Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Oh My - What Have I Done!

I always thought it would be fun to purchase a large collection of cards off someone.  In my dreams it was always a collection vintage cards from the 60s and earlier for about a penny a card from a grandma that had no clue what she had.  Well, this wasn't the case.

A friend at work does a lot of buying and selling on Craig's List. He collects primarily beer memorabilia but has told me that quite a few large collections have been up for sale in our area.  A couple months back, I was hanging out one evening and decided to take a look on Craig's List instead of watching my daughter's bedtime cartoon. I found an ad that indicated someone had a collection that took up a large portion of his garage and he wanted to sell it all to one person.  He didn't provide a price but promised he would give a firm but fair price if one came out to look at the collection.

I shot him an email and got a response the next morning.  I set up a meeting at the guys house for a Friday afternoon.  The guy's characterization was pretty accurate, much of his two car garage had cards.  There were shelves and tables around the perimeter with boxes and binders of cards and sports related stuff.  I saw a mix of sports and non-sports cards.  I thumbed through some binders, opened a few boxes that claimed to have full sets and talked a bit to the owner.  He was moving and just wanted to clear everything out.  Some things I saw that gave me some perspective - a 1982 Donruss set with the Ripken, a 1984 OPC set with the Mattingly, a box of Empire Strikes back cards, a box of 1980 Topps football cards and an autographed Don Drysdale picture.  I also saw that a big percentage of the cards were from the late 80s/early 90s including multiple sets from 1986-90 Topps.  I had plenty of cards from that era so I was on the fence about the purchase.

I asked for the price and it was surprisingly reasonable.  He indicated he was firm and wouldn't go down and I knew he had one guy who was leaving as I got there who was negotiating with his wife as he would need a small storage unit to house the collection.  I took a break and decided to call my wife to gain her perspective.  To my surprise she encouraged me knowing how much fun I would have going through it and was okay storing the collection in the basement as I went through it.

I have started sorting through the cards and here is a quick pic of some complete sets I have found in the collection.



Check out a video of most of it in my basement, I tried to sort it a little but man is there a lot of stuff.



I went back to the seller and made a deal. I loaded by my Toyota Sequoia and headed home for what would be the first of 7-8 trips over the course of the weekend.  I have started the process of going through the cards but it will take a while.  I have decided to keep a record of what I go through on a google docs spreadsheet, if you are interested take a look and if you want to follow my progress give it a bookmark.

Collection Spreadsheet

If you see anything in the video or on the google doc you are interested in, leave a comment or drop me a note.

22 comments:

  1. Congrats on taking the plunge on a collection! Lots of work I'm sure but fun to flip through. I may want to try to get some stuff from you depending on what's available.

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  2. i've looked at craigslist a time or two, but never pulled the trigger on a deal anything close to that. wow! i'd be up for any 80's o-pee-chee (primarily dodgers), but you probably already knew that. looks like a lot of fun!

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  3. Wow. what a haul. Lots of stuff from many areas of the "hobby". I often think I have a large unmanageable collection, that haul is about 6 times as large at least.

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  4. Holy heck, you're set for the YEAR, at least! Have fun.

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  5. That is a ton of wax, I wouldn’t even know where to start. It looks like it will be fun to go through but organizing probably won’t be as fun.

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  6. That's really cool, although it also looks like a ton of work. Is be interested to see what non-sports stuff is there, particularly Marvel and Fantasy/Sci-Fi-type cards. I didn't see a lot of that in the video, but who knows what's hidden in all those boxes and binders?

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  7. Nice purchase! Have fun going through it.

    What is that Royals baseball? It looks like it has the Devil Rays logo on the label. I would be up for any interesting Royals stuff that you come across. Thanks!

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  8. Wow! That's something!

    I think you know that I am interested in Browns items. If one of the MVP pins is an Ozzie Newsome, I've been looking for one.

    Congrats on the purchase and have fun with everything!

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  9. Wow! What a Score-no pun intended. Way to much fun!

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  10. Oh man, a dream come true. Enjoy every minute of it.

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  11. I believe "holy shit" would be an accurate description of my initial response to watching that video.

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  12. That is really cool! Hope you find a few treasures in there.

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  13. I would be interested in the 79 Topps Hulk and other Marvel cards.

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  14. I picked up a collection that was 1/20th of this size a few years ago... and it took me almost a year to sift through. But gotta admit... it was so much fun! Congratulations on the purchase!

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  15. Picture that kind of content filling two rooms plus in an old downtown shop building, or about half of a mall store space mixed in with other piles of items. That is the Clio, Michigan shop and warehouse space that I've visited annually for the last couple years. Lots of junk wax, but lots of fun too!

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  16. Wow! Thats one understanding wife! Congrats on the purchase and have fun!

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  17. I am so jealous of you for getting those X-Men tins :(

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  18. Holy $&@% that is intense. Should be a lot of fun to go through

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  19. Good gravy! My wife would be gone already. If any of those magazines have Astros on the covers, drop me a line.

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  20. That's awesome! Was it a collector or was it someone that at one time had a card shop?

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    1. He said he was just a collector. Some of the collection makes me think he bought some stuff from a former shop owner.

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