How Much is my Baseball Card Worth?

     I get this question a lot, and in all fairness it’s probably the most-asked question in collecting. It’s a good question to ask, especially since a card’s worth is one of the easiest ways to determine if the card’s worth holding onto, right? (Personally, I’m the type of collector who doesn’t really care how much (or how little) a card is worth, as long as it fits with the rest of the collection. But this isn’t about me, is it? It’s about your cards.)

    I’ve never met you, nor have I seen your card. No, this isn’t one of those David Copperfield, through-the-TV type magic tricks, but it is fairly easy to tell if your card is worth something, provided you know what to look for. That’s why I’ve put together this flowchart. (Note: I don't work for an auction house, eBay, a price guide or a baseball card dealer. Therefore, I've created this chart as an amateur based on my own experience. If you are serious about selling your cards, please consult one or all four of those resources I've named above.)



Though I've simplified things a little in this chart, the truth of the situation remains the same: the cards we cherished as kids, the ones we held onto and begged our parents not to throw away, those very same ones that we banked our futures on are not worth very much at all. It's sad, but it's sobering too.

    Why should a baseball card be worth anything at all? The idea of limited supply ended around the same time as the Vietnam War (1975 or so). Mothers stopped throwing away cards, allowing the Generation X collectors  to make it to adulthood with their collections intact. Card manufacturers went hog wild with production in the 1980s and first half of the 1990s (which is why so many cheap unopened boxes from these years are still readily available) and we as collectors got so caught up in the hype surrounding the hobby that we ate up whatever we could find.

    The backlash to all this came from the manufacturers themselves. Instead of greasing up the presses, "manufactured scarcity" has become the prevalent trend in the hobby. In the face of losing collectors sick and tired of finding their collections to be relatively worthless, card companies have tried to inject value into their products with low, monitored print runs, serial-numbering cards and adding special insert cards that have been autographed at the factory by current and former players or that feature a sliver of their uniform or bat. But do all of these measures really add value to cards? It's a legitimate question, one that plagues the hobby.

    On the surface, limiting the production runs on a given set seems to be a good idea. Finding serial-numbered, autographed or bat or uniform cards are relatively more difficult than finding those without them. But it's been a number of years since these types of cards have been standard inclusions--regardless of brand--so even these special types of cards are losing their luster.

    Here's a good example. I pulled this John Smoltz Game Worn Jersey "Clubhouse Collection" card from a pack of this year's Topps Heritage product. I haven't seen a new price guide with this card listed, but I'd guess that it would probably book anywhere from $10 - $15, seeing as how Smoltz has a good shot at making the Hall of Fame, he's likable, collectible and this year's Heritage hasn't been available for that long. Yet when I type "Smoltz Heritage Relic" on eBay, here are my results: $3.45; $4.95; $4.95. Click here to see current auctions for other similar game worn jersey cards from this year's Heritage line: low starting bids on all of them. And when I linked to that page, not one of the auctions had a bid.

    It used to be that if you wanted to figure out a card's value, you consulted a price guide. But now, if we're talking about value, consulting eBay is standard practice. Prices are lower than you'd find in a price guide, but probably more truthful to what your fellow collectors (or dealers) would pay.

    So, is it a good thing or a bad thing that the majority of our cards aren't worth as much as we thought? I think it's a good thing. I mean, I didn't really want that mansion anyways--buying it would've meant I'd have had to give up my cards.
Topics: Baseball Cards , Baseball , Ben Henry , Value