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Rookies of All-Time Greats Highlight PSA Vintage Baseball Cards Purchase

Mantle, Robinson, and Clemente Highlight Nearly 300 PSA Cards from the 1950's and 1960's

April 25, 2021

Rookie cards and early examples of all-time baseball greats and Hall of Famers like Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, and Roberto Clemente highlight a big collection of PSA-graded vintage baseball cards Just Collect was able to purchase. Look at the icons in the STACKS of 267 cards, and read how easy it is to sell us your vintage cards.

A friend of mine recently called me at the Just Collect office and asked if I buy graded vintage baseball card collections. I laughed and waited for the punchline but all that came was awkward silence... Guessing after our many conversations, my pal never visited the Just Collect website. YES - yes, I buy graded vintage baseball cards; (did he not see the The Sooner State collection we bought of 15K graded cards last year)! Wait until you see what was being offered for sale to us: 267 PSA graded 1950's and 1960's Topps baseball cards with many hall of famers and rookies.

THE APPRAISAL: KNOW YOUR DATA

If you've never looked up the value of a card, that's OK! At Just Collect, I offer FREE APPRAISALS right here. Sometimes you find cards in unexpected places or inherit cards you're not familiar with, and I'm happy to help you understand the value of your items. Since my buddy from the Mid-West hadn't stopped by JustCollect.com to use the free appraisal section, he tried to use a few other sources to obtain values of his graded-card collection before calling me. The problem? THE SITE HE USED WAS BROKEN.

The site my friend used was VCP (Vintage Card Prices) and it was not importing the most recent eBay auctions. When going over certain auction sales, my friend said he wouldn't have missed the information had it been in VCP. Not seeing the correct data in VCP is not the issue; you need to take data from difference sources to draw an informed conclusion - and it's not that easy! Without taking data from multiple sources, you could be asking too much for your cards or not asking enough!

I offered my friend the same deal I offer to you: I'll appraise your cards for free. I know how much work would have to go into looking up 267 different cards and in order to give you the best offer, I don't mind doing the legwork! I told my friend to just give me two days, 48 hours, without offering the cards to another buyer and I would correct his data to ensure he receives a true, fair offer.

THE SALE

After evaluating all 267 graded vintage baseball cards, I made an offer that my friend gladly accepted. A handshake doesn't mean a thing until I pay you, and you give me the cards, though, right? The Covid-19 pandemic has made travelling a tad tricky in the last year, and not just my safety but your safety is of the utmost importance to me! Until I'm fully vaccinated, here are the options I can offer you:

Travel to me

Until everyone is safe, if you're willing to wear a mask when you and I meet, and you can make the trip here - we can make a deal at the office. Last month I met a father-son duo that drove eight hours from Virginia to meet me to sell a Michael Jordan rookie card stored in Tupperware since 1986 - great read here.

SHIP your collection

I can offer the Just Collect FedEx account number so that I could not only pay the shipping cost of the collection but to make sure that the cards were FULLY INSURED by me.

My friend opted to ship the collection over to me. I asked how my friend wanted to be paid, and we made the easy exchange! Yes, I like to ask how YOU want to be paid. If you want PayPal or Venmo, just let me know. Want to receive CASH if you come to the office, we can make that happen. Check - Uber credits - gift cards to eBay so your significant other doesn't know you've been building your card collection or collecting old Star Wars Toys!).

I'm proud to tell you that I can offer 70 to 80% of retail value on a graded collection; more than most other companies.

I know what you're thinking: sell at 80%? I can just sell my cards on eBay and get the full 100% value...

Two reasons you would consider to selling to us: FEES to sell them yourself and TIME it takes to sell them

eBay Final value fees are about 12% of the total sale up to $7,500 per card and then 2.35% of the portion of the sale over $7,500. Promotional fees would be on top of that.
TIME. My friend will have to make 267 different auctions and ship out 267 different packages if he does not sell his collection to one buyer.

To see other reasons as well read our article here about selling on eBay:

THE COLLECTION

👀 I repeat: 👀

267 cards
ALL VINTAGE BASEBALL
All graded by PSA

Here are some of the highlight of this big stack:

1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson rookie card graded PSA 1
1953 Topps Jackie Robinson graded PSA 3
1953 Topps Mickey Mantle graded PSA 3
1954 Topps Jackie Robinson graded PSA 1
1956 Topps Roberto Clemente rookie card graded PSA 1.5
1956 Topps Mickey Mantle graded PSA 3
1956 Topps Jackie Robinson graded PSA 3
1957 Topps Mickey Mantle graded PSA 4

The 1953 Topps Mickey Mantle is The Mick's second Topps card produced, and one of our to look at! You can learn more about all of Mickey's cards, as well as examples of his autographs here.

Just look at the top cards in the back row for a second: 1959 Topps Bob Gibson rookie, 1948 Leaf Phil Rizzuto rookie card, and a 1960 Topps Carl Yastrzemski rookie! How many other collections can you see that those three Hall of Fame rookie cards are in the LAST ROW?!

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As we just celebrated Jackie Robinson Day last weekend, I have to share this group of amazing Jackie cards from the collection together:

The beautiful 1948 Leaf rookie card of Jackie in the first National card ever produced! As you know, there are several companies that produce cards; that has been the case for many years. In 1948 Bowman also released baseball cards. The card you see above is a TRUE Jackie rookie.

The 1948 set itself is quite difficult to put together. There are 98 cards total in the set, and 49 of the cards were distributed in a smaller quantity than the other half. A little ploy to keep kids buying packs of cards in '48 to complete the set! We were lucky enough to buy a few of these "short-printed" 1948 Leaf cards that included a Joe DiMaggio you can see here.

Imagine going back to 1948: fewer than half of homes in the US didn't have a TV! You wouldn't have even known who Howdy Doody was. Duncan Hines had JUST invented a cake mix so if you wanted a pastry your parents were busting their tails in the kitchen. The LP record (a 33!) was also just invented. Good chance as a kid you would have had no TV, no snacks, and no music. What kept you entertained in '48? Opening these 1948 Leaf packs! You could even mail in 10 wrappers to Leaf in exchange for a set of eight portraits of retired baseball greats. I mean, if I didn't have tv, food, or music, I would have had a looooooooootttttttttt of wrappers. If you'd like to read more about the 1948 Leaf set, we have other cool facts here.

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. Your collection doesn't have to be all vintage baseball like this collection either! I recently bought a graded card collection that was filled with rookie cards of Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady, and even Hulk Hogan that you can see here.

If you have a collection that you are considering selling, contact me today to discuss or get our industry-leading purchase offer. If you have a collection that you want appraised, please contact us and I 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 blog here.

OUR BUYING PHILOSPHY

I'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, I am also extremely interested in buying non-sports cards, too!

Every collection and every collector is different and I treat EVERY collection with the respect and attention that we show for our own collections. I understand that many have put their heart and souls into building their collections. So when you're ready to sell, I 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, I'm not happy.

Whether you have a graded Jackie Robinson rookie, vintage ungraded cards or modern wax you want to sell, you can reach out any time!