In order of closing date (prices as of Sunday evening PT):

Goldin Weekly Auction (ending January 29)

⚾ 1965 Topps #477 Steve Carlton Rookie Card SGC 5.5 - $12

🏈 1963 Topps #62 Mike Ditka SGC 5.5 - $29

🏈 1960 Topps #23 Jim Brown SGC 5 - $32

Heritage Auctions (ending January 31)

⚾ 1909-13 M101-2 Sporting News Supplements Richard “Rube” Marquard PSA 1 (MK) - $115

⚾ 1927 W560 Walter Johnson (Hand Cut, 2 of Spades) PSA 5 - $135

🏀 1971 Topps Bill Bradley #2 PSA 9 - $190

Memory Lane Inc. (ending January 31)

🏈 1960 Topps #37 Charlie Ane PSA 9 - $150 (Editor’s Note: As someone who grew up in Hawaii, I had to take advantage of the opportunity to include someone from Hawaii)

⚾ 1954 Topps #50 Yogi Berra PSA 5 - $200

⚾ 1967-68 Coca-Cola Caps #V8 Mickey Mantle 1967 NY Yankees PSA 2 - $200

The Collector Connection (ending February 1)

🏀 1969 Topps Rulers #15 Jerry Lucas HOF PSA 5 (MC) - $26

⚾ 1970 Topps #189 Thurman Munson RC SGC 4 $32

🏈 1948 Leaf Football #1 Sid Luckman HOF Rookie (Fair) - $34

🏆 Find Out the 2026 Class for the Trading Card Hall of Fame

💰 The T206 Honus Wagner Once Owned by Joe Garagiola Will Be Auctioned With a $3M Estimate

⚾ The Art of the 1953 Topps Baseball Card Cartoons

💰 Mile High Card Company Just Had Its Biggest Auction Ever, Including Six-Figure Sales of Complete Vintage Sets

🏀 Should the 1948 George Mikan PSA 10 RC Be Worth More Than the T206 Honus Wagner?

I’m in a Facebook Group that focuses on vintage baseball cards and a couple of weeks ago I saw Scott post a bit about his collecting journey, which I thought was great. So much so that I contacted him to see if he would be willing to do the Q&A, and thankfully he agreed. Let’s get to know him better in the Drawn to Cards Q&A.

What’s your card collecting story (when and why did you start, which sport(s)/card era(s), how has your collecting changed over time, and do you consider yourself a collecting generalist or specialist?

I started collecting cards when I was about 8 years old. The very first card I ever owned was a 1987 Topps Mark McGwire. After that I was hooked. I went to card shows every chance I got, and sometimes my friend’s mom would drive us to the airport or hotels near the ballpark just so we could try to get autographs from players. Back then, collecting was basically my whole life.

Then real life showed up … bills, cars, girls, responsibilities — and the cards slowly went into the background.

Now I’m 46 years old with a business, a wife, and five kids. About a year ago I ran across one of my old Beckett magazines and somehow I still remembered the prices of a bunch of cards almost perfectly. That’s when the itch came back.

But man, the hobby is totally different now. Everything is about slabs, grades, populations, and all that. When I was a kid, I just collected rookies — Jordan, Griffey, whoever I could get my hands on. I even had some vintage stuff. I remember owning an O.J. Simpson rookie during the whole scandal era, even though I’d never even seen the guy play.

When I jumped back in, my OCD kicked in hard. Some of my cards were in PSA slabs, some were SGC, all different grades — I hated how messy it felt. As a kid, a $5 card was just a $5 card. Now one card can be worth ten different prices depending on the plastic it’s sitting in.

So I sold everything and decided I was only going to collect PSA 8 Michael Jordans. I dropped almost $20k doing that … and then the guilt hit. I still wanted a ton of other cards, and it just didn’t feel right. So I sold everything again.

That’s when I found a 1956 Topps white back Mickey Mantle in a PSA 1 slab. And honestly, that card changed everything for me. I realized I don’t really care about chasing grades. I just want the card. I still like everything matching — same slab, same grade — but now the card itself matters more than the number.

I also like that when they’re all the same grade, the values just make sense. The better card is worth more, period. Not some random PSA 10 being more valuable than a Jordan just because of the grade.

So now I only collect PSA 1 cards.

And I’m having a blast. The cards have character, they’re tough to find, low pop, and every pickup feels like a win. It finally feels like collecting again.

What’s your favorite collecting memory?

My favorite collecting memory would be from when I was a kid. My best friend Danny lived across the street. We would ride our bikes up to Walmart every day and get a pack of cards with our allowance. Sometimes we’d have saved up enough for an entire box. Those were the days!

Who/what do you personally collect?

As mentioned, PSA 1.  But as for who, I like to just collect the iconic cards, mostly rookie cards of all my favorite players and the greats. Mostly guys like Jordan, Griffey, Bo Jackson, Gretzky, Tiger Woods, etc. GOAT caliber guys.

What’s your favorite card you own and/or what’s your grail card? Tell us why.

Favorite card I own currently is the 1990 Score Bo Knows card I personally got autographed as a kid. He no longer will sign this card and I got it personally. So it’s pretty special. Unfortunately it’s not a PSA 1 lol. My favorite/grail card I assume you mean the ultimate chase card I dream to own? If so, I would say the 1984 Star 101 Michael Jordan in PSA 1.

What’s been the best part of your hobby experience so far?

Best part of the hobby experience has been meeting people over the years. Bonding and making friendships over silly cardboard photos.

If you could talk to/meet any person related to the hobby (person in sports, person in the hobby, hobby creator, etc.), who would it be and why?

Maybe Ken Goldin? He basically is living my childhood dream. As a kid I wanted to own a baseball card shop. He’s well beyond that on the job coolness scale.

Which three sports card channels (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) do you think more people should check out?

Facebook groups and Instagram are where I spend most of my time. Meet a lot of people with a lot of things in common. I’m in specialty groups like Ohtani, Griffey, Jordan only groups. Those are really cool to see people’s collections of hundreds of cards of a single player!

If you had a magic wand, what’s one thing that you would change in the hobby?

I know this is (a) monopoly and I don’t agree with that per se. But I wish there weren’t so many grading companies and it was more uniform and standard. Again as mentioned before a single card’s value can fluctuate so much between the grading companies alone. Not to mention the grade itself. Somehow streamlining it would be cool. But many may not agree.

What do you think the future holds for your collecting voyage and for the hobby in general?

For me personally I’m loving this PSA 1 journey I’m on. I can’t wait to see what my collection looks like in a couple years. I’m submitting a 2018 Bowman Chrome Ohtani batting card now that I’m hoping is a 1. It’s a little beat up but really bad surface scratches. It will be a POP 1 in PSA 1. I’ve owned the card in a PSA 10 a couple times but regardless of the grade, I just like saying I own the card! 

As mentioned previously, collector grade is based on the decade - a 7 grade for the 1970s, a 6 for the 1960s, and so on.

This week, I’ll continue my look at basketball Hall of Fame rookie cards, this time from the 1950s. This is an unusual decade in that there’s only one set of note, that being the 1957 Topps set. Regarding “affordability,” I’ll assume $150 or less.

Based on what happened for the 1960s, I’m going to assume that 75% of the cards fall into the affordable category.

And here are the results (data via Vintage Card Prices):

Last week’s results helped me get a lot closer with my prediction this time, as the “affordable” category came in at 71.4%. I should note the average price of two of the players (Neil Johnston and Jack Twyman) skewed upward based on one outlier price for each. And speaking of outliers, there’s Bill Russell’s rookie card, which is just over six times higher than the next-most expensive card and more than twice as much the 20 other rookie cards combined.

Russell’s rookie card managed to very much skew the average price of the group, which landed at $510.86. Perhaps not surprisingly based on their dominance from the late ‘50s throughout the ‘60s, the top three rookies are all Boston Celtics - and they have 81.5% of this group’s value.

What did you think of the results?