Anyone know about Baseball cards?

[reefaholic33]

Well I'm born in raised in St. Louis MO. The cardinals are in my blood! I have a Topps 2006 Pujols card with actual jersey in it.
 
I'm looking for a Pujols rookie card, I have googled and found the top 5 best ones to have. They are anywhere from 500-6,000 bucks. I really, really, want one. Not just because I know it will be worth a ton in the future but I just want to have it to put on display in my pool room and maybe pass down to my kids one day.
 
Anyway my question is....is there anywhere good to search for one? I have been watching e.bay and finding a few but for this it needs to be proffesionally graded and mint. So where can I go about searching for one and any other tips you have about it would be helpful, I know next to nothing about cards.

 

[reefraff]

You gotta be really careful about fakes. Unless you know how to spot them stick to reputable dealers.

 

[reefaholic33]

^ Yeah that's about all the info. I can gather at this point. I just wish I could know or talk to someone that knows more than I do before I spend that much on a card. Last Friday I caught a Pujols batting practice homerun ball, I know it will never be worth anything but I don't care it is very special to me.

 

[bionicarm]

If you want to avoid fakes, look for cards that are professionally graded by either Beckett (BCS), Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), or GMA. They will be incased in a hard plastic sleeve, with a label along the top showing the grade standards (NM -Near Mint NM+, M - Mint, etc.) and a number. The higher the number, the better the grade and presumably the more valuable the card can be. Anything over a 9.0 is more desirable and worth more in the long run. There's also a bar code on the label for verification.
 
For baseball cards, Topps, Upper Deck, and Fleer are the most popular. You can purchase card collecting magazines like Beckett. or just go to their web site at www.beckett.com, and see what cards for a specific palyer are the most desirable, and what the average prices they are selling for. Pujols hasn't been in the league for long, so you could actually find packs of cards, or complete boxes of his most popular card of his rookie season, and see if you can pull out a mint card yourself. I actually used to sell sports cards and comic books years ago. We used to go to Costco every Friday morning, when they'd have boxes of cards for sale. I'd rip open a couple of boxes to create sets and find 'chase' cards, then I'd take a couple other boxes to Card Shows and sell them by the pack. You could buy a box for around $25, and if it was a series everyone was looking for, you could sell packs at $5.00/ea. (25 packs x $5.00 = $125.00). I did it in '92 when Shaq and a bunch of other basketball players came out as rookies. I had a couple of Shaq rookie cards I found in a box that I sold for $250. Today, the card is worth about $30. That's one of the problems with today's card stock. They are so mass-produced, that they aren't 'rare' or hard to find. The only one's that retain any value are the 'speciality' cards that come one or two to a box. Find those, and you can have a collectible. Check your weekend newspaper and see if there's any card shows coming around your area. You can go to those and look at cards, buy packs, etc. I've also seen packs at stores like Walmart.

 

[stdreb27]

Their little squares with a baseball player's picture on it. And stats on the back...
 
All I know is that after the courts screwed up the exclusive deals between the MLB and Fleer, Donruss, and Topps, everyone is making them now. And the market for them has crashed.

 

[reefaholic33]

Bionicarm- Thank you that's alot of help. The cool thing about Albert from what I have read there aren't as many rookie cards made as alot of other desirable players. I'm not so much concerned with making money one day but want the real deal. It will be in the pool room with other memorabile.
 
I'm trying to get one of these cards.... http://gmagrading.com/albert-pujols-rookie-card-albert-pujols-baseball-cards/ I really want the Bowman and just missed one on e.bay. Well I guess now I will keep searchin, and make sure I get a 9.5 atleast and proffesionally grades.