Soaking Up Knowledge from OG Collectors Is Beneficial
A few weeks ago, around Thanksgiving, I was out of town visiting my mother when she mentioned that she had a friend, widowed a few years ago, who’s late husband had what she described as a massive collection and was looking to unload it. As a collector and one who flips to buy PC cards, I was intrigued.
Facebook is flooded with stories (whether true or untrue) of unearthed treasures discovered from long-lost collections. And in all honesty, I was hoping to have one of those stories of my own. Not only for the monetary gain – although it wouldn’t hurt – but to be able to bring something cool to light!
When we arrived I was led to the garage where there were stacks of 4-5 row card boxes. I didn’t get a hard count, but there had to be at least 15-20 boxes. And in some other regular cardboard boxes I found binders upon binders. I knew I wouldn’t have time to go through each box, so I started by simply glancing at the labels hand written on the side.
This is where my knowledge of older collections, gleaned from OG collectors, pre COVID card guys like Mike Gio of SCN fame, came in handy.
Since I didn’t have much time I knew I had to be fast and if I was going to buy I needed to garner as much information as I could from the labels in the boxes. Lid after lid I didn’t see anything that stood out. While it was labeled much of it was junk wax baseball. But then my son who was with me found a box of football cards and we grabbed it and opened it.
It was littered with iconic and possibly very lucrative sets. Stacks of 40-50 cards from 2000 Bowman, 2001 Bowman Chrome, 2000 Topps Gold Label, 2004 Topps, 2004 Topps Chrome, 2001 Topps Finest, 2003 Topps Finest, 2003 Bowman, 2005 Bowman Chrome.
I was thrilled. I could only imagine the names I could find. And not only the names, but names in iconic, since retired sets, due to the loss of the licensure, like Topps Finest. I made an offer after flipping through only a few cards to make sure the labels on the dividers matched what was behind them.
Aside from a few cards, I pretty much made a blind offer that she accepted. I got the box for $25. I know it’s a low ball offer but remember I was taking a risk and the nice person was just looking to clear space. I felt comfortable because (1) it was not a very high price, and (2) from what I had learned consuming content the last four years. By listening to collectors who were in the collecting game for the last 20 years I knew enough that I could find a gem among those cards. There’s something to be said about tuning out noise on social media. But there are great voices out there too. And armed with that knowledge is why I bought the box.
Now, unfortunately I didn’t pull anything notable. It looked like whoever put them in the box put the good cards in separate storage yet to be located. But that’s not the point of this piece. The point is that I knew the products in that box were desirable. And I gave myself the best chance I could at finding a treasure in a trove of cards with a limited amount of time for research.
I also want to say I tried to be as respectful as I could for the deceased. I told the owner that the best thing to do would be to list the whole lot, and that someone with time and resources would be interested to sift through all of them. Married with three kids I just don’t have that kind of time. Otherwise I would have considered buying the lot. Hopefully wherever his cards go they go to a great collector or someone who will respect them enough to get them to a people who really love them. And hey, maybe there is a diamond in the rough among the garden of weeds.