Question for anyone with old Baseball cards, Football cards, etc.!!!

[Up2Late]

How do you organize your cards? By Team, by Year? by person?

I have a small collection of Baseball cards from 1971,72,73, and a few from the 1990's, plus I have a few Football Card from 1970 and 1971 and a few Basketball cards from 1973-74 too.

So, I've got the separating them by Sport part, but I'm looking for a few ideas on how else folks organize them. And what about Guys that I have from multiple years that change teams?

Final question: do they (or did they ever) have Baseball cards for everyone on the Team? Or were the cards just for the stars or the starters?

Note: It's a very small collection because one of my cats, back in the 70's, decided that my Baseball card collection was a great place to use as a toilet. :grr: Oh well.

[tridim]

1. I haven't collected for years

But I would organize by manufacturer, then by year, then by card number.

You probably have some fairly valuable cards from the 70's. Look em up! I have a few from 75 that are worth a few hundred bucks.

[Yupster]

2. I would separate the few

valuable ones and keep them in a safe place.

The others I would organize by years, then numbers.

If you get a Beckett or other price guide, please understand that the true value of the cards is far less than what the book says.

The market has truly collapsed.

If you want to get a more accurate value, look up what they are selling for on E-Bay. You will find many examples of every one of your cards for sale at any time on E-Bay.

Also, condition is vitally important. Any small imperfection will hurt the value mightily, and your 1975 cards probably have many creases, bends, watermarks, rounded corners, scuffs, pen marks, and off-centering any one of which will half the value of the card.

[Vox_Reason]

3. Not an expert by any means...

But someone interested in archiving in general.

From what I've read, any material from the 70s is going to be much more valuable than anything from the 80s and beyond. From what I understand, the 80s was when the sports collectibles market really took off, and so there's a glut of well-preserved stuff in good condition from that era up to the present.

Of course, if you have a signed and dated Barry Bonds rookie card from the 80s, that's going to be worth a bunch--but a complete set of mint-condition 198x cards is probably not worth near as much as some particular cards from the 70s.

Happy collecting, and good luck!

[Up2Late]

4. I'm not really looking to collect anymore, just ideas about organizing.

I do have a Barry Bonds Fleer card from 1992, back when he was 190 pounds, and only had 142 Home-runs in 8 seasons.

Hummm? Wonder how he got so much better???

[LSdemocrat]

5. Year and brand if a large collection

If however you don't really have anywhere close to a complete set of anything I'd separate out the superstars and put those cards in plastic pages (Specialty stores, or even Target has them in the trading card section)