baseball card collectors

[shortbus]

I'd like to buy my son a box and set of 2009 cards for his birth year. Any suggestions? I'm not looking to break the bank here. It's been fourteen years since I bought my last pack of cards; what's changed in that time?

[gettysburgfreak]

Originally Posted by shortbus

I'd like to buy my son a box and set of 2009 cards for his birth year. Any suggestions? I'm not looking to break the bank here. It's been fourteen years since I bought my last pack of cards; what's changed in that time?

whats changed in that time is the price of a pack of cards has gotten really expensive and you get less cards for your money. Todays cards have a lot of cool inserts such as autographs and game used jersey cards but man are they expensive. I would stick to anything by Topps or Donrus.

[TripleF]

Baseball cards aren't what they used to be. I quit messin' with them a couple of years ago.

Buying a complete box now, will in 50 years from now be worth about the same or less. Nobody wants them or collects them really, I mean not like when we were kids and we used them in out bicycles spokes.

[Mikey202]

The selection of sports cards is crazy, now days. If you want simple, in-expensive , I would say buy Topps, Score or Upper Deck. You can still get some cool inserts with those brands. I've pulled a Joe Namath Autograph and a Steve Young Autograph from the basic Topps set.
Go to a sports card dealer , because there is a difference is Retail packs ( bought at Walmart, ect.) vs Hobby packs (bought at a sport card dealer). Hobby packs have different/better ratio of inserts.

It's a great hobby to get into with your son, also.

[hotreds]

Try and pick up a copy of Sports Collector's Digest and that will give you an idea of what's out there and prices.

[WildBlueSooner]

A shop will give you much better bang for the buck too!

[shortbus]

I found a shop within 75 minutes of my house that looks promising. Very depresing to see what the cards from my youth are worth now. I remember selling an A-Rod rookie for $40 when I needed money for college text books years ago. At the time I felt like the shop owner was ripping me off. Bet he'd like to have his $40 back now.

[Nabinger16]

I think the internet had a big hand in slowing down the trading card market. 10 or 15 years ago you couldn't find certain cards, certain players without buying pack after pack or scouring shops. Now all you have to do is type it into ebay and a week later you have it.

The value of the cards was directly proportionate to the difficulty of finding them in good condition. Now the net is flooded with them. Don't get me wrong, there is still some very elusive much sought after cards out there, but it's now much easier to find them. It's pretty much the same story for comic books.

[Mr.Maduro]

I spent years as a kid putting my collection together the hard way...pack by pack. I often think about selling it, but the only way I think I can do it is in bulk. I'll never get back the money I (my parents) put into it.

I do have some cool autographs and older rare cards, but I don't have the time to sort through everything and really put a value on it.

I would probably just put a tag on the whole collection (making mention on some of the better or more rare stuff) and let someone make me an offer. I have a bunch of un-opened boxes and sets from various years, but its a real shame how much they depreciated in value.