Friday, December 19, 2008

baseball card collection for sale Collecting Trading CardsMake Money With Your Hobby

Trading cards are an extremely popular collectible for both adults and children. These sets of color printed cards, usually presented as a series or a theme, are traded with other collectors, bought and sold and saved in albums. When people think about trading cards, they most often visualise sports trading cards. Sports cards have photographs and stats of players in all sports including hockey, baseball, basketball and football,to name just a few of the very popular series. There has also been increasing interest in trading cards other than sports cards. These usually feature themes from movies, television, or music.





Some people will think of trading cards as childrens toys. It is a fact that collecting trading cards is a wonderful hobby for children. As a parent you must teach your kids to keep their cards in mint condition in order to maintain their value. Make sure that while enjoying their card collection,they realise that only mint condition cards have full value as collectibles.





Sports cards began with baseball cards which date back as far as 1887. As a matter of fact,the great popularity and continuing growth of baseball card collecting is tied to the expansion of the game of baseball across the United states. This took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first trading cards were quite different from today's cards. They were usually printed on cloth or other soft materials. In 1902 baseball cards began to be produced on a commercial basis. Soon after that baseball cards were packed in with products like tobacco, bubble gum, and Cracker Jack.





As baseball cards became ever more popular,by the mid 1900s,other sports and more companies wanted to get in on the act. Trading cards became very popular once more in the 1980s as kids built their collections of sports cards. The trading card industry reached maximum production in the mid-1990s. Large numbers of trading card series as diverse as Garbage Pail Kids and Olympic athletes were produced.





Sports cards have remained the most popular trading cards. The late 1900s saw the production of many pop culture card series. Anyone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s will know all about cards such as Uh-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, Digimon, and World of Warcraft.





Even Hollywood saw the profit potential and popular cult TV and movies were produced as trading cards. Some of the shows which were made into trading card series include Star Trek,Buffy the Vampire Slayer,The X Files and South Park. Popular movies which were placed on trading cards include Ace Ventura, Independence Day, and even old time movies such as The Wizard of Oz and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.





The trading card market is almost completely dominated by several large companies. These include Topps, Upper Deck,Fleer, Leaf Candy Company and Donruss. Most of these companies,which are known best for their sports cards,also produce non-sports series of trading cards.





The value of a trading card depends entirely on its condition. Mint or Near Mint condition cards must have almost no flaws. They have must have sharp edges and corners,no creases and no damage. Such things as writing on the card,off-centered printing,corner damage, tears, creases or any other imperfections will lower the value greatly. Cards graded as Poor will have serious damage such as tears,creases or worn corners.





What can you do to keep your cards in excellent condition? There are many storage and protective covers,which can be purchased,to keep your trading cards safe from damage. Plastic sleeves and covers are very good for protecting cards from damage,although they could still be creased or bent. If you have valuable cards you must keep them in hard cases.





If you want to put a price on your cards,value guides can be purchased for most collectible series of cards. The well known Beckett price guides are generally accepted as leading value indicators for sports trading cards.





Collecting trading cards is an extremely popular hobby. Plenty of information and resources is available for card collectors. Online forums and price guides will help collectors to put a price on their cards and to discuss their hobby. Card shows are held in many major cities. These shows enable many buyers and sellers to meet for the purpose of trading, buying and selling cards.


Know which trading cards are hot and which are not. See thousands pictured with prices and descriptions. Go to=>
Trading Cards

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old baseball cards for sale 3 Ways To Ascertain Your Sports Trading Cards Value

Chances are, if you've been collecting sport trading cards for some time, one of the mind boggling questions that probably bugging you is this : how do you determine the value of your card collection? In other words, how much can you fetch for the stacks of baseball, football or wrestling trading cards lying in your cabinet?





Although most sports card collectors are usually fans of the game as well, some are actually into the card collecting hobby for the potential profit they may reap from the trading. Therefore, it certainly doesn't hurt to know the methods that you can use to assess this, even if you've no intention to sell off your collection now.





Here are 3 simple and effective ways commonly used :





(1) ebay Auctions





A relatively fast way to know how much people are willing to pay for your particular card is to do a search on Ebay auctions. While doing so, it's vital to go by what buyers are offering instead of the price sellers are asking for.





Even though both demand and supply has the same important part to play, looking at the buyers' market is the fairer way to determine the current "market value". The number of bids, depending on the base price set by the seller can also help you determine if the card you're holding is "hot" or not. That in turn can help you plan your own baseline selling price next time.





(2) Monthly Magazines & Price Guides





If you're more interested to know the "book value" for your cards, depending on the amount of money you want to spend and the depth of the details you want to know, there are avenues for you to check that as well.





For a start, you can check this via the monthly trading card magazines. Such periodicals tabulate current book values of the most popular range of single cards and sets and can bought off newstands at about $4-5 per copy. 2 of the =main magazines are Beckett and Tough Stuff.





Suppose you've got a bigger budget, go for the $10 paperback or the $40-50 price guide. Both give you value estimates based on the production year of the sets from different different card companies with the latter covering on almost every set that are issued for all major sports.





But regardless of which option you choose, do bear in mind that such value estimates are highly subjected to the condition and maintenance of the cards concerned. So, in case you don't get the price that's stated on the periodicals, don't go back to your newstand vendor or book store and start asking for a refund!





(3) Trading Card Clubs & Forums





Last but not least, just go asking around. By doing a search on Google, you'll be able to get a listing of all online card traders clubs and forums you can join and learn about such knowledge. Members are often able to give you quotes on the spot and who knows? You might even get a good offer for your card. Besides, it's also gratifying to know a bunch of people who share the same interest as you, isn't it?


James Smith collects hard to find football trading cards and is also a freelance writer. He also buys Pokemon trading card singles for his kids. More trading cards for sale here.

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baseball card collection for sale: old baseball cards for sale

Article Source: www.articlesnatch.com