Originally posted by madducks
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I started collecting baseball and football cards as a kid in 1978. Completed those sets from wax and cello packs. During the spring of 1979, I bought complete sets of 1976,1977,1979 baseball and 1977 football from Renata Galasso after seeing her ad in baseball digest. I remember them all costing around $18-24 per set. Then I got a 1975 Topps baseball set from Paul Marchant's ad in the Sporting News for the incredibly low price of $27 ! And they were all beautiful gem mint cards. They were in better condition than any of my other sets. I also bought a 1974 set out of a TSN classified ad for $35. But they were VG-Ex condition with lots of dinged corners. And they smelled like cigarettes. I went back to the wax packs for the 1980 & 1981 sets and then went back to ordering the sets by mail from 1982-1985. I ended up with Topps, Fleer, & Donruss baseball complete sets from 1974-1985 including all the traded and update sets. Plus complete Football sets from 1977-1984. By 1986, I discovered cars and girls and lost interest in collecting and ended up selling them all to Howard's coin shop in Ohio for a couple of grand so I could buy my first car. I really wish I would have kept that 1975 set though. Now every time I see PSA 9 & PSA 10 cards from that set selling for hundreds or even thousands of dollars on ebay, I wonder if one of those gem mint cards used to be mine. Sigh.
Fast forward to 2001 and the internet boom along with the the ease of buying cards on ebay and I was hooked again. Now my collection consists of Pirates and Steelers cards from the 70's & 80's, and 90-92 Pirates (both graded and ungraded) with emphasis on Clemente, Stargell, Parker (boyhood favorite), Bonds, & McCutchen. I've also been picking up a few Julio Rodriguez PSA 10's here and there. My best purchase so far is a PSA 9 OC (off center) Stargell rookie that I won for $67 about 15 years ago. I actually bid $300 on it and was shocked at the lack of interest. All because of the OC qualifier. It actually has nice centering from left to right and very sharp corners. But it has almost no border at the bottom. I still think it is a very nice looking card. There's 3 different PSA 9 (centered) Stargell rookie cards for sale on ebay now. They are all listed at over $24,000. I plan on holding onto that one for awhile.
One of the more unique items that I have acquired is Manny Sanguillen's very first minor league canceled paycheck from 1964 in the amount of $30 with one of his first professional autographs on the back. I got it for 25 bucks. I think someday I'm going to donate this one to a Pittsburgh Sports Museum. Maybe I can get a free lifetime pass out of the deal.
Fast forward to 2001 and the internet boom along with the the ease of buying cards on ebay and I was hooked again. Now my collection consists of Pirates and Steelers cards from the 70's & 80's, and 90-92 Pirates (both graded and ungraded) with emphasis on Clemente, Stargell, Parker (boyhood favorite), Bonds, & McCutchen. I've also been picking up a few Julio Rodriguez PSA 10's here and there. My best purchase so far is a PSA 9 OC (off center) Stargell rookie that I won for $67 about 15 years ago. I actually bid $300 on it and was shocked at the lack of interest. All because of the OC qualifier. It actually has nice centering from left to right and very sharp corners. But it has almost no border at the bottom. I still think it is a very nice looking card. There's 3 different PSA 9 (centered) Stargell rookie cards for sale on ebay now. They are all listed at over $24,000. I plan on holding onto that one for awhile.
One of the more unique items that I have acquired is Manny Sanguillen's very first minor league canceled paycheck from 1964 in the amount of $30 with one of his first professional autographs on the back. I got it for 25 bucks. I think someday I'm going to donate this one to a Pittsburgh Sports Museum. Maybe I can get a free lifetime pass out of the deal.
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