$2,000 for baseball cards? Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!

I love it when baseball cards show up in pop culture.

Whether it be in movies, books, or magazine articles, it's neat to see that the hobby is getting recognition outside of our little collecting world.

They've been popping up on a couple TV shows lately.

I recently became an avid viewer of "Storage Wars". Although I would personally never drop that kind of money (if I had it) on storage lockers, it's fun to see what's inside the lockers.

I get the feeling that they wildly overvalue their "finds" on that show, though. On one of the episodes, Dave won a locker, presumably bidding with his famous catchphrase, which is the title of this post. (Anyone who watches the show will probably know exactly what I'm talking about.)

One of the trunks inside the locker was filled with baseball cards. There had to have been a few hundred cards in there. They didn't really show too many of the specific cards, but I could see that it was mostly '70s stuff from a few of the shots.

Perhaps the first clue I should have gotten of Dave's lack of knowledge on the topic was when he said that he had a 1970 Rod Carew, the card pictured at the top of the post. (The one he found was in much better condition than mine.)

Not to be a snob, Dave, but it's actually a 1971 Rod Carew.

So what do you think they valued the lot at? A few hundred '70s cards...a buck or two a piece...maybe around $500 max?

Nope. Try two thousand dollars.


Like I said, it's always nice to see cards in pop culture.

But let's be realistic.

Sadly, this isn't an actual copy of Yaz's rookie card. It's from the "Cards Your Mom Threw Out" inserts.


The first-ever "Storage Wars" episode I saw contained the coolest locker I've seen yet.

Darrell, a.k.a. "The Gambler", found a huge box filled with sports memorabilia cards. Autographs, jersey cards, everything. You name it, it was in there. I remember a few of the specific cards were an '89 UD Griffey rookie and this 1960 Topps Carl Yastrzemski rookie card.

There was also a ball autographed by Derek Jeter in there somewhere.

I don't even remember what they valued the lot at.

I was too busy drooling.

Also not real.

I've been watching "Pawn Stars" for a while now.

It's fallen off a bit lately, but I still look forward to watching it on Monday nights.

One thing I like about it is that they do feature quite a bit of sports memorabilia on the show. However, there's not much in the way of baseball cards.

In fact, when my dad was in Las Vegas last year, he visited the "Pawn Stars" pawn shop. One of the employees told him that they don't even look at most of the cards people bring in. Only the mega high-end vintage stuff really warrants a look.

I can understand that. After all, I don't think many people walk into a pawn shop looking for baseball cards.

Rick brings in a sports memorabilia expert that he brings in from time to time now. The expert runs a card shop in Vegas. I often wonder if his was one of the shops I stopped into when I was there a while back.

On one of the recent episodes, a guy brought in a Cy Young tobacco-era card. (I think it was from 1909.)

The card was beat to shreds. The bottom-right hand corner was missing, but they still bought it for a cool three hundred bucks.

I figured that, at best, they could break even on it. It turns out that they wouldn't even be able to do that, as the expert valued the card at around $200 in its condition, which is around what I thought it would be.

Maybe I should be the "expert" on one of these shows.

Outside of our "club", it doesn't seem that many people know a lot about baseball cards, which fits in with one of Night Owl's recent posts.

Everyone's an expert in something. For me, it's baseball, and specifically, baseball cards.

One of my dreams is to have a career that has to do with baseball in some capacity. (You know, like the general manager of a baseball team. Or maybe an announcer.)

I don't think there's too many people my age that know thing one about baseball cards. Perhaps I could be one of those "experts" on a future "Pawn Stars"-like show.

How great would that be?