WIREPHOTO: Reggie Jackson - [05/27/86] 'Screaming With The Kid' (Angels)

Auction's most costly vintage baseball cards

The history of vintage baseball card auctions is long and colorful.

T-206 Honus Wagner tobacco cards have sold for upto $2.8 million in auction. The "Holy Grail of Sports Cards", it's extreme-high auction value can mostly be attributed to great PR and "auction fever". It's not close to being the rarest baseball card and Honus Wagner is not Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle. Yes, the T-206 set is beautiful & special but because of the # of cards and scarcities, few collector's try to complete, which should keep auction competition down compared to say 1933 Goudey or 1952 Topps baseball card issues.
BUT IT DOES NOT...

There's a story Wagner banned his card because he was anti-tobacco but there are other stories about financial considerations.

You surely have heard of PSA and may even know that this card was the FIRST they ever graded. But did you know that dealer (B.l. .ast.o name encoded) admitted tampering with the card, perhaps having it trimmed down to size, before PSA graded it so highly for the auction.

Over 5,000 vintage sports and non-sports items in each weekly auction

Ways to sell your baseball cards

2 reasons auctions are popular way to sell vintage sports cards.
#1 Desirable items tend to get top dollar (or better !)
#2 Everything goes
... This can be good - Everything gone, happy with final total
... or can be very bad - Everything gone, but at super low prices

OTHER WAYS TO SELL YOUR CARDS
•eBay Buy-it-Now •card store •swap meet •Craigslist •garage/yard sale
or •DONATE to a charity for tax write-off
Not selling but perhaps easiest with possible $$$ return.
ASSUMPTIONS:
#1) You are one of the RARE tax payers left in America
#2) You have mostly late 80's & 90's "junk"
Consider donating the "junk" and keep better stuff to sell later. Tax deduction was based on LESSER of "what-it-cost" & "What-it's-Worth". For "What-it's-Worth", I use Beckett which can be higher than what you paid. Check with your tax guy.

Cut/Paste TurboTax discussion link below:
https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/3372284-are-trading-card-donations-deductible-if-so-how-much Possible Charities for Donations
•Goodwill •Salvation Army •Cerebal Palsy •Children's Hospitals •Cubs scout troops
...or an online charity
•Cards 2 Kids •Commons4Kids.org •CollectiblesWithCauses.org
Verify all "charities " before donating.

Vintage Sportscard Auction

1964 Topps Stand-Ups
Checklist & Values

One of Topps most popular 1960's test issues !!!
Blank-backed, unnumbered & standard size - cards were called "Stand-Ups". "Stand-Ups" refers to a type of card that was die cut around the player's picture. The background could be folded so the player's picture could "stand up" alone. 1934-36 Batter Up and the 1951 Topps All-Star sets are 2 other popular stand-up issues.
22 of the 77 cards are single prints making them twice as scarce and much higher in demand. Thanks to the green and yellow borders and that most cards have been folded, 1964 Stand-Ups extremely difficult to obtain in high grade.
On the left and right are images of a pack and box. Set packed with 19 Hall-of-Famers including the Top-5: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron & Sandy Koufax.

History Of O-Pee-Chee

O-Pee-Chee (OPC) based in Ontario Canada, is mostly thought of as the Canadian version of Topps but it actually pre-dates Topps by many years.

In 1933, OPC issued their first sports card set, the V304 Hockey cards and is currently in the tens of thousands. Their first baseball set was issued in 1937. It was similar to the 1934 Goudeys and Batter-Ups and the top player was Joe Dimaggio.

O-Pee-Chee created baseball card sets similar to TOpps from 1965 into the 1990's. At first OPC sets were much smaller than Topps and included just the first few series. Fronts & backs were nearly identical but with a small "Printed in Canada" on the back and the card stock was slightly different.

Baseball being much less popular in Canada, OPC print runs of their early years were between 1% and 10% of Topps making them exceedingly scarce !!!

Starting in 1970, Canadian legislation demanded all items produced in Canada carry both French & English so OPC baseball cards became bilingual with both languages included.
Other OPC differences include:
1971, OPC even changed the back design to a much more interesting back and also offered 14 different card photos not in the Topps set.
1972 OPC included a card of Gil Hodges mentioning his death that was not a part of the Topps set.
1974 OPC did not include any "Washington Nationals" variations.
1977 the card format remained like Topps but almost 1/3 of the OPC set had different poses/images than Topps.
In late 1970's, OPC card fronts appeared similar to Topps but sometimes included traded information saying "Now with XXXX". They were able to do this as the OPC cards were printed much later into the season.

WIREPHOTO: Reggie Jackson - [05/27/86] 'Screaming With The Kid' (Angels)

Auction's most costly vintage baseball cards

Ways to sell your baseball cards

1964 Topps Stand-Ups Checklist & Values

1964 Topps Stand-Ups
Checklist & Values