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You ever get lucky on a garage sell find with cards?

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jam022316

Member
Jul 31, 2018
60
2
I see all these adds on facebook marketplace and craigslist of people with huge collections from childhood selling. Now most of us know if it's late 80's early 90's stuff it's worth about $20 not $500. But there are some that look like they may have some hidden treasures for decent prices. Anybody ever done this? Buy big lots off of craigslist or something like that and do decent? I'm not talking finding a 1000 card but maybe you find some gem mint rc's or something?
 

Pinbreaker

Well-known member
Aug 7, 2008
10,129
281
Laguna Niguel, CA
I know some guys that go to garage/Storage sales and will buy the cards and break them down by team lots and do decent..

When I moved down here to So Cal, I gave him all my bulk cards and he did that and sent me some extra $$ when he was done selling them in lots..

:)
 

smapdi

Well-known member
Aug 7, 2008
4,397
221
Never. I went to one estate sale that advertised comic books in the listing along with all the other stuff. Figured maybe there was a stash. When I found them, it was about a dozen books, all early-00s Marvel garbage. No big books, no sleeper books. The manager said he'd had several inquiries but that's all it was, hadn't been scooped by someone else earlier. Every garage sale I've ever been to has only included mismatched dishware, Tom Clancy and Dan Brown books, and baby clothes.
 

jam022316

Member
Jul 31, 2018
60
2
Garage sales at the homes of 60-70 year old widow ladies are usually gravy.

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Never. I went to one estate sale that advertised comic books in the listing along with all the other stuff. Figured maybe there was a stash. When I found them, it was about a dozen books, all early-00s Marvel garbage. No big books, no sleeper books. The manager said he'd had several inquiries but that's all it was, hadn't been scooped by someone else earlier. Every garage sale I've ever been to has only included mismatched dishware, Tom Clancy and Dan Brown books, and baby clothes.

If anything this thread was worth it for these two posts alone lol. When I say garage sale I mean more like facebook marketplace and craigslist. I see a lot of wishful thinkers on there but some of it just catches my eye and I always wonder if I'm passing up hidden treasures.
 

Randy Shields

Well-known member
Aug 20, 2008
2,224
441
OH-IO
Garage sales at the homes of 60-70 year old widow ladies are usually gravy.

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Man I hope these aren't the "mostly chicks" that you mentioned in your earlier post!

Back on topic, nothing really to speak for me at garage sales. As with everyone else it's usually late 80s early 90s so I don't even bother going anymore. And Craigslist in my area seems to have about the same thing but now a lot of people are calling the late 80s early 90s stuff Vintage which is kind of amusing.
On a side note there's a site called AuctionZip that you can check for different auctions in your area and you can choose the mileage radius. They may include sports cards and may even include them in photo galleries for the particular auctions that are featured. I've never had much luck with them but a buddy of mine has done very well in the past.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Freedom Card Board mobile app
 

gracecollector

Well-known member
Aug 7, 2008
6,559
215
Lake in the Hills, IL
My mom used to drag me to garage sales when I collected as a kid in the early 80's. Best I ever did, and still have, was a 1972 Topps Basketball partial set (about 1/2) with Julius Erving rookie.
 

Austin

Well-known member
Aug 7, 2008
5,706
41
Dallas, Texas
I go to garage sales 2-3 Saturdays a month and I rarely see cards. When I do they're usually late '80s and '90s cards. When I see more modern cards, they're usually football for some reason. I did score a nice monster box full of 2012-2016 Topps, Bowman, Finest and Chrome baseball cards with tons of cool inserts a few months ago for $10.

But I never see vintage sports cards at garage sales. The closest I came was at a Salvation Army earlier this year, when I found a shoebox full of late '70s Star Wars, Battlestar Gallactica and Jaws cards for $3.
 
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Super Mario

Well-known member
Mar 1, 2009
18,242
85
Mushroom Kingdom
Wait, you mean to tell me Super Mario is the infamous Gilf Slayer??? That guys a legend at the nearby old folks home. I heard he slayed this one gilfs a$s so hard it gave her dementia! His a$$capades & a$$complishments are legendary bro, legendary.

I’ve tried to keep that a secret, but the cat’s out of the bag now.
 

chris19978

Active member
Aug 30, 2011
978
25
I got 2 good one one had various cards the 3 hits I got on one was a $50.00 buy and got a Jeter SP Rookie and 3 of those 1996 Zenith Diamond cards with Diamonds in them. And the other was 3 sets for $75.00 they were the 1993 SP set, 2001 Bowman and a 1993 Finest set that had 4 Refractor 3 common and Frank Thomas for $75.00. You just need to look most suck but you can find a good one every once in awhile.


Sent from my iPhone using Freedom Card Board mobile app
 

Verdammt

Member
Feb 4, 2014
79
0
Wichita, KS
Back during the summer of 88, my friend and I went with his mom to a garage sale just to see what we could find. The guy said he had a few cards and pulled out a 3200 count box full of 83 Fleer. We figured "Why not?" and gave him $20 for it, took it home and started going through it. Surprisingly, there were multiple copies of the big three rookies from that year (Boggs, Gwynn and Sandberg). We each kept one of each and sold the others to a local card store for a decent profit. Decent to two teenagers, anyways.
 

swish54_99

Well-known member
Dec 12, 2012
1,160
221
Never at a garage sale but have had great luck at local flea markets/auctions.
Got this lot for like $75 a few years back:
1968 Topps Nolan Ryan RC raw - ended up grading a PSA 4.
1968 Topps Mickey Mantle raw - ended up grading a PSA 6 MC
1969 Topps Reggie Jackson RC raw - ended up grading a PSA 2
1979 Topps Ozzie Smith RC PSA 8.

Got this lot for less than $100 a number of years ago:
2010 Bowman Chrome Julio Teheran auto
A bunch of 2011 Bowman Chrome Danny Brewer autos/plates that were all /5 or less including a couple superfractors. Even though he was out of baseball at the time I bought, I sold the auto super for the price I paid for the lot and everything else was pure profit.
Plus some other bowman chrome autos
 

crypticfreak1

Member
May 16, 2016
176
4
So this is a fun one! About 2 months ago I purchased a 220,000 card lot off a guy on Facebook. Guy was closing down a store. I knew I wouldn’t hit anything big but I figured 52 boxes of either 3,200 or 5,000 cards per box could be fun to go through. I’ve gone through 37 boxes so far and have been able to pull out about 4 5,000 count boxes of stars. Nothing big but if I can sell each player lot for a few dollars then I will most likely triple my money back or more. I paid $250 for them all and have since sold less than a third of the cards I already sorted for $150!
 

delsant2

Active member
May 29, 2010
323
172
In my experience, most people think that since the have baseball cards, and they are "vintage" (i.e 20 years old) that they are worth a lot of money. I have seen plenty of cards at garage sales, but rarely, if ever are they priced right. HOWEVER, this one time I went to look at a garage sale ad that mentioned sports cards. The fellow had a few complete sets of random mid 90's cards. They were priced above market value, but I looked anyway. These were put together by hand, so there were some inserts and parallels that were pulled from packs. In the 1997 Fleer set was a David Ortiz (David Arias) Tiffany card. So I bought the set for $50, along with a few other fun ones that probably were not worth the money. Unfortunately for me, this was around 2008/2009 when people thought he might be done. I wound up making a profit, but I am sure the card would go for quite a bit more now, not to mention it probably would have graded at least a 9 (which of course I did not have done). Heck, if it made a 10, I probably left hundreds on the table. Anyway, fun story nonetheless.

Cheers,

Mark
 

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