The stuff that is making money now is autographs. Those of us that used to collect cards are looking for other collectibles.

I started buying new cards on my own in as a young kid in 1970, beginning with Topps football. The next year I bought only one pack of Topps baseball, but got the Steve Garvey rookie card in there...! Still have it.

Any of you who have regrets over opening up your "sealed" product (to check it), you shouldn't. You may have heard of dealers who swap out sets of cards with common junk -- or worse yet, one who filled his with sand weighing the same as the cards.

Another dealer trick used to be to pop open wax packs and reseal them -- something later not really possible with new tamper-proof packaging. These goodwill ambassadors really helped the hobby head right toward the toilet.

I could go on and on, but I wanted to mention a comics dealer's dirty trick. There's a dealer who would show values from a badly out-of-date Overstreet guide when unsuspecting non-collectors sold him what they had. I can still see the guy sniffing the paper on an Avengers #4 that he bought using a guide from years earlier. Bear in mind that in the very early 1970s, Action Comics #1 listed for under $500 in top condition. Old price guides are good for a laugh.

When did the bottom fall out? I have an Elway rookie card plus a lot of Sosa cards and Jordan cards. You guys telling me it's not worth the paper it's printed on?

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

I thought the bottom fell out 15 years ago.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Yep, internet killed it, IMO. You can go online and just buy any card you want now. Kind of killed the rarity of discovering hard to find gems at your local card store.

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Bought a storage locker for the dewalt tools I could see. Locker was $150, it was like a big closet. Under the boxes was 4 custom made boxes with about 25,000 cards in each case, please another 30 boxes of full sets from 1988,89,90

I go to my sisters and give them to my nephew. 2 weeks ago my sister calls and says "Get these cards out of here'....I took the full sets and have just been giving them away. Looking at a house today, The neighbor has 3 kids playing, here ya go.....Still got 15 boxes left and the 100,000 in 4 boxes.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

I'll take 'em. Why not.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

I understand just leaving junk in a storage locker that is about to be repossessed, but why would someone ever leave anything of value in a locker that they knew they were going to lose? Just move any valuable shit out, and let the owner of the storage place deal with the unwanted garbage.

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I would say 50% of the lockers are just that. Junk. The guys who go all the time, even recognize the junk. The owners combine junk from lockers.

The biggest issue at these is the amount of stuff in the lockers. It's usually never the price of the locker, it's getting the stuff out.

They make you leave a deposit of about $200 to insure you will get it out in 2 days usually.

There was a double unit, filled with was someones entire house. beds, tables, chairs, clothes, TV's...it only went for $450.

Now that guy needs at least 4 guys for 2 full days to clean that thing out and put it somewhere. $10 an hour cash, thats still another $360, plus gas....then you better have a place to sell the shit.

Usually I will bid on a unit for the tools. Then give the rest to one of the other guys for 50% of what I paid. One guy there buys everything he can and ships it to one of his stores. Heavy Asian customer base.

No doubt there is money to be made, you just have to be set up to do it.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”