Kids have been collecting baseball cards of their diamond idols for more than a half a century. Now it’s an art and a business. How many of us might actually be worth a million or two dollars if mothers, fathers or granddads had put that shoebox of mint-condition cards in the safe deposit box instead of the trash can? Our heroes sent to early graves in burial grounds unknown.
For me, my mother Jenny was the culprit, unwittingly, innocently tossing a treasure trove of baseball cards from the 60’s and 70’s – favorites like Mantle and Clemente oh and Thurman Munson rookie cards among them – many won playing “flips” and “colors” with my buddies. You may remember those times and have a similarly sad ending to the story.
But all hope may not be lost because my friend Brandon Steiner, for 40 years on the cutting edge of sports memorabilia, gives you a chance to start anew, with his CollectibleXchange.com, AthleteDirect.com and latest acquisition StarStock.com, which houses over 1.3 million trading cards including a half million of players from America’s Pastime. Check the three of them out.
On StarStock, Yankees standouts Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, Giancarlo Stanton and freshly-acquired superstar Juan Soto are among the baseball trading cards on StarStock, not to mention “World Champions in Pinstripes” like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera – all cards at affordable prices with the chance to increase in value as an investment. Mantle and Clemente, too!
“The Juan Soto hype is big, and things are already amping up,” says Steiner. “I anticipate Soto being a really cool collectible, especially once the season starts and if he gets off to a fast start. The Soto cards should easily double.” I have to agree with Brandon because of the large Dominican and Latin population in New York.
Steiner, who revolutionized the sports memorabilia and collectibles industry during 32 years as founder of Steiner Sports Marketing and Memorabilia, transitioned from that company to transform the industry again with the 2019 launch of CollectibleXchange.com, giving the advantage to the buyers and sellers of collectibles, and for athletes to sell product directly to fans.
CollectibleXchange now has over 150,000 pieces of memorabilia in stock, not to mention collectibles in regularly scheduled auctions.
There’s no dearth of baseball cards available at CollectibleXchange including a 1993 autographed Doc Gooden Topps Trading Card inscribed “Dr. K,” a Paul O’Neill 2000 autographed Topps Trading card from the WS championship season, and – check this out! – a vintage Phil Rizzuto “All-time Fan Favorite” 2003 Topps Trading card signed by the Scooter.
Some forecasters project that the sports trading card market will reach as high as $98 billion in two or three years. With more than a staggering 950 million cards already produced, maybe there’s still a chance to get in, and at the least have a little bit of fun. But, oh, if we could ever get in a time capsule and grab dear Mother’s hand when she trashed those invaluable relics…well that would be another story.
