11 Regrets: Why I’m the Dumbest Card Collector Everrr!
Every card-collecting decision can't be a winner. This is my confession.
Each Happy Hobby Sports Card Newsletter For Collectors has a handful of great sports card subjects, helping sports card collectors working with limited budgets!
This Week’s Newsletter Highlights!
⚾🏈🏀 11 REGRETS: WHY I’M THE DUMBEST COLLECTOR EVERR!
⚾ PATRICK’S PRIME PROSPECT PICKS!
⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
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⚾🏈🏀 11 REGRETS: WHY I’M THE DUMBEST COLLECTOR EVERR!
After my last day at CBS, at my going-away party, a random fella asked me what we were all celebrating, and I told him I was leaving the company for a startup.
I semi-jokingly said, “Who knows, I’ll probably regret it!”
To which he replied, “Never look back. Never regret decisions, just learn from them.”
Smart guy!… Now, let’s list off 11 of my biggest regrets as a sports card collector! (Enjoy the regret ride – in chronological order.)
1. Built a 3-Story Card House with All My Cards in 1977
That means all my 1975 Topps cards were part of the framework, or maybe the roof! (To be fair, my older brothers built the card house and I helped, so let’s blame them for my PSA 3 George Brett/Robin Yount rookie cards!) Then we shot at the card house with rubber bands until it crumbled.
Lesson Learned: Don’t be a dumb kid.
2. Traded My NBA and NFL Cards for Star Wars Figures in 1980
By now, my brothers had abandoned the hobby (and their cards to me), and I had about 1,000 basketball and football cards (from the mid-to-late ‘70s) that I traded to Mike Olsen for about 15 Star Wars figures. (Please understand that “The Empire Strikes Back” just hit the theaters, and I was in deep.)
You’d think this could have turned into a win, with the current values of original Star Wars figures. Unfortunately, I would line them all up across my bedroom, and I’d shoot them with my BB gun. (I hid under a blanket for the inevitable ricochets.) Luke Skywalker would end up looking like the Elephant Man because of this. Value? $0.00.
Lesson Learned: Don’t trade with Mike Olsen.
3. Leaned into Upper Deck in MLB and NBA
Once Upper Deck joined the fray in 1989, I jumped in with both feet, and basically turned my nose up at Topps and other brands. Unfortunately, Topps still has the best resale value, and the better history, outside of the time they missed putting Ken Griffey Jr. in their 1989 set.
Lesson Learned: Tradition often trumps newness.
4. Abandoned 100,000 Sports Cards in 2010
Yeah. This one hurts. My wife and I bought a one-bedroom condo in South Florida for in 2005, got divorced 2 years later, then the housing market busted. We were upside down 3x the value of the condo and neither of us wanted to live there. We both moved out, and the bank eventually took it back. I had gone through all my cards and pulled out 25,000 rookies and stars, but cards were worth close to nothing back then. I got sick of moving them around (ten 5,000-count boxes is a lot), so I just left about 100,000 commons. Looking back – I’m missing many cards I thought I grabbed.
This is my biggest regret from a cards perspective, money perspective and everything else. Just dumb.
Lesson Learned: Don’t build your collection up so that it becomes an albatross.
5. Bought Vintage in 2011, and Ignored Modern
After losing all those cards, I decided to start buying just rookie cards of stars. I discovered graded cards on eBay, and figured that was the safest way to protect my investments. I bought graded rookie cards of Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Dan Marino, Walter Payton and Jerry Rice, and raw cards of Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson and the like.
I never thought to buy recent superstars, like the 2011 Topps Update rookie class of Mike Trout, Paul Goldschmidt, Jose Altuve and Anthony Rizzo. I was still writing Fantasy Baseball articles for Sports Illustrated at this point, but again, I was just dumb.
Lesson Learned: This year’s cards are next year’s vintage, so pay attention to now.
6. Ignored My Buddy’s Email, Gave Up Free Cards
In the mid-2010s, an old friend from CBS, who knew I collected cards in the 2000s, emailed me because he was taking a Media Relations position with the NFL. Since he held the same job at CBS, companies like Panini and Topps were always sending him cards. He emailed me to see if I’d like him to ship all the cards he got to me. At the time, I wasn’t super into cards, and had just moved back to Central Florida. I remember not answering the email and just kinda forgetting about the whole deal.
That means I turned away new cards that came to him over the course of about 2006-2014, which just makes me imagine the best/worst. The haul could’ve included rookie cards of Clayton Kershaw, Trout, Bryce Harper, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Mookie Betts, Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Anthony Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Adrian Peterson, Calvin Johnson, Travis Kelce, etc.
Who knows?
Lesson Learned: When someone wants to do something nice for you, let them.
7. Sold my 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 6 Too Early
Right after “The Last Dance,” in the fall of 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the Jordan rookie card was skyrocketing in value. I bought it for $600 in 2011, and here, nine years later, it had increased in value by 5x. Shelby and I got married a year before, and we were buying a new house, so selling it for $2,800 sounded like a smart move.
(Side note: I sold it in a 7-day auction that ended Saturday afternoon. I had no idea what I was doing.)
Here we are, five years later, and the value is about twice that. Plus, I got back into the hobby in 2021, and I started creating content – without my beloved M.J. rookie card.
Someday, I’ll get it back.
Lesson Learned: Sell other cards – not your best ones, unless it’s an emergency.
6. Didn’t Buy 2018 Topps Gold Shohei Ohtani RC PSA 9
Once I was back into the hobby, I was all in on Ohtani being a once-in-a-lifetime kind of freak athlete we should invest in. I hovered over the “Buy It Now” $200 price tag of his Topps Gold rookie card, but I never pulled the trigger. For weeks I debated it, but I couldn’t convince myself. I was doing dumb stuff with money, too, like buying a $150 numbered Project 2020 card of Jacob deGrom.
Those PSA 9 Topps Gold Ohtani RCs sell for around $1,100 now -- when you can find them for sale.
Just dumb.
Lesson Learned: Stop buying fads and buy numbered cards of G.O.A.T.s instead.
7. Sent Many, Many Bad Cards To Get Graded
In my defense, most were sent before I understood how to pre-grade the cards. Great grades are few, good grades are a little more plentiful, and horrible grades are aplenty.
Lesson Learned: Cards in toploaders can be awesome, too!
10. Sent My Joker RC To CSG For Grading
When I bought my 2015 Donruss Nikola Jokic rookie card raw for $40 in early 2022, he was still being poo-pooed because he was a big man, and they aren’t super collectable. CSG was an up-and-comer during a time when PSA was still paused, Beckett was second-best and SGC was trying to make up ground.
I was trying to create content for my YouTube channel, so sending cards to CSG made sense. I wish I just sent it to SGC – I wish I sent all my CSG/CGC cards to SGC. They’re a TCG/comic book company and I should’ve known better when I saw those ugly green slabs.
Lesson Learned: Don’t put ugly clothes on a supermodel.
11. Wander-Mania!
While I’m not alone among Wander Franco investors, I did lean in too far on his cards because he was one of my Tampa Bay Rays. It’s interesting – I had heard rumors while he was in the minors that he was a huge jerk, not being friendly to fans or kids. But I shook it off – he’s a two-time No. 1 prospect of the year!
Fast forward to his arrest and the end of his MLB career, and now I’m stuck with a stack of Wander cards, including three PSA 10 Bowman 1sts that I bought at their peak for close to $200 each.
Lesson Learned: Diversify. Don’t buy many cards of one person. Buy just enough. (I have to remind myself of this when considering Caitlin Clark cards.)
Whew… That felt good. I got it all off my chest. Feel free to mock me in the comments, I can take it! Feel free to share some of your own regrets in the comments, too, to make me feel better!
Maybe I’ll work on a future article about my 11 wins in this hobby, we’ll see. The funny thing about wins is – they can become losses just as fast as you can say, “arrested in the Dominican Republic.”
⚾🏈🏀 NOCT Card Shipping Supplies!
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⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
Send me the answer to this question – you could win this free card from me: 2021 Bowman Shohei Ohtani #85!
Which year did Topps start having fans vote for which baseball player should be Card No. 1 in the flagship series the following year?
Email your answer to gonoscards@gmail.com and you can win this 2021 Bowman Shohei Ohtani #85 card! Rather than take the first person who answers it right, I’m going to do a random drawing of all the people who answer this question before midnight, Friday, June 6. The winner will be announced in the June 12 newsletter.
From May 22 newsletter: What was the first season for Topps Heritage to come out? Prize: 1984 Topps Rickey Henderson #230 card. Answer this question before midnight, Friday, May 30. The winner will be announced in the June 5 newsletter.
From May 15 newsletter: Which year/product saw the very first WNBA cards for sale? Prize: 2024 Prizm Monopoly WNBA Angel Reese WNBA16 rookie card. Winner: Kris Windom! Congrats, Kris!
⚾ PATRICK’S PROSPECT CORNER! ⚾
Happy Hobbyist Patrick Imhoff shares some Bowman 1st cards of some cheap sleepers every couple weeks in this space.
Bowman 1st prospect cards are always a hot ticket. With that, comes high prices for the so-called top prospects. In this corner, the goal is to highlight a prospect with tons of potential that doesn’t come with the high price. In this edition, we are highlighting Toronto Blue Jays No. 7 prospect, Josh Kasevich.
If you are checking out Kasevich on MLB Pipeline, his stats and level are a little misleading. He dealt with a back injury in spring training that has sidelined him until this week, where he debuted first at Rookie Ball and now at the Class A level to start his rehab. Looking back at 2024, he finished up at Triple A playing shortstop and batting .325 over 41 games with 3 HR, 23 RBI and only 25 strikeouts. I expect him to move quickly back up through the Blue Jays system over the summer and the potential exists for a late call-up to the big club if he hits well and stays healthy.
I am big on him as evidenced by the two cards I purchased of him last month for two reasons.
He is not a top-5 prospect for the Blue Jays, which means his card prices are reasonable.
He very well could be the replacement for Bo Bichette. The Jays just paid Vladimir Guerrero Jr. big-time and it may not be realistic to expect them to pay Bo, too, especially with Kasevich waiting in the wings.
If you are interested like I was, check out his 2022 Bowman Draft 1st (BD-45) on eBay. The non-chrome numbered products are super cheap, even the Chrome are reasonable. The purple /250 paper Bowman 1st is listed at just $2.95, a green chrome refractor /99 is listed at under $10, and my favorite, the blue /150 paper Bowman 1st is under $5, and a great color match! Grab your favorite and sit back and watch.
Come back in a couple weeks for more of Patrick’s Prospect picks!
Coming Next Week!
⚾ 13 BASEBALL CARDS THAT NEVER WERE!
⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
⚾🏈🏀 CARDS THAT MAKE US HAPPY!
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Great article, Dave. Loved your running the gamut from comedy to tragedy and taking your lumps. All success is built upon failures and stupid mistakes. I have sure had mine.
We were pretty hard on those late 70's card... sorry Bro. 😢
I've got you beat - bought an '86 Fleer basketball complete set in 1989 or early 1990. Sold it the next year for $400, sure it had hit a ceiling. Used the $$$ to buy graphic design tools (t-squares, mechanical pens, markers, etc.) for college that were worthless by the time I graduated in '94.