Finding your happy place in a hyped-up hobby

Heritage Auctions just conducted a two-day Platinum Night sale that ended with more than $30 million worth of sports cards and memorabilia sold. Next weekend, Goldin Auctions will close out its latest sale, full of more six- and seven-figure cards, both current and modern. Scroll through the lots and your eyes glaze over at the amount …

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How to unload those cards that aren’t worth anything

Every pack you open, the stack gets a little bigger. Eventually it goes into a box. Then there are so many cards in the box, you need a bigger box. There are hundreds at first, then thousands. You need two, then three, then four boxes.   They hold the cards that you don’t hold dear. Many are players who …

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Dad’s old sets: A look back at the sports cards of 1971

Gas was 40 cents a gallon. Stamps were 8 cents. The average monthly rent was about $150. A new house? In the Midwest, you could still snare a decent one for less than $25,000. A pack of sports cards cost pennies unless you could nab a 25-cent cello pack or a rack pack (54 cards for 39 cents!). …

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Starting Five: Most popular vintage baseball card sets of all-time

Major League Baseball has been dubbed as “America’s pastime”, and for good reason. Every era has produced iconic hall of famers and larger than life figures like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Willie Mays. The sport has been embedded into the fabric of our culture which is in big part due to the …

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Don’t be afraid to sit on it

If this were the fall of 1991 Topps Stadium Club Football and you were opening freshly minted boxes of cards and pulled a somewhat obscure second round quarterback, you probably would have been a little disappointed.   Where was Dan McGwire? No Chris Zorich? For the love of Al Davis, give me a Todd Marinovich! This dude …

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How Topps posterized packs back in the day

Topps has always loved its inserts.   Decades ago, they were decidedly different in type and quantity and the company worked up a bunch of them. Stamps. Stickers. Decals. Coins. Glossy cards. Team checklists. All of those and more showed up as bonuses inside wax packs.   What they loved more than anything, though, were posters. Chances …

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