$474,000 for a card of a young baseball player that has yet to appear in a Double-A Minor League game. They call it "prospecting". I call it "money laundering".

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story...rts-card-prospecting

Bowman has created artificial "rarity" by making only "1 of 1".

Not a kid's game anymore.

My son has several photo albums full of baseball cards that he got from a guy who was renting a room from him + tried to skip out. My son told him he would hold those albums until he came up with the back rent; it never happened + that's been almost 20 years ago. I'm curious what he has. Any link to an appraiser?

It is all about "Graded" cards now. Raw cards in many cases don't have significant value, but if graded a PSA 10, the price can go ballistic. You could start on https://www.psacard.com/priceguide or https://www.sportscardspro.com...egory/baseball-cards . https://www.ebay.com/b/Basebal...ories/212/bn_2309847 is another good source for recent card sales.

I can't wrap my head around the hobby. The grading companies have become the middlemen or gatekeepers for pricing. They determine and justify the higher prices and take their cut.

I can't understand how I can submit a card that might be worth $10,000 through the mail for grading, wait six months for it to come back, and possibly have the card stolen, or go missing at the post office.

The grading company will charge me based on their final grading. The higher they grade the card, the more they will charge me for having graded it.

The whole system now feels like a scam. A $1.00 card becomes a $21.00 card once you pay $20.00 to have it graded. That makes no sense to me. It's a $1.00 card in a $20.00 wrapper.

You should at least check out some of the sights if you want to get a feel for the value of your son's cards.

I personally use Dean's Cards https://www.deanscards.com/ You can find the exact card you have, in approximately the same condition as your card. Your card is probably worth about half what Dean's will sell that card for.

quote:

The whole system now feels like a scam.

Then it most likely is

True. I still adhere to the old adage, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."