Way back in the early 90s, I was huge into hockey. I watched my Buffalo Sabres every chance I could, attended Rangers and Whale games all the time, and even played on my high school’s hockey team for a year, despite barely being able to skate. I also apparently spent all of my money on hockey cards. Once I got to college, I was too busy to hold up the interest (and once the Stars stole the cup from the Sabres, I was totally done with the NHL) and it’s really more of a distant memory for me. However, I was at my mom’s house yesterday and came across a box of about 50 hockey cards, all in plastic (or in the case of Eric Lindros’ rookie, glass) cases. The sentimental value of them wore off after about 15 minutes, and now I’m just wondering if anyone still collects these cards, and if they’re still worth anything? Some of these slip cases have tags for $12 on them. Almost all of the collection are from the early 90s, and include rookie cards for Lindros, Dominik Hasek, Peter Forsburg, Chris Pronger, Joe Sakic, Pat Lafontaine, Alex Mogilny, Sergei Fedorov, etc as well as a couple of older cards from the 80s, and some of those “rare shiny can only find in packs” cards that began to be the trend in the 90s.
Anyway, two questions.
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Do these still have any value? Has the value gone up or down since when I was collecting? It seems like I NEVER hear about collector cards anymore, and if I do, they’re for gaming cards, not sports.
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What is the best way to sell them? The three options I see are #1 taking them to a collectors store and seeing if they make me a reasonable offer. I’ve never resold any cards before so I’m not sure how much the profit margin is there, or if they’ll even be willing to buy so much from a new customer who has no interest in trading. #2 post to craigslist to get a local buyer in NYC. That way he can at least inspect them before committing to buy, and there will be haggle room that way. #3 ebaying them. I notice that most ebay cards also come with appraisal authentication, which none of these cards have. Would it be worthwhile to get them appraised (I’m sure that will cost me something, but does it cost enough that I would be able to sell them for even more)? Just about every card in that collection is either in perfect condition, or has small signs of weartear on the corners or sides. None of them are bent or ripped.