1987 with topps baseball....I was a big collector until 1994 when I slowly lost interest in it...Now I just buy like 3 basketball packs and one beckett preice guide per year.
I lost interest as they started making a zillion brands it was just to much to keep up with. That and the fact that cards got real ugly around the mid 90's led me to quit collecting them.(strike didnt help either). I lost so much money (card wise) in trading for all the Ryan Klesko's that I came across, I thought he was the next big thing.
You just KNEW I was going to show up in this thread... Card collecting today is all about autographs, relic cards, and graded cards. Everything else is a throwaway, sorry to say. New disturbing trend in trading cards: 2001 Topps Tribute Baseball hobby box - $475 2002 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Baseball hobby Box - $450 retail 2003 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Football hobby box - $340 retail 2003 Topps Tribute Perennial All-Star Edition Baseball hobby box - $220 retail 2003 Topps Tribute Contemporary Collection Baseball hobby box - $205 retail Who are these people who buy super expensive boxes?? Sure, I can't complain, because it pays the bills. However, some collectors out there are really mentally f***ed in the head for shelling out $450 for a box of cards. Especiially when there's a distinct possibility that the best card in your box could be a Bob Friend autograph card. It's a freaking lottery, and collectors are eating it up. Every Tribute product Topps makes often sells above planned sales numbers (as an MTO company, we don't produce cards until after sales are in). God bless the people who pay $100 for a pack of 4 cards. We're talking about a 2-sided piece of cardboard with a player's picture on it. How THAT is worth big $$ will always remain a mystery to me...
OMG... no lie. My friend and I tried hitting every WalMart, baseball shop, Target, etc. we could find trying to see if they had boxes. I swear I was putting 200 miles per day on my car without even leaving the Houston city limits trying to find boxes of that set just to see if I could get a Beam Team. I remember going to a baseball card store over on FM 1092. I think a father and son (Todd Harvey was one I believe) ran the place. They used to come talk sports memorabilia on 610 I think during the early 90's. I walked in one day just to browse and overheard some guy had sold his car or his motorcycle to get a Shaq Beam Team. That's when I said, "I need to get outta this hobby"...
I'm the same way (even the same years). They're too expensive with too many inserts. I like simple sets.
The 1987 Topps set is my favorite, by far. Clean attractive design, nice rookies and still relatively cheap. Got a waxbox on eBay a few months ago for about $10. The worst? The 1988 Topps. Boring design, massively overproduced, zero rookies and just plain ole nasty. Ew.
I remember back in '92 when I pulled a Shaq Topps Gold. Man, talk about a good example of when to sell 'high'. For 'older' baseball cards, it doesn't get much better than the 1991 Bowman set. 1988 Topps was by far the worst product ever. You couldn't pay me to open packs of that.
I have a friend who has gone eBay crazy and is currently trying to relive our youth, when we collected cards in the late 80s and early 90s. He bought a 92-93 TSC Beam Team Shaq for $35 on eBay and taunts me daily, by sending me scanned pictures of it with stuff like, "my collection is finally better than yours... i got the crown jewel of our childhood in my possession" He went on to get EVERY single Shaq rookie card from that year, for a few hundred bucks. I tried getting back into it by visiting a card shop with him last month, but I couldn't recapture my past like he did. SOB even pulled a Tracy McGrady jersey card in one of the 5 new packs we purchased that day. The most horrid thing of the entire experience was that purchasing 5 packs cost over $30!!!! I used to be able to pick up 5 packs of Fleer Ultra basketball and football cards with my $10/ week allowance as a child. Sometimes, I just feel sorry for the kids of today.
I remember the 1988 Fleer set with the Billy Ripken #$%* Face card. We bought tons of boxes to get those...(of course the boxes were $18-25 then.) I remember my dad trading one of those cards for a 68 Willie Mays or something like that. I also remember the 92-93 Fleer Ultra. I swear I have 1 Shaq, but like 6 Mourning rookies inserts out of that set...I forget the name of the insert card for rookies in that set. We never tried for the Beam Team...I remember drooling over it though. That probably started the craze, but didn't Donruss have the first truly hard to get inserts...I forget what they were, but they were really hard to get.
Was the one where it was written on his bat? I recall something about Ripken having something on his bat on that card. I remember running around town trying to get Robert Horry rookie cards... I think I have them somewhere... not worth squat. I look back and wish I had bought some Microsoft stock back then instead of blowing money on cards and comics. And it's not like we were wealthy either...
So is there NO company that makes a cheap brand of cards these days? Baseball, football, basketball...anything?
Yup...the "F" word for all the world to see on the bottom of his bat. It was a joke by his teamates or something. Not only was it sought after, but they made like 5 variations..."scratch out," "black out," "white out," "clean."
