20+ years later, overproduction still lets people down

Id say just about once a week, I get a call or walk in from a non/ ex collector looking to sell their "old" cards.

Im not exaggerating when I say 99 percent of them are all crap from the over production era or beat up stuff from the late 70's.

When I get a call or walk in and they ask if I buy cards, I ALWAYS think "here comes the junk"......and it always comes. Ive grown pretty imune to the reaction I get from the customer when I tell them their childhood collection is worthless but today kind of threw me.

One guy came in looking to sell his childhood collection but the first cards he showed me were: 83T Boggs (ex), 79 Schmidt (ex), 87T Bonds (ex), etc. I told him that the cards are basically worthless due to over production, lack of demand and condition.

He was a little taken back but then he went into his backpack and pulled out pages after pages after pages after pages of 1987 Topps cards.

When I told him that, again, all those cards are basically not worth anything, you could see him "deflate" as if he was expecting to get a couple grand for the lot. I totally sensed it and felt prettty bad, something, like I mentioned earlier, eventhough Ive become pretty immune to...except for this time.

"You know how much money I spent on these as a kid" he asked. I told him I and millions of others did the exact same thing as a kid, which is why they are worth nothing.

A few hours later, a teen and his Dad came with a massive binder and a small box.
They said they found it while cleaning out an apt. they own and were looking to sell.

Well the huge (HUGE) binder was filled with early 90s FB, all over produced stuff. And the small box was a "tad" better with a couple of common GU cards, an 86D Canseco, some early Mac cards (no 1985) and a couple of common cards graded by a company that doesnt grade any card less than GEM MINT (one was an 84 Circle K Bench totally OC and yellowed).

Again, I had to tell them the news. They asked me if I would give them ANYTHING for the lot and I replied that I wouldnt be able to sell a single card so Ill have to pass.

Surprisingly, they told me to just keep everything for free and that it frees up space in their place. I told them to at least take all the GU cards and thanks.

It got me wondering how many times dealers (stores or shows) have to let down people about their mass produced junk every single day. Stuff they have had since a kid or stuff they thought would be worth big bucks one day.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

It absolutely has to happen every single day. A friend of mine busted out his collection tonight, and I had to tell him the news. :lol: He did have a Mattingly Collectors Choice Gold sig! And this Score Dimaggio "Rookie" card from like 1992, he said it was worth $50 back in the day!




Found one for $10.50 BIN which is pretty steep for a 1992 Score card. Maybe he did know what he was talking about!

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

I worked at a store in L.A for 8 years (The store is the oldest card shop in L.A, so we had a good amount of traffic) and I'd say we had that happen at least 2 to 3 times a day. Including phone calls, I'd say 8-10 times a day. Because we were always honest and didnt BS people, other stores would send people to us (theyd say, "We dont buy this, but so and so might") so we could tell them that their stuff is worthless. Sometimes people didnt really care, but more often than not it was people that needed money and it was like we were telling them their dog died. Even other times people in that situation would get mad at us and yell and scream, etc. Its just an uncomfortable situation as a dealer, but its something that I got used to, even though you never stop feeling sorry for the people that think they have a goldmine or were relying on the cards to pay a bill or get some extra cash in a hard time for them.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

FromKoufaxtoEdwin said:

I worked at a store in L.A for 8 years (The store is the oldest card shop in L.A, so we had a good amount of traffic) and I'd say we had that happen at least 2 to 3 times a day. Including phone calls, I'd say 8-10 times a day. Because we were always honest and didnt BS people, other stores would send people to us (theyd say, "We dont buy this, but so and so might") so we could tell them that their stuff is worthless. Sometimes people didnt really care, but more often than not it was people that needed money and it was like we were telling them their dog died. Even other times people in that situation would get mad at us and yell and scream, etc. Its just an uncomfortable situation as a dealer, but its something that I got used to, even though you never stop feeling sorry for the people that think they have a goldmine or were relying on the cards to pay a bill or get some extra cash in a hard time for them.

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Which store?

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

I come across the same thing everytime i am in school and if i mention i collect sports cards. People are always like " i have a bunch of cards from when i used to buy cards" and i say yea thats cool instead of saying your stuff is worth probably nothing. Or sometimes they will say i have some cards you should take a look at. I feel bad but its sad how much space is taken up by overpdoduced commons. O well, what they dont wAnt to know wont hurt them ::facepalm::

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

I buy a ton of private collections and i run into this all the time. I was at a guy's house a few weeks ago and he had no lie around 800,000 cards all in 5000 count boxes on a pallet in his spare bedroom. 99% of the stuff was 1985-1990 topps. The guy was super excited and was telling me about how his son was heading off to school and he was ready to cash in his cards to pay for a couple years. I almost fell over when he told me this. He told me he was asking "only" 70 grand for the cards. I almost laughed in his face but held myself together and then explained to him that his "inestment" was worth at most a few hundred if he could find someone to buy them at all. Turns ou some dealr he knew was selling him the 5000 count boxes for 500 apiece in the early 90s. It was kind of sad to see i actually thought he was gonna cry.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

This happened all the time when I managed Double Play Sports. It still happens to me with friends and colleagues. They'll know or find out I managed a shop for 5 years and they'll start in on their collection that always falls between 1976 and the late 90's.

We always did well with our dime, quarter, and fifty cent boxes so I usually made offers on the binders or boxes. It is sad because my generation (I'm 29) had no idea we were collecting essentially worthless junk for years and years.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

This is the hardest part of anything that I have had to deal with being a seller at a card show or anywhere else for that matter. Even worse than the @sses that want you to bend over and sell cheap so they can make money on your cards.

I was never comfortable telling someone that the cards they had were worth nothing, and don't I have any interest in it.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

People I meet ask me to take a look at their collections to see how much they have. These are new friends type of situations. I've actually stopped telling people I collect because the heartbroken looks just got to be too much for me to deal w/ anymore. My college girlfriend's dad had a small collection of stuff from the 50s and 60s. He had a pretty solid Jim Bunning rookie. That's the best I've ever found in someone's collection.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

In honor of this thread I picked up a "World's Greatest Chase" blaster at Target for $20 this morning. (Was hoping to pickup some retail '10 Update, but it wasn't on shelves yet)

Kinda fun opening the wax packs for a change...pulled a stack of cards maybe a foot high, keeping a stack of cards about 2 inches high. The rest are going straight to the trash can.

No delusion that this 91 Topps Nolan Ryan or any of these cards which suggest Tony Gwynn MIGHT one day wind up in Cooperstown ( :lol: ) are worth the time it'd take to find a buyer.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

Several days ago, a new guy came in and we started talking. I couldnt tell if he was an experienced collector or starting out, seemed like he knew his stuff on one hand, then tells me he has Jordan "college rookie cards".

So he breaks out his phone and shows me a video of someones collection, it was either a dealer trying to con him or a collector who has no clue what he has, couldnt tell.

Video shows binder of junk stuff with the guy in the back saying he has "20 million bucks worth of cards" and then shows his Mantle AUTOGRAPH card.

Problem is that the Mantle "auto" is one of those HR History cards made by Topps three years ago and obviously not autographed.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

We just use the line of, "Sorry there's nothing that we are interesting in buying right now. Try selling them eBay or Craigslist."
That's way easier than going on and on about how they are a "worthless steaming pile."

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

Though I know all this is true and experienced it myself when getting back in to collecting 6 years ago, this still has to be one of the most depressing threads in recent FCB history... Since the Strasburg news broke anyway...

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

wlalocal71 said:

FromKoufaxtoEdwin said:

I worked at a store in L.A for 8 years (The store is the oldest card shop in L.A, so we had a good amount of traffic) and I'd say we had that happen at least 2 to 3 times a day. Including phone calls, I'd say 8-10 times a day. Because we were always honest and didnt BS people, other stores would send people to us (theyd say, "We dont buy this, but so and so might") so we could tell them that their stuff is worthless. Sometimes people didnt really care, but more often than not it was people that needed money and it was like we were telling them their dog died. Even other times people in that situation would get mad at us and yell and scream, etc. Its just an uncomfortable situation as a dealer, but its something that I got used to, even though you never stop feeling sorry for the people that think they have a goldmine or were relying on the cards to pay a bill or get some extra cash in a hard time for them.

Click to expand...

Which store?

Click to expand...

Beverly Hills Baseball

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

I don't work in a store but as others have said when I tell someone I collect they start gushing about their "old" cards....which inevitably turn out to be 1988 Donruss or something similar. A guy brought in a stack of his cards earlier this year and the best one was a 1983 Topps Johnny Bench. He was kind of disappointed but at least he didn't have a pallet in his room!

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

I suppose there are a couple positive ways to view all of this -without overproduction, these folks may not have had the cards to begin with. Hopefully they've enjoyed these cards and didn't look at them purely for investment.

In a sense, today's hobby isn't all that different. Instead of a player having 500,000 cards from a single set like 20 years ago, today's players still have 500,000 cards... they're just split amongst dozens of sets!

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

Those were the "fun" days of collecting and I admit I miss those days. But those cards are only good for TTM autograph requests.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

uniquebaseballcards said:

I suppose there are a couple positive ways to view all of this -without overproduction, these folks may not have had the cards to begin with. Hopefully they've enjoyed these cards and didn't look at them purely for investment.

In a sense, today's hobby isn't all that different. Instead of a player having 500,000 cards from a single set like 20 years ago, today's players still have 500,000 cards... they're just split amongst dozens of sets!

Click to expand...

Add a zero to your numbers for back then and you are getting close.

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

I've worked part-time at a shop for about 10 years and it happens all the time. It sucks to do, but what can you do except tell the truth? I get calls constantly about people selling stuff and when I tell them the only stuff we're buying is vintage from the 50's-early 70's I usually get this type of response:

"Oh ok, well I have about a 1000 cards from the early 90's. Would you be interested in those?"

Re: 20+ years later, overproduction still lets down people

I have pulled my time behind the counter and have dealt with this 1000's of times. Its really bad here in rural NC as many people could get their hands on cards back in the day. Every supermarket, gas station, corner store, retail store, and bookstore used to sell stuff so people would buy by the gross.

I ALWAYS encourage people to take a few bucks and purchase a Beckett and read up on how the market has changed. I don't necessarily tell them their cards are worthless but I point out that what they have was during a time of mass production, low costs, and multiple manufacturers making literally millions of cards each year.

I encourage them to go to ebay, check out some auctions and also visit Craigslist. Yardsales and flea markets are also something I tell them as people are always looking for stuff like that to "invest" in and there's a chance they can make a few dollars if they sell in bulk. I also discuss the possibility of a tax write off if they donate to certain charities or non profit organizations.

One great story I like to tell is of my Uncle Fred. Back in the mid 90's when people were still reeling from the HEAVY overproduction years of the late 80's and early 90's, he got a call from a lady asking if he would be interested in buying her late husband's collection. He scoffed at the call, knowing that he would likely find binder after binder of 86-90 Topps, Fleer, and Donruss. To show courtesy, he decided to go to her house. Well, when she invited him in to her formal dining room, he knew he was in for a ride. There sitting on the table was a silver serving platter with a heap of cards sitting on it. She said she had pulled out some of his "special" cards and put them in there for my uncle to look at. At first glance his heart nearly exploded as he saw a Mantle 52 Topps on the top of the stack. He also saw some Aaron, Williams, Clemente, and other superstar cards from the early 50's/60's. He was amazed at the condition and he filed through the stack to find a total of THREE 52 Mantles and some really nice other cards. She asked him if he was tired of looking and she said she had more to show him. Well, she took him into her husbands "study" and there, he found complete sets of every Topps product made from 53 all the way up til the late 70's.

He was blown away at this point and he discussed with her about the rarity of some of those cards and if she really wanted to sell to him. He then asked the question, "how much?". She said she could not put a price on something like that but that she was looking for a good home for them. He told her that he only had $1000 in cash on him but he could probably do more if she gave him time. She simply told him that she would take the 1000 dollars and that she had heard good things about him and cards and she knew he would enjoy them. He asked her repeatedly if she wanted more and if she was sure, and she said she was. So all in all, he walked away with a **** ton of cards simply by taking a "chance" on a call from someone trying to sell.

You never know. I never turn anyone away that wants to sell stuff. It could be the motherlode.