General Forum

I recently found another cache of cards from my childhood at my parents house the other day and still can't find the best pull from my youth.  I've been trying to find if for decades now and I'm starting to believe it either got tossed when they retired and moved, or stolen and sold by a sibling or something.  

When I was 14, I somehow got the fortune of being invited to a baseball card focus group.  Me and some other teenagers were given a bunch of packs of cards and asked what we liked and didn't like about them all.  Of course we got to keep the cards after.   One of the cards I pulled was a 1997 Metal Universe - Mother Lode Ken Griffey Jr.  (https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/963/cid/1886294/1997-Metal-Universe---Mother-Lode-4-Ken-Griffey-Jr.?PageIndex=1&Filter=&sTeamID=)  At the time, I think Beckett listed it at $250 - an insanely high amount for a 14 year old who only bought packs at Walmart in those days.  It looks like it still routinely sells for $150-$300 on eBay, so it's held up pretty well for a junk wax era card.    Every time I visit my parents, I pick a new closet or storage bin to dig through, but I'm losing hope.  Seems like I've found most of my old stuff.  

Anyways, because this card continues to elude me, it made me wonder.  What is the "one that got away" from you? Maybe a favorite card that was lost or misplaced.  Or maybe a rookie or prospect that you gave up on too early and traded or sold for pennies on the dollar and still regret to this day. 

In the early 1990s, I was setting up at card shows in Florida (Port St. Lucie, to be precise), my father didn't get the job he was promised when we moved, and we were barely scaping by on the Star Co job. About 6-7 years prior, I when I worked for a card shop, I was given a wax box of the product I had just sorted for the owner. It was 1984 Topps football. I never opened the box because I didn't collect football (still don't for the most part).

I took the box to the show and sold it. I knew what it was going for then, but also knew that the sale of that box was basically feeding my family for the next 2 weeks. I don't remember the exact price I sold it at, but I was asking a rather reasdonable price to begin with, and settled for an even lower price. (It was over $100, but under $200, that's the only detail I can recall.) Boxes are now selling on ebay for 4 figures.

I really don't regret selling it when I did. Like I said, it DID feed us for 2 weeks.

From baseball the main one I regret selling was probably Zack Greinke. Had two of his prospects premier rookies and sold both at $60 each way back. Thing is I liked him when he was first called up so I still can’t remember why I sold both. Usually I keep one for myself but oh well, can’t go back in time.

1989 Upper Deck (UD) Griffey JR Rookie and still the one card I need to complete that set.  I know these are not that hard to find, but demand has kept this card up in value.  When UD release this product, I was use to a price point of .40 cents a pack with Topps, Fleer, Donruss and Score.  Then these $1.00 packs came out and, in my mind, and as a kid, that was "expensive."   One day we had a nasty storm come through and it destroyed a lot of fences, downed trees, and such and a neighbor lady called and asked if we would clean up her yard.  I jumped at it and was given $10.  Decided to go buy 10 packs of 1989 UD baseball and I did.  Luckly, I hit the valued at $10, according to Beckett at the time, Ken Griffey Jr rookie.  Well, fast forward ten years and grading companies started all the grading hype, and the Griffey card was going for $100 plus raw on eBay.  I pulled the card and decided to sell it.  I wasn't into collecting at that time and my focus wasnt collecting BB cards.  It's probably one of several items that I sold over the years that I wish I would have held on to, the other big one was my second year Jordan / Fleer card...that's an entirely different story! 

I have 2, both from 2000. In my first collection I had that I sold off in 2002 I had both the Score and Upper Deck Brady rookies. Yep, both went away. I came back into the Hobby in '16 and had to start fresh. By the time I got around to building those sets again the pandemic kicked in and we all know what happened to prices. So my UD set is short just the Brady and my Score build is 5 short to include, yep, the Brady.

My worst was back when I was an eBay seller in 2016-17.  I was hanging out in an online breakers room quite a bit back then and was buying just a lot of random stuff.  This was probably the summer of 2016 and at the time one of the coldest products around was Panini Prizm Draft. both 2013 and 2014.  They couldn't sell a box of the stuff for $35.  The online breakers club used packs of PPD as free giveaways or consolation prizes if your team was skunked in a break.  As a Rockies collector, I experienced skunks more often than I wanted so I got my fair share of these packs. 

One time one of the 2013 packs rewarded me with an, at the time, OK autograph.  It was a 2013 silver prizm auto of some guy named Aaron Judge.  Back then, Judge was a notable name since he was a Yankees prospect, but this was the fall before his breakout rookie season.  I thought it was a cool get, but I wasn't exactly turning somersaults over it.  Anyway, I listed it on eBay for $35 OBO and it sat there for months as Judge didn't have the greatest year in AAA and wasn't very good in the majors at the end of the year.  So that Judge just sat there on eBay costing me fees.  I lowered the price to $30 OBO.  Still no luck.  Then just before Spring Training started. I got an offer of $18.  Honestly, I don't think I could have clicked the accept offer button more quickly. 

Two months later, into his rookie breakout, that exact same card was selling for over $300.  Up until this story, I have avoided even looking up the prices the thing was selling for now.  If I wanted to get it back, the cheapest one right now is $650.  Luckily I am not a Judge collector and I can just write it off as bad timing.

Two different takes on the question.  I started collecting in the late 70’s, with 77 being my first big year.  I collected both baseball and football that year, and though I didn’t complete the sets I did have hundreds of cards.  Twenty years later, times were a little lean and I didn’t have a real interest in the football cards, so I sold most of them off piece by piece.  I think the only one I have left is this one, https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/3228/cid/813140/1977-Topps-360-Walter-Payton.  Probably just nostalgia now, but just looking at those cards I feel like that was a really great set.

The second is the other end of the spectrum. I started collecting again at the end of high school and during college (late 80’s-early 90’s).  As an Orioles collector I of course had my eye on the Cal Ripken RCs.  I had his Topps future star card from my pack purchasing days, but didn’t have his Topps traded.  I remember seeing adds for the complete traded set in card magazines for $50 (and maybe even less), but I didn’t want to spend that since I was only interested in the one card.  Needless to say, 30+ years later when I finally pulled the trigger to buy that card, I spent more than that $50.

Base set/Jungle/Fossil Pokémon. I still have a lot of my old collection but some of the holo’s I know I had weren’t in the binder I found a year or two ago. Probably somewhere tucked away at my parents house. Honestly as a kid I probably thought it made sense to hide the best cards, and I apparently hid them too well.

When I was a kid, I only had one binder of cards with pages and I also had a 40 card portfolio.  All the rest of my cards were kept stacked in a bucket.  I collected basketball and baseball cards, but basketball was my main focus.  (It's probably about even now though).  So I only had my basketball cards in the binders and portfolio.  I had put all my "best" cards in those pages.  All my other basketball cards were in the bucket with the baseball cards.  When I turned 18 and moved out on my own, I only brought the 40 card portfolio with me.  All my other cards ended up getting thrown away.  

So basically all those cards are cards I wish I took with me.  However there are 2 that stick out in my mind.  I had a Black Diamond RC of Chris Bosh that for some reason I didn't put in that portfolio.  And I had a jersey card of Luis Gonzalez with a piece of his Home Run Derby uniform when he won the contest.  The interesting thing is I haven't even been able to find what card that Gonzalez card is.  I would be curious if anyone knows what card I am talking about.  

The more I think about all those cards the more I wish I had taken them all with me.  So many great 80s 90s and early 00s cards all gone.  I didn't realize at the time how much nostalgia would be connected to the players on those cards looking back as an adult, especially of the teams I am a fan of.  

I won the Oilers in a single box break of 2014-15 Upper Deck The Cup and traded them for my Habs. The Oilers slot ended up getting a dual stick auto of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux/15