Cost of Collecting is High

                                     I collect a couple of things, baseball cards, blu-ray discs, dvd’s, music CD’s and bobbleheads. When I first started with baseball cards, they were 5 cents a pack. You got 6 cards and a pack of gum. Gum was awful. The first pack I ever bought in 1956 I got a Roy Campanella card. He was the only one I recognized since I had watched the series on TV with my uncle. The other players I had no clue about. There was no big-league baseball in LA at that time.  Only AAA with the Hollywood Stars and the Los Angeles Angels of the PCL. I had only been to one game at Wrigley Field in LA. 

                                   When the Dodgers moved to LA in 58, my interest in watching and playing the game grew. I never really played until I was in the fourth grade. But I got to love it. I went to my first Dodger game in July of 1958. I forget who they were playing, but wow, the coliseum was huge. We were way down the rightfield line in the “knothole seats.” I remember it well because the players were very small and very far away. The TV actor, John Russell was sitting not far from us. He was the star of the show, The Lawman. I bought my first souvenir, a 20 pack of Dodger photos. Cost just 50 cents. Not very long ago, I went on Ebay and bought a pack of those from 1962, and they cost me 12.00.  All black and white, no fake autographs, just the players’ names under the photo. 

                               A pack of baseball cards today can range from 2.99 a pack to hundreds of dollars for the specialty cards. I have watched videos of people at card shows paying as much as 500.00 for a specialty card and not knowing who was in the box. Basketball and Football, and even some hockey cards can cost a ton too. A Jordan rookie could send your kid to college. Of course, the Holy Grail in baseball used to be the T-206 Honus Wagner. Wayne Gretzky and former King’s owner, Bruce McNall once paid 4 million dollars for one. 

                              But not long ago, according to Wikipedia, the most ever paid for a single card was 13,118,672.00 for a 1952 Mickey Mantle which was graded at MT9.5. The most paid for the Wagner card is 7.25 million. It was graded VG 3.5.  A 2003 LeBron James Upper Deck Exquisite collection rookie patch card went for over 6 million. Most for a basketball card. A Wayne Gretzky 1979) O-Pee-Chee went for over 4 million. O-Pee-Chee is a Canadian card company. All of these sales have been since 2021. 

                              My interest in this subject was piqued not only by my collecting, but a photo I found of Babe Ruth and the kid who had his 700th HR ball. Babe got the ball from the kid in return for an autographed ball and 20 dollars! Ohtani’s 50th home run ball is expected to fetch 300,000 or more at auction. Wow. Mark McGwire’s 70th HR ball was purchased by Todd McFarlane for 3 million dollars. Just a tip of the iceberg. Babes 1932 called shot jersey……hold on to your hat, 24.12 million dollars earlier this year. Unreal. 

                             1998 Michael Jordan finals jersey, 10.1 million, Diego Maradona Hand of God jersey from the 1986 World Cup. He used his hand to score a goal, and the ref did not see it. 9.3 million.  Probably one of the oldest pieces of memorabilia sold is the original 1892 copy of the Olympic Games Manifesto. It was hand-written by Pierre du Coubertin. It sold for 8.8 million in 2022.  If you are going to go after the rare stuff, you had better have a serious stash of cash. By comparison, the most I have ever paid for one of my cards is the 25.00 I paid for my 1959 Sandy Koufax. I paid 15.00 for my 59 Duke Snider. 59 is the only year that I have every original Topps Dodger card. 

                             That same Koufax card sells for about 7500 in near mint condition. The Mantle on Ebay in EX-6 is 600,000. Collecting cards is a big business. Some of the more well-known shops are gone now. There was a place across from the old Yankee Stadium that used to advertise in the Sporting News and Baseball Digest, and you could buy vintage cards there. A 1914 Babe Ruth rookie recently sold for 7.2 million. Ali’s Rumble in the Jungle belt from 1974 sold to Colts owner Jim Ersay for 6.2 million in 2022. 

                             Believe me, CD’s, bobbleheads, blu-rays and dvds are a lot cheaper!  I did pay 40 dollars once for a VHS tape. It was the only copy I had ever seen of John Wayne’s The High and the Mighty. This was years before discs and then blu-rays came along. I am pretty sure it was a bootleg tape. The quality was not the best. But it was and is one of my favorite Wayne movies. To this day, it has still not been released on blu-ray. 

                           Most of my bobbleheads are Dodgers. I do have several my brother Steve gave to me that he got tired of. I have one of Pujols celebrating his 3000th hit. I have Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Berra, Piazza as an A, Ryan, Aaron, and several others. I probably have more Kershaw’s than any other player. I have a Snider, two Hodges, one Koufax. They have made a Jackie Robinson statue and one of his bronze at the Stadium. The only Reese or Campanella is one that commemorates his night at the coliseum. There is also a small statue that features Camp, Jackie and Newk. 

                            Several Dodgers you would think might have been honored in such a manor never have been. Jim Gilliam was supposed to be one of the 2018 giveaways, but instead, they replaced him with Manny Machado and have never rescheduled a Gilliam. I actually wrote the promotions department and complained that Gilliam deserved on a hell of a lot more than Machado. Willie D, Moon, Osteen, Neal, guys who were part of championship teams, no bobbleheads.

                           Might be sour grapes, but you can have only so many Kershaw’s. They gave away another one the last series of the season. Steve likes the legends of Dodgers baseball series. He just picked up the new Dusty Baker. One I really liked was the one they made of Trea Turner featuring that slide he made at home plate.  I gave my brother the one I had commemorating Sandy’s 4 no-hitters. I still have the one that depicts the scoreboard for his perfect game. 

                         Music CDs are easy to find, although some older ones can be pricey. One of my favorite country singers and writers is Ed Bruce. Bruce wrote Mama’s Don’t Let Your Baby’s Grow up to be Cowboys and several other hits. He also did the theme song for the new Maverick series when it came out with James Garner, and played a sheriff on the series. He also had parts in several movies including Public Enemies with Christain Bale and Johnny Depp. His best of album that contained 17 songs including the Maverick theme was rare and at one time could only be found on Ebay for around 600 dollars. I went to Amoeba record store in Hollywood with Steve and found one for 3.99. Steve, who has well over 7,000 CDs, mostly country, really wanted it bad, so I let him buy it then I burned a copy for myself. 

                       When I was in the Army, I collected record albums. When I left Germany in January of 1973, I had 4500 albums, a stereo system consisting of 5 tape decks, 2 turntables a receiver and power source, and 6 speakers. As you could tell, I loved my music. Some of those albums would bring some serious cash today if you were collecting and could find them. Elvis’s Moody Blue album, issued in blue vinyl was the main one distributed, but if you had one that is black vinyl, that is rare, and would bring upwards of 600 dollars. 

                       Kids who collect today are not so much into full sets, although you can buy a box of Topps year by year relatively cheaply. They like the specialty cards containing a shard from a bat, or a piece of a uniform from players jerseys. There are so many different styles of cards today, and they are made in huge numbers, so the specialty stuff is worth more. Topps also lost its contract with MLB, so some of their cards are going to be even more valuable. 

                    So here we are on the verge of game 3 between the Dodgers and the Mets.  Walker Buehler vs Luis Severino. Let us hope Striker brings his A game tonight.