Antique Collecting: Baseball Cards at Garage Sales

Video Transcript

"You know those stories you hear about going to garage sales or about buying a new house and going into a closet and finding these boxes of phenomenal baseball cards? It still happens. So it may be kind of a folk tale and it may sound kind of funny. Aw, gee, it'll never happen to me. But you know what? Every now and then you might spot baseball cards. So I would definitely look at baseball cards. Most of the time when you go to a garage sale you'll find really modern cards. And you can tell by looking at the back of the cards what the years are. Because when they show the stats, the years will be there. And so you can assume it's the year just after the stat that's shown and that will show you the age. Baseball cards from the seventies, eighties. There are selective baseball cards that are worth something. But most of them aren't. So you really want to look at the older cards. You can tell them by looking at them. By the year on their back, by the year that's on their back. Like 1958. So this would be a 1959 probably, baseball card. This is the card of all cards, a Mickey Mantle card. So you want to look for cards that are older, and you can tell by looking at the back. And you want to look for cards that are in good condition. But if they're newer cards remember, new cards, comic books, whatever it may be. The printed zillions and trillions and millions of them. So there are a few isolated cards and they're popular, based on who the athlete is. So, those are good but you know, sometimes boxes of those cards are worth a few dollars so you just don't want to start collecting those because then, like me, you will have box after box in your garage, of cards that you do not know what to do with. So you'll probably donate them to a children's organization and you'll probably be out whatever you spent for those cards and you will probably not feel good about it. So, when you're looking at baseball cards, look at age is everything and player quality, popularity. Don't buy new cards."