This post is 20 years in the making, and honestly not a post I thought I’d ever get to write. But Christmas came early for me this year and my mom knocked it out of the ballpark.
Like most kids who grew up in the 90’s, I wisely investment my allowance in a sure thing….sports cards, and I loved every minute of it. I grew up loving sports so it shouldn’t be surprising that I wanted to collect my favorite players. it also helped that my Uncle was a huge collector who had the coolest cards when I was growing up. I remember going to his house and sorting through his many boxes and finding gem after gem. He would even give me special cards for my birthdays like a Mickey Mantle and a Johnny Bench rookie card.
But like most kids, as I got older, the cards (and there were many) kept getting pushed deeper and deeper into the attic. I always knew where they were, and always reminded my mom never to throw them out. But that was 20 years ago, and my parents have moved four times since I “left the nest” so I wasn’t holding out hope. For the past 10 years or so, I started inquiring about the cards every so often and would always get vague responses, “they are safe”, “they are in the storage unit in NJ”, “they are in basement at Aunt Susan’s”, etc. I was really starting to give up hope.
Then, last month, I received the best video from my mom.
She had found the cards, now I just needed to convince her to send them across the country. Luckily, this was easier than I had anticipated. Thanks to the recent boom to the baseball card industry, I simply had to send her an article about how they have value again and they were in the mail.
After a couple anxious days waiting for the always reliable postal service to deliver my childhood passion, the box was finally at my door step as I returned home from the office. And boy did it not disappoint.
But it was funny, because the cards that I thought would buy me a car growing up have turned out to be relatively worthless. Man do I wish Jason Kidd and Anfernee Hardaway reached their potentially because then I might be popping champagne. I have several of their rookie cards and other rarities for them both. Also found some Antoine Walked and Kerry Kittles rookie cards….not sure what I was thinking.
Then there were the cards that when I pulled them out of the shoebox, I thought I struck gold. I mean the rookie cards of Tim Duncan, KG, Shaq, and Iverson had to be worth a ton right? Well they are, just not the ones I own. I happen to own the most common version of those cards which have some value, but not enough pay for a vacation.
I also had some old school Gretzky and Mario Lemieux cards that I thought for sure had to be worth something significant since they were almost 40 years old, again, not bad, but not what I thought. Even some of my Jordan cards which were my prize possession growing up weren’t what I thought they would be when I googled them.
But worry not, there was some gold in that there shoebox.
Not one but three Kobe Bryant rookie cards that haven’t been out of a case in over 20 years. Now, are these enough to retire on….not even close. But, the cards of a player I honestly didn’t even like back in the 90’s are worth close to $1000 each now so let’s start the bidding.
Since I received the cards in the mail, I started reading up on the recent resurgence in card values. Apparently, I grew up in the world era because when I was collecting, the baseball card execs didn’t actually care about scarcity and simply flooded the market with cards to meet demand and inflated their value. While there are valuable cards out there, it’s really just the rare of the rare in the mid-90’s, and then cards pre 1970, and modern day cards that are truly rare because they incorporate autographs or game-worn jerseys.
But my favorite part of receiving that shoebox was not the value that it potentially held, but the trip down memory lane I was able to take. My mind immediately took me back to the baseball cards stores I use to frequent back in New Jersey and on Cape Cod. I started to think about all the packs of cards I’ve purchased over the years, and the excitement of not know what gem you could potentially get was an amazing feeling as a kid in elementary school. Sitting down and trading with your friends which never worked out like you thought it would but was always fun.
So all in all, it was an AWESOME day when I got to go through that treasure trove of memories. Already have another box in the mail that I can’t wait to view. It’ll be interested what other players I thought were going to be the greatest of all time only to be average player…..looking at you Derrick Coleman.