From what I've read, the baseball card universe got a little crazy during the late 80's and early '90's.
I'm not just talking about the card companies churning out millions and millions of cards.
The collectors contributed to a lot of the wackiness as well. A lot of people that weren't actually "collectors" started to get into the hobby, mainly for the wrong reasons.
The prices of cards began to skyrocket. From what I know, this Jose Canseco card was one of the "hottest" items on the market.
I'm not sure on the exact price, but I'd guess that this card was trading hands for good money at the peak of the overproduction era. Canseco's rookie card from '86 Donruss was worth over a hundred bucks at one point (thanks for the info, hiflew!).
Canseco was tearing up the league at the time.
As we all know, the card market crashed and most of the cards produced during the era were worth next to nothing.
This past summer, I found it in a 12/$1 box. So I paid about eight cents.
I don't collect Jose Canseco (except his "zero-year" cards), but I bought it anyways, just for laughs.
It's a great reminder of how crazy this hobby once was, and it makes everything now seem so much simpler.
5 comments:
The worst thing that happened was Beckett publishing prices of cards and everyone who wasn't a collector had the mentality of "Oh, I better hold onto that, it MIGHT BE WORTH SOMETHING!!!" Sadly, the reason cards were 'worth something' was because people didn't hold onto them... you know the story of moms throwing away collections, cards being used in bike spokes, etc. When everyone from card companies, to QVC to collectors themselves overhyping the value of cards, the market was destined to fail.
This card came out when I started collecting. This was the least desired of his rookie cards. Probably maxing at about $10-15. The Fleer card was 2nd and it ran around $35 or so. The biggie was the 1986 Donruss Rated Rookie which at one point booked for around $150. Today you could nearly buy a case of 86 Donruss for $150. It was a strange time.
Ah, I got this one confused with his Donruss RC. It's hard to believe that any Canseco rookie was once worth that much. Still, I find it funny that I found it lying with a bunch of other no-namers in a 12/$1 box. How the mighty have fallen.
William- Great points, and on another note, I can't believe that people actually buy some of that baseball card stuff they sell on QVC.
this '86 card inspired my latest blog entry...
1986 might well be my favorite Topps design of the '80s. I think it is now that I think about it.
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