I’ve seen it thousands of times. Someone heads over to their local baseball card shop to get the latest packs. And the owner always throws the same line at them “we got these in today, and they’re extremely limited”. Hey folks, IT’S ALL LIMITED!!! Only so many cards are printed every year, and limited does not necessarily mean it will be worth anything. Ebay is living proof of that. You can buy extremely rare cards all day long on Ebay for as little as $15.00. Cards in which only 10 exist in the world.  But dealers will throw that line at you and try to sell you new packs of cards for 5.00 10.00 or even 100.00 a pack. And 9 times out of 10, in six months, you’ll be able to buy the same packs for as little as $2.00.

It’s the same old story over and over and over again. I remember back in 1989, Fleer produced a card featuring baseball player Billy Ripken on it. On the end of the bat he was holding in the picture, was a curse word. When the news media got wind of it, reports of the card being worth thousands of dollars hit the airwaves. Dealers were selling packs for as high as $1,000 per pack. Buyers who were lucky enough to have already purchased the boxes were hoarding them up, and some buyers paid as high as $30,000 for a box. Well, guess what, when the price guides came out a month later, the values were not even close. Today, the same card can be purchased all day long for TEN DOLLARS.

The old addage, BELIEVE NOTHING YOU HEAR, AND HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE should be observed anytime you visit a baseball card shop, or for that matter, any sports memorablia location.

So when you go to your sports card shop, follow a simple rule, IF IT’S NEW, I WON’T PAY OVER TWO.

Let me share with you another prime example: 1993 Score Select Rookie Traded. When the boxes came out new in late 1993, Dealers were selling them for $8.00 per pack, and the usual hype about limited quantities filled newspapers around the world. Well, within 1 year, the prices had already fell to 5.00 per pack. Today, an 36 pack box can be purchased for as little as $10.00 and frankly, I wouldn’t pay that!!!

Now I’m sure you’re thinking, “are there any packs worth more than $2.00?” and the answer is, yes yes yes!!!

Examples: 1952 Topps $6,000 per pack, 1992 Bowman 10.00 per pack, 1986 Fleer Basketball $3,000 per pack.

But here is what you must consider when even thinking about investing in baseball card packs.

1- Have prices guides established a value on them, If not, don’t buy’em.

2- Are they popular with collectors (Popularity with collectors is another key factor in determining if a pack will go up in value)

3- Is it possible for me to pull cards from the pack that are at the very least equal to what I paid for it, and if so, what are my odds of finding one?

If you are purchasing packs for pack value,  you never open them. Opening a pack kills its value. You also want to make sure to keep it out of direct light of any kind, and in a cool dry place. You also want to keep it from any place where it could fall or have something dropped on it.