Bowman 1989 baseball card box $5 pulled ken griffey jr rookie card

wotdlois · Aug 24, 2014

Went to a sale on friday and purchased a sealed box of Bowman baseball cards for $5. Now i knew that the ken griffey jr rookie card may be in there. I got home and started tearing open the packs and with 5 left and some sweat on my brow i finally found it. Now the only downside is the box wasnt a Tiffanys high gloss box which would have made the card $1,000+ but still can prob get $50 bucks for it freshly pulled.

Beachkid23 · Aug 24, 2014

Nice! I dreamed of finding that card back in the 90s. It is nice to see one come out of the pack now!

Beachkid23 · Aug 24, 2014

Please tell me you try to piece of gum? I'm sure it's hard as a rock, it was back in 1990 but I'm just wondering if you try to piece of it! Lol. I think I would've licked it at least or had my neighbors dog try a piece!!

BC1969 · Aug 24, 2014

worth that much nowadays ? I used to be big into baseball cards from around 88' to 94' at that time I started to realize the thousands of dollars I was spending on them things trying to complete foil sets and find autographs and stopped buying them, I know I've got quite a few upper deck griffey rookies..time to dig out them cardboard boxes...got me excited now..nice find by the way.

Mike

wotdlois · Aug 24, 2014

Lol I thought about it. The guy I bought it from also had 3 boxes of tops cards from the same era I bought. He told me they are all complete except 1 pack which he opened to try the gum. I don't think gum gets better with age. You are right it was bad when it was new.

wotdlois · Aug 24, 2014

Mike- I don't consider myself a baseball card expert but from what I recently learned the high gloss cards are worth exponentially more than the matte ones. I know upper deck had a gloss version so see if you can round up those.

They are exactly the same in every way other than the finish.

BC1969 · Aug 24, 2014

it may take awhile, I probably have 75k cards plus bunches of factory sets from those days, now its a matter of figuring out which totes they are in at my storage unit.

Mike

vpnavy · Aug 24, 2014

Nice buys. Thanks for sharing...

jerseyben · Aug 25, 2014

wotdlois said:
Went to a sale on friday and purchased a sealed box of Bowman baseball cards for $5. Now i knew that the ken griffey jr rookie card may be in there. I got home and started tearing open the packs and with 5 left and some sweat on my brow i finally found it. Now the only downside is the box wasnt a Tiffanys high gloss box which would have made the card $1,000+ but still can prob get $50 bucks for it freshly pulled.

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Unless it is professionally graded and gets a score of 9.5 or better, it is only worth less than $10 (closer to $5) as a raw card.

packerbacker · Aug 25, 2014

You can buy the factory sealed box sets on ebay for an average of $10 and you're guaranteed a Griffey card in every box. The 89 Upper Deck used to be the card to have but nowdays, if you don't play the game and get your cards graded, they aren't worth nearly as much. The "pureness" of the hobby is long gone. Used to be it didn't matter much when it came to card condition, it was just having the card was what really mattered. It's like buying your kid a Hotwheels car and telling them not to open or even bend the box because it will be worth more farther down the line.

wotdlois · Aug 25, 2014

How do you go about getting it professionally graded? and what does it cost? Thanks for the heads up.

packerbacker · Aug 25, 2014

There are a couple "grading" companies. Not sure what they charge or which one is better. You can probably google "professional sports card grading" and get a lot of info.

OldSowBreath · Aug 25, 2014

I've given up on baseball cards, especially 86 forward. I have thousands and they aren't worth the time and effort.

Tallone · Aug 25, 2014

A couple of years ago, I checked into getting some original, mint on card, 1980s Ninja Turtle action figures graded. If memory serves they wanted $35 each to grade them plus I had to pay for postage. The graded figures sold for more than ungraded ones but I noticed that, in most cases, the difference in price was roughly the cost to have them graded. I don't know if any of that applies to baseball cards.

HenryWaltonJonesJr · Aug 25, 2014

That and the 89 upper deck Griffey were the holy grails when I collected in the early to mid 90s the becket price guide had them at $50 which was way too much for me to afford at the time. Something happened in the mid to late 90s and the values dropped like a rock. I don't know if it was a flood of production, lack of market interest or what, but everyone that was a teenager in the 90s has some cards put away somewhere that are now worthless.

Anyone know what happened to the market?

packerbacker · Aug 25, 2014

Specialty cards is what happened as far as I am concerned. Used to be the "rookie" card was the one to have. Now, if it isn't graded it's not worth much and specialty cards in random packs with pieces of game jerseys etc. are the rage. Heck with the rookie cards. Or they come up with a limited edition card so rarity plays a major role. It's all a marketing ploy now.

BC1969 · Aug 25, 2014

I'd still love to find a t206 in a antique dresser heh. but like packerbacker said, when I exited the money sink in the mid 90's more and more speciality sets were being added, foils,holograms,signed so on and so on.

Mike

2ndisbest · Aug 26, 2014

The internet happened. Everyone realized their cards were not rare at all. Plus everything is an insert card now. You need to find the one card they put in 1 in 50,000 packs for it to be worth anything. Baseball cards were the first and last thing I ever collected. Though the best thing that ever happened to me while collecting baseball cards was, my buddy's mom worked in the highschool library and one day they threw out all the old card catalogs and she grabbed one and my buddy used it to put his baseball cards in. Well after a few years she wanted it gone so I grabbed it from him. I looked it up on ebay recently and old school card catalogs go for some decent cash. I estimate the one I have between $750 and $1000.

BC1969 · Aug 27, 2014

2ndisbest said:
The internet happened. Everyone realized their cards were not rare at all. Plus everything is an insert card now. You need to find the one card they put in 1 in 50,000 packs for it to be worth anything. Baseball cards were the first and last thing I ever collected. Though the best thing that ever happened to me while collecting baseball cards was, my buddy's mom worked in the highschool library and one day they threw out all the old card catalogs and she grabbed one and my buddy used it to put his baseball cards in. Well after a few years she wanted it gone so I grabbed it from him. I looked it up on ebay recently and old school card catalogs go for some decent cash. I estimate the one I have between $750 and $1000.

That is so true, the net and eBay all but destroyed the collectables/antiques market, values are rock bottom now. There is one upside now, rummaging around antique stores and finding a item for a price much lower than on say eBay tends to make my day.

Mike

wotdlois · Aug 27, 2014

Its very difficult to figure whats worth what especially at a sale with a pile of cards in front of you. You would literally have to sit there and go through each one trying to find something you know has value or maybe they are very old and even then you just dont know what they are worth. The problem is everyone thinks their collections are worth 100's of dollars, so unless they are giving it away i dont spend the time or the money. Its like everything else you really have to be knowledgeable if you want to get the good stuff at a good price.