My favorite Holiday next weekend...the card show is in town!

I absolutely love the third weekend of January.  It is simply wonderful.  It is the time of year the big sportscard show comes into town!  It is one of the very, very few times, I unman my desk during work time for a few hours and drive out of my comfort zone to a far away land known as downtown Houston, to search for cards and collectibles I can either have fun with, sell for profit or both. 

It is also a wonderful time that I can take my son with me.  He is 9 years old and has gone with me for probably 5 years in a row or so.  It is a time where he looks for star wars things (though I suspect he'll be on the lookout for legos this time!), we get our hot dogs and orange sodas and shop!  The past few years, my dad has gone with us too since my folks have lived here.  I typically try to go when it opens on Friday afternoon to stay until night to get the best cards, and then again on Sunday morning and stay until the afternoon to get the best deals. 

Years past, I have scored some cool deals on vintage cards, massive amounts of cheap-o complete sets, autographs and one year - even graded britney spears cards with a piece of her clothing on them.  I figured at a buck a pop, someone out there would want them.  Sure enough, some guy in Canada bought them all from me. 

One year, I picked up 5 Pete Rose autographed bats that I was able to sell pretty easily.  Another year, I picked up autographed balls of Thomas, Snider, Kaline, and a few other folks - they didn't sell too quickly. 

I absolutely love going there and diving into the boxes.  I always feel like I would be much better suited with having 5 of me going out and looking at the same time.  Can't wait to see what I come up with this year!

Topps Complete Sets for your College Tuition

So, admittedly 2012 has not been the best to me so far just yet when it comes to work. Very many hard things to go through, that have made me pull out my hair. I just noticed that I had not made a blog posting in a very long time ... since last year, in fact! I know it has been less than 2 weeks, but that seems to be an eternity.  

I was just thinking about a deal I made a while back, and it stemmed from what many parents/grandparents did back in the 80s/90s.  They bought their child/grandchild baseball cards in hopes of paying for their college tuition.  It was seen as a solid investment, thanks to the skyrocketing interest and prices in baseball cards from that time period. 

Well, I ran into such a person - it was a college kid who realized his topps sets he was given (one a year from 1983 to 2006, I believe) wasn't quite going to pay his way through Harvard, so he wanted to unload them. 

And unload them, he did.  He sold them for what a few college books from your local community college would go for.  That is a far cry from putting you through college.  Could you imagine?  That was the mentality back then though.  What a bummer to realize the true value of cards are a mere fraction of what you thought they would be worth! 

It was fun to have that run of Topps sets.  I didn't hang onto them for long, as I had purchased a large collection the day before, for about $1,000 that had many jersey/autographed cards and then sold everything as a lot for $2,000 to someone else.  I was able to keep some pretty cool stuff too, which is always nice! 

Man, I love wheeling and dealing!

Since I started this blog, I have had lots of folks come over personally or grab cards via mail - one even from the Netherlands. So far, everyone has been super happy with what they have gotten from me. I have even gotten some repeat "customers". While I wouldn't call myself a dealer, I will confess that as a child, I aspired to be one. There was a baseball card shop in California where I grew up called "The Bullpen". The owner Mike was my hero. I was able to see him since moving to Texas several times while visiting my folks when they still lived in Cali. It was fun to know that even while nearly 15 years had passed, he still remembered me. Ah, I still remember that free stick of bubblegum from that pack of 1985 Topps he offered me which nearly split open my tongue whilst chewing.

Merry Christmas! An Update on my Bounty

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope santa got you what you wanted.  Here in the tanmanbaseballfan household, we try our hardest to not make it about the gifts, but rather, about the birth of Jesus.  While our kids are excited about the presents, they seem (thankfully) to understand that that isn't what it is about.  We are sitting here watching some tv, playing legos / dolls, and about to eat breakfast in a bit, probably watch some church on tv (we normally go, but I don't see us making it this morning) and then open up the rest of the presents.  We don't do "santa claus" here - the kids know full well that the gifts are from us.  There is no way in heck that I'm going to give some fictional character the glory for making toys that hard earned money bought! 

Anyway, onto the cards - I had a few folks come over this past week that bought several of the boxes of opened stuff for cheap.  It was fun because they were all pretty excited about their new cards.  A couple folks even came over again to get some more from me.

So, what are some of the key cards I have found?  I found a good amount of some stars, rookies, serial numbered cards, and others.  I even found some Yu Darvish cards!  He is the talk of baseball this week, so that was fun.  Cards so far have ranged from 1981 Donruss, to 2009 Bowman.

This year, as with all years, I feel incredibly blessed before even opening one gift.  This year, I have a garage full of cards that I plan to go through today ... just like I have pretty much every day this past week.  What a lucky duck I am!

As a final word - I recommend trying to help others in need today, in some way, shape or form.  I am offering some free cards to kids without presents today, and hope that you do the same.

Merry Christmas!

I got a little creative...

In trying to sell some of these unopened boxes I have, I posted an advertisement on the internet.  Here is what it looks like:

Baseball Cards 4 Christmas - Open up some packs with your kids!

This year, treat you and your kids to some baseball cards! I have many factory sealed, unopened boxes of baseball cards. Shown below is 2010 Upper Deck, but I have several other types to choose from as well. All boxes are from $30 to $45 each, depending upon what you get. Some of the boxes I am selling will have five autographed rookie baseball cards! They are a blast to open up.

Contact me for more information - Merry Christmas!

Boy is my son going to be excited...

In my most recent haul of 165,000 cards that I have been going through, I found something quite interesting.  First, I found a packet of star wars cards.  Then I found about 2,000 other star wars cards.  My son is a *HUGE* star wars fan (He even wrote a fan letter to George Lucas!)  Immediately, when my wife and I find something having to do with star wars, we consider getting it for our son, but more often than not, we don't - we don't want him to be one of those kids who has everything, and turns out to be a spoiled brat.  He has a lot as it is. 

Staying true to form, I first jumped and said WOW!!!  He's gonna loooooove these cards!  Then ... wait....stop that!  I can't just give him all 2,000 of these cards! 

Why? You may ask - well, when I was a kid, I was really into the book series of the Bobsey Twins.  I just loved their books.  I would save up my money and buy one as often as I could, and I would just devour its contents.  One day, my folks went to a garage sale, and what did they find?  An ENTIRE VOLUME of Bobsey Twins books!  They were excited, I'm sure - much like I was when I found these Star Wars cards, but a strange thing happened.  Do you how many of those books I read?  None.  I didn't read a single one of them.  I was super interested when I had to buy them, and the quantity was scare for me, but when it was plentiful and free, I simply didn't have a desire to read anymore. 

Rather than give him all 2,000, (he doesn't know I have these) I pulled out one and showed it to him.  I told him if he can be good for mom (she homeschools him) during school work today, that I will give him that one card. 

Guess what?  He is ecstatic about it!  Super happy.  I told my wife I think I have a stockpile of what can get him through until college now. 

I guess kids really don't need a glut of "stuff" to be happy.  There is truly something to be said about having to earn things, and being happy/content with what you have. 

165,000 cards locked and loaded...

Ok, so I thought I was going to be getting 300,000 cards this weekend, but it turned out to be 165,000 which of course is perfectly fine - the plans are to grab the rest after Christmas.  Sunday afternoon, I met at my friend's storage unit and loaded up my family-mobile minivan sans the back seat, and drove back.  I had several binders up front with me, and there was a binder filled with 1981 Donruss poking out.  That was kind of cool - I saw some good names like Mike Schmidt and others.  I also found a bunch of Star Wars cards that my son will be excited about too. 

It always takes a while to load them back up in the garage there, but it is worth it.  I enjoy the heck out of going through them. 

There is such a variety - from a nice little 1989 Fleer "For the Record" insert cards page, to 1991-92 Upper Deck basketball with various Jordans and Mournings to 2001 Bowman Heritage. 

I have probably gone through about 6,000 or so so far.  Great fun!  Some are damaged, but that is to be expected.  The majority look good.