That awkward conversation....

I'm getting material this morning and the counter guy asked if I went black friday shopping for my impending child. I said all my black friday shopping was online and was baseball cards. That was a mistake....

Guy: "BRO! You gotta check out my collection!"
Me: Oh yeah? You collect cards?
Guy: I use to, I still have all the seasons sealed
*Uh oh, I gotta a bad feeling about this*
Me: Oh cool, like 80's and 90's sets?
Guy: Yeah man, I got like Bo Jackson rookie cards
Me: Yeah bro, that stuff isn't so hot anymore

I go on to explain collecting has changed and he's got stuff that not many people will want. I show him some eBay auctions and his expression went from excitement to disappointment. I'm sure everyone has had these run in's but this is my first in a while.

Not much better than a friend of mine living across the country having his mother make a special trip to my house to drop off a package of cards for me that he thought would be valuable, since, after all, they were mostly from the late 70's and early 80's.

I opened up the bag to see a thick rubber band around a stack of HIGHLY WORN OUT nobodies. The cards had no corners, just round, brown areas connected by badly bent up surfaces. When I saw the stack I tried to stop my laughter but a little just jumped right out of me in her face. Her eyes were wide, thinking I was getting a gold mine. I thanked her and let her go without saying too much. I'm sure she thought she was delivering me a stack of 52' Mantles.

"Mom, your sitting on a gold mine, go find out how much gold"

Hmm...

So instead of sharing in his excitement of collecting, you water it all down to widespread demand and value, basically telling him his collection is junk?

Unless of course I am missing the point where he was gloating about his collections enormous value?

Either way, good job?

On a side note, I love bo jackson cards.

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I once got asked to appraise a "$25,000" collection that was donated to a local church. Not only was it junk era stuff, it was nothing but commons from junk sets. A 4x4 pallet stacked 6 feet high with 5,000 count boxes filled with nothing but junk era commons. The church people thought they were going to be able to get at least $10K by selling them off. The guy was trying to scam them for a $25K tax write off.

Scott F

Used to get these on a daily occurrence in my shop

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I've been there, MANY times. I just picked up a collection today filled with psa graded Bonds & McGwire rookies - he bought them at the height of the home run chases. I thought I was going to be in for a very disappointing talk with him, but he was fine.

forgerelli said:

I once got asked to appraise a "$25,000" collection that was donated to a local church. Not only was it junk era stuff, it was nothing but commons from junk sets. A 4x4 pallet stacked 6 feet high with 5,000 count boxes filled with nothing but junk era commons. The church people thought they were going to be able to get at least $10K by selling them off. The guy was trying to scam them for a $25K tax write off.

Scott F

Click to expand...

F-kd up

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forgerelli said:

I once got asked to appraise a "$25,000" collection that was donated to a local church. Not only was it junk era stuff, it was nothing but commons from junk sets. A 4x4 pallet stacked 6 feet high with 5,000 count boxes filled with nothing but junk era commons. The church people thought they were going to be able to get at least $10K by selling them off. The guy was trying to scam them for a $25K tax write off.

Scott F

Click to expand...

When you donate cards to a hospital or similar type of institution, I believe you get to write of $0.05 per card..

So if you pick up some old collections and needs write offs, think about donating them..

When I saw the title to this topic. I thought it was going to be about this. "Mom, where do babies come from ?" :shock:

Pinbreaker said:

When you donate cards to a hospital or similar type of institution, I believe you get to write of $0.05 per card..

So if you pick up some old collections and needs write offs, think about donating them..

Click to expand...

I believe you can only deduct fair market value. If you donate say a 1991 Upper Deck set that has a book value of $20.00 and they sell for $5.00 on ebay, you can only deduct $5.00. I would recommend asking a Tax Professional first before taking a charitable donation of collectibles.

KLARNOLD said:

I believe you can only deduct fair market value. If you donate say a 1991 Upper Deck set that has a book value of $20.00 and they sell for $5.00 on ebay, you can only deduct $5.00. I would recommend asking a Tax Professional first before taking a charitable donation of collectibles.

Click to expand...

I donated 10 complete sets of 91 Fleer, I estimated that's about $800 fair market

AnthonyCorona said:

I donated 10 complete sets of 91 Fleer, I estimated that's about $800 fair market

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I have avoided that conversation, many times I have been asked to look through a collection to see how much there worth. Don't want to be that guy to burst there bubble.

If somebody is talking to me about that stuff, I don't really feel the need to take a big ol' dump on their rainbow unless they specifically ask me how much it's worth or are trying to get me to buy it. A lot of the time they're not going to believe you anyway.