Meet The Collector: Cheap Card Sales

The “Meet The Collector” series started off with a bang last week with Shane Salmonson and a lot of you learned a little about him that you may not have already known.  That is my goal with this after all.   A lot of collectors have their own blog but they talk more about cards than themselves so I took it upon myself to pull back the curtain and let you see them a little closer.   I have started sending out my questionnaires and getting positive feedback so we are going to move forward with collector #2.

The next collector in our series is Joe from @cheapcardsales.  Joe has been in the hobby for 25+ years and specializes in low to mid-end sports cards.   I’ve been following him for a while now and I can vouch that he has some tremendous sales on his twitter feed.  But unlike a lot of sales people on Twitter, he doesn’t just inundate you with card sales.  He does YouTube rips that are fun to take in and also is very active on Twitter with sports in general so he is a really fun follow all around.  He collects baseball, basketball and football but baseball is his first love.  Be sure to go follow him @cheapcardsales on Twitter and check out his YouTube channel – Cheap Card Sales.Joe is 35 years old and from the Albany, NY area.  His collection started when he was around 8 years old when his mom bought him a “baseball card collector’s kit”, which consisted of some ’89 Topps baseball cards and supplies.   I remember these kits and would ask for them frequently when I was a kid, specifically the one pictured above.  I wanted everything I could get my hands on that had “baseball card” in the title.  Like most of us, he tailed off his collecting in the mid 90’s only to come back later when he started seeing some of the cool things that are available these days.   A few cheap autos from eBay was all it took to get him hooked all over again.  He created his twitter handle specifically to unload some cards in preparation for his upcoming wedding and it has quickly evolved into much more.Being from the Albany, NY area, you should be able to guess his favorite team, right?   The Evil Empire, New York Yankees are his first love in sports.  His favorite player for the Yankees remains Don Mattingly, even though he’s been retired for over 20 years.  I can understand this completely because Donnie Baseball was a classic baller!  He collects any Yankees he can get his hands on, especially autographs and game used.   He’s got a real soft spot for something with a pinstripe in it if you’re looking to make a deal with him.  As for football, he’s a Giants fan but doesn’t get too attached to specific players.His favorite card set of all time is 1989 Topps, because it’s how he got started.   I’m going to track this and I’ll bet that the set that people got started with is their favorite set 99% of the time.  It’s hard to ever forget about those first cards you got your hands on.  1989 Topps is a very good set and I did a fun break on them here a couple of weeks ago HERE.  But even if the set was 1988 Donruss, it’s still probably someone’s favorite if that’s the first cards they owned.   I agree with Joe that the look of the ’89 Topps brings back a lot of memories.   It has such a classic look with the bubble script team names and old school baseball card border.

I asked Joe what he likes most about the hobby and he said it was the fact that any pack you open could have a card in it that a pro athlete held, signed or could contain a piece of a jersey they wore.  You didn’t get that in ’89 Topps but these types of inserts have brought something to the hobby that we only dreamed of back when we started.  I remember getting some autographs at the Albany Polecats minor league stadium in ’91 and thought that would be the only avenue to autographs for me in my lifetime.   I was quite wrong.  As for what he likes least, he answered with something I’m sure many of you will nod in agreement about.   For many people, collecting has become strictly a business.  While acknowledging that he is certainly guilty of selling cards as much as anyone, he still collects because it is fun.   If you make a dollar or two while doing it to help sustain your hobby, I think that is all fair game.  I sell when I can to replenish my paypal or stock up on shipping but I buy cards to look at them and study as opposed to immediately trying to figure out what I can get for them.  It sounds like Joe does the same!Joe has a few favorites in his collection that he shared with me.  He has signed baseballs by Griffey, Mattingly, Mariano Rivera and Yogi Berra that are centerpieces.  I think having a Rivera auto would be the Holy Grail (except for Jeter) for the modern day Yankees fan.  Berra is a sweet vintage one to have as well.  As for cards, he is the proud owner of an Aaron Judge Inception RPA! Is there anybody hotter than Aaron Judge right now?  He’s hotter than Eric Thames!  But even with Judge’s current state of hotness, that card is a toss-up when it comes to favorites as he also has a 2017 Dual Relic Ted Williams from Diamond Kings.  Solid 2017 pull!

Lastly, as will be standard for all collectors who participate, I asked Joe for some advice to pass along to young or new collectors.   His response, “The biggest thing I can say is just have fun!  Don’t get into collecting expecting to get rich.  How many of us have binders full of Gregg Jefferies and Ben McDonald that were supposed to make us millionaires?  Don’t expect to pull that once in a lifetime hit that you can flip on eBay. Just have fun collecting your favorite players and teams.”  Very sound advice from a veteran collector.  Although, I’m hanging on to my Jefferies rookies! Never lose hope friends.

Here is another fine collector from our community that you should know and follow.  Hopefully, this post will give you some background info on just who he is and what he collects.  I am getting my questionnaires out each week so keep an eye on your inbox if you liked my tweet a couple of weeks ago.  I’m looking forward to learning more and sharing with the rest of the community.

J-Dub