If you've run a hobby business for a significant length of time, chances are you've crossed paths with Daryl McKay. For more than four decades, he's worked with various manufacturers, sports leagues, teams, licenses and hobby shop owners in a wide range and seemingly endless number of categories and products. What started with a multi layered paper route, selling … [Read more...] about Daryl McKay Talks Earliest Influences in Sports Cards, Wearing Many Hats and a Lifetime of Entrepreneurship
1980s baseball boxes
Donruss Branched Out In 1983 With Action All-Stars, Hall Of Fame Heroes Sets
By 1983, Donruss had gotten over its initial growing pains after entering the mainstream baseball card market two years earlier. It was time to experiment, and the Memphis, Tennessee-based card company came out with two different sets to supplement its 1983 main set. Donruss Action All-Stars and Hall of Fame Heroes sets are now 40 years old and remain distinctive and … [Read more...] about Donruss Branched Out In 1983 With Action All-Stars, Hall Of Fame Heroes Sets
Shop Talk: Investing in Junk
Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write. After spending years and years passing on every late 1980s and early 90s collection or stack of unopened boxes that walked into the shop, we've recently made a concerted effort to start stocking some of it. While I can't go quite so far as to scream "the junk wax era is back, baby!," we've actually spent time … [Read more...] about Shop Talk: Investing in Junk
What Qualifies as a Vintage Baseball Card?
So, just what is a vintage baseball card, anyway? The idea came to me recently, though it certainly wasn't on my own. See, a baseball card group to which I belong, Old Baseball Cards, debated the topic a week or so ago. As you can imagine, answers were sort of all over the place because getting a consensus on something like that is basically impossible. To find a … [Read more...] about What Qualifies as a Vintage Baseball Card?
Editor’s Blog: Once Golden, 1985 Topps Ultimately Served Disappointment
The 1985 Topps baseball card set is perhaps one of the best examples of how quickly fortunes can change for not just one or two cards, but an entire set and, in many ways, an entire generation of players. As early as 1986, it would have sounded like madness to suggest that the '85 Topps cards of some of the games most popular and productive players would be anything less … [Read more...] about Editor’s Blog: Once Golden, 1985 Topps Ultimately Served Disappointment
Book Excerpt: Grade Scarcity and Box Value
Editor’s Note: What follows is a second (edited) excerpt from Jeff’s book, The Modern Baseball Card Investor. The first excerpt, The Four Basic Types of Ungraded Strategies, can be found here. As of January 2014, unopened boxes of 1987 Donruss could be had for $20 to $30 per box, with multi-box lots and 20-box cases running for as little as under $20 per box. Each box … [Read more...] about Book Excerpt: Grade Scarcity and Box Value