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High-Graded PSA 1933 Goudey Baseball Card Collection Purchased

Phone Call Leads to Rare High-Graded Vintage Goudey Baseball Cards

October 04, 2024

High-graded PSA cards from the iconic 1933 Goudey set have proudly been purchased by Just Collect. Starting with a simple phone call to our office, we are honored to introduce you to these vintage gems.

When our wonderful receptionist, Kristen, answered the phone at the Just Collect office, a gentleman named Nick mentioned he had vintage baseball cards and was interested in selling the collection. Once Kristen heard "1933 Goudey" she knew the collection could be special, and asked the gentleman to send an e-mail with images of a few cards to our Vice President, John, and our owner, Leighton. Not only was this collection special, it was much more vast that we could have imaged!

THE HIGH-GRADE 1933 GOUDEY COLLECTION

The 1933 Goudey baseball set is an iconic release. During the Great Depression, releasing a luxury such as baseball cards when a family could barely afford the gum that came with the pack of cards was quite the risk. With beautiful backgrounds, vibrant colors, and legends of the game, we are thankful today that Goudey pulled off releasing these pieces of history.

In total, the 1933 Goudey set has 240 cards, 239 of which were released in 1933 and a single card released in 1934. Goudey never released card #106 Nap Lajoie. After collectors wrote Goudey a letter the following year, a Lajoie was mailed to them. Each card is 2-3/8" by 2-7/8" which is slightly smaller than a modern card that measures 2.5" by 3.5". Goudey included Hall of Fame, legendary heroes of baseball including Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig,

Condition is very important when appraising the value of a card. Using a grading scale of 1 to 10 like PSA uses, with 10 being Gem Mint condition, the value of of a card could change by thousands of dollars with just a difference of a single grade. Finding cards in higher grades from a set like 1933 Goudey is no easy feat. Aside from the fact that each card is nearly a Century old, safely storing your cards back then wasn't even a thought. Cards were traded, flipped, or stacked together with a rubber band inside of a shoebox. When we reviewed the collection Nick was interested in selling, we were stunned to see the condition of a few of these cards!

In the slideshow below, you can see these gorgeous vintage cards. The first image begins with a PSA 6 graded Bill Terry card. Terry is in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and won the World Series the year these cards came out. Bookending the first photo is Lefty O'Doul in a PSA 6 grade. Lefty is another Hall of Famer and made the all-star team in 1933. PSA has a population report on which you can see how many cards exist in a given grade. Using the population report, we know that only 80 examples have been graded higher than a PSA 6. There are just 72 examples of the Lefty O'Doul card graded higher than a PSA 6. Just to the left of Lefty (maybe we did set that up on purpose...) are two cards each graded PSA 7! The Luke Sewell card has only 22 examples ever graded higher than a 7, and only 15 cards earning a grade of higher than PSA 7 for the neighboring Dan Howley! While the cards in the second slide are not in as fine condition, each are still wonderful examples with great eye appeal.

You can see each card in this amazing collection here:

APPRAISAL AND PURCHASE

After the owner of the collection, Nick, spoke with Kristen and sent an e-mail to John, he sent a few photos of the collection for John to evaluate. The owner of Just Collect, Leighton, also reviewed the collection. Given the scarcity and condition, we reviewed the collection with the care it deserved. Your local card shop is generally not well equipped to appraise or purchase vintage collections like this. The retail stores are focused on selling modern products and simply don't have the time or the knowledge to carefully evaluate vintage collections. This is where we happy to help you! Together, John and Leighton have 50 years of experience appraising and purchasing vintage cards, especially Goudey cards. Leighton recently discovered and purchased a collection of 800 Goudey cards including 22 Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig cards!

Using a small sample of the collection, we shared our evaluation with Nick. If Nick was happy with our evaluation on the sample of his collection, we would proceed to evaluate the entire collection in full to make him a fair offer. Nick asked if he could discuss the evaluation in-person. We always welcome you to our store! The Just Collect store resides in Summit, New Jersey, and we'd love to have you stop by any time. Nick chose to bring the collection to our store from his home in New Hampshire. After speaking with Leighton for an hour or two, he and Nick reached a deal to purchase each of the 1933 Goudey cards.

When you choose to sell your collection to Just Collect, we pay you how you want to be paid! Nick opted to be paid via bank wire, and we happily did so. Perhaps you prefer cash or check - we can do that, too! If our office in New Jersey is a smidge out of the way, we offer a number of ways to evaluate your collection. Recently, we flew out West to Seattle to purchase a huge basketball collection with complete sets going back to 1948! We drove up the East Coast to Boston where a collector sold us high-grade cards from the 1909-11 T206 and 1952 Topps baseball sets in the I Love Baseball Collection. We can also evaluate your collection if you opt to ship your cards in with our two-day, fully insured FedEx Express account as well. If you're interested in selling a collection, we would love to hear from you!

The owner, Leighton Sheldon, shows off some of the big key cards from this collection on our Instagram channel HERE. Make sure you subscribe to get notifications of videos and pictures of future collections!

WE ARE ALWAYS BUYING

Just Collect is always buying vintage sports and non-sports cards from 1879 to 1979 as well as select modern cards. If you have a collection that you are considering selling, contact us today to discuss or get our industry-leading purchase offer. If you have a collection that you want appraised, please contact us and we would be happy to discuss your collection and help you understand the real cash value of your collection in the current marketplace. Check out the Just Collect Buy List.

We always offer a FREE APPRAISAL for your collection here at the Just Collect site. Just click here:

We offer may ways to evaluate your cards other than or using our website, too.

Travel to Us

If you can make the trip here like the son from my hometown did for this collection- we can make a deal at the office. We once met a father-son duo that drove eight hours from Virginia to meet us to sell a Michael Jordan rookie card stored in Tupperware since 1986 - great read here.

Come to convention

We keep a LIST of card shows we'll be attending. Come stop by the Just Collect table and chat.

Meet in-person

If you have a valuable collection and want us to come to you, we'll hop on the next plane out.

Meet in New York City

If you're near New York City and would like to meet in a public place, our owner, Leighton, would be happy to meet you; read all the information here.

SHIP your collection

If you choose to mail your cards for an appraisal, we will evaluate your cards for FREE still. If you choose not to sell the cards, we'll ship them back shipping fees paid by us! We can offer our FedEx account with 2-day shipping, fully insured, all covered by us. Simply contact the office to set up this option.

OUR BUYING PHILOSOPHY

We've run into a wide range of people and collections over the last 25 years. Although Just Collect is known for buying vintage sports cards and especially vintage baseball cards, we are also extremely interested in buying non-sports cards, too!

Every collection and every collector is different and we treat EVERY collection with the respect and attention that we show for our own collections. We understand that many have put their heart and souls into building their collections. So when you're ready to sell, we understand the feelings that you're going through and will work with you to help you reach a decision that is a WIN/WIN, because if you're not happy, we're not happy.