Buying Baseball Cards

Dean Hanley, the founder of Dean's Cards, talks about Buying and Collecting Vintage Sports Cards.

Most of us began collecting as kids and have never been quite able to kick the habit. I vividly remember the first time that I bought baseball cards as a kid at my neighborhood Five & Dime. The first prized card in my collection was the 1969 Pete Rose All-Star Card. That was the day that my lifelong love affair with the hobby began. Sometimes I come across a card from my early collection and am instantly transported back to a care free, warm summer day in my boyhood, sitting on the front porch, opening nickel packs of cards with my boyhood buddies and swapping cards. I can almost taste the bubble gum.

My father and I collected together when I was a kid and we have not stopped. He started collecting in 1952 as a kid and now helps us out with the Dean's Cards e-Store. My son has now caught the collecting bug and is also beginning to get involved with the hobby. So on it goes….. Card Collecting has provided me with so many enjoyable hours over the years that I consider myself truly blessed to still be a part of the hobby. This article was written to clear up some of the confusion that a collector might experience within the vintage card industry and hopefully increase his or her enjoyment.

Determining How Much to pay for a card

The collecting community tends to use Beckett's Price Guide as the standard baseline for valuing cards, but there are several other card-pricing guides available that list the value of each card. The available publications include Beckett Sports Collectibles, Tuff Stuff, Sports Market Report, and Sports Collectors Digest. For the most part, these guides do a pretty good job of setting prices.

A card's value is determined by a simple case of supply and demand, but the card's worth to the individual collector will always vary due to the collector's individual preferences. In short, it just all depends on how bad a collector wants a particular card! The prices in these guides are intended to be a reflection on how difficult a card is to find (the supply) and how popular (the demand) the card is within the card collecting community.

For example, Vintage Yankees and Dodgers cards usually sell for more money than players from other clubs. Many people will collect the players from their favorite team and just because those teams are located in highly populated cities, have many fans and have historically had very good ball clubs.

When I came up with the concept for Dean's Cards, I designed the type of eStore from which I would like to purchase baseball cards. My original goal for Dean's Cards was to create the easiest and quickest way to buy vintage cards - not necessarily the cheapest. As it turned out, the prices of cards at Dean's Cards are very comparable to the prices of other dealers. When you consider our quantity discounts on orders over $50 and our conservative grading standards, I actually feel that we are less expensive than the average card dealer.

We place great effort in filling the order correctly, with the grade of cards ordered and mailing the cards within one business day of recieving the order. Our high standing and strong business reputation within the hobby has allowed us to purchase many great collections. We pay as much (or more) for cards as other dealers, but because we sell directly (and also have an experienced and highly productive team of people) we are able avoid the middle man and keep our costs very competitive.

Grading Vintage Sports Cards

Grading the condition of the card is probably the hardest (and definitely the most subjective) element of the hobby. A card in MINT Condition may be worth ten or twenty times as much as a card in GOOD or FAIR condition. The above mentioned price guides will contain detailed guidelines on how to grade cards. It is beyond the context of this short article to go into details of grading cards, but what I will say is that the art of grading cards by dealers is subjective at best and deceptive at worst. There have been times that I purchased a card over eBay and felt that it was over-graded by as much three or even four grades.

Not to long ago we bought a 1970 Joe Namath card off of Naxcom to complete a set. The card was advertised as "Ex/Mt". We would have graded the card "Good". We eventually got our money back, but it was a waste of time and effort. I often believe that some sellers on these community flea market sites purposely send out purposely overgraded cards, knowing that some people are not going to bother to return them. There seems to be less accountability, when a particular seller is just one of a community of hundreds. This frustrates me very much as a buyer.

Not all “over grading” is meant as a deception. The grade of the card can depend on the grader's fatigue level, mood, and possibly even whether or not they had a fight with their spouse that morning! Even the professional grading organizations, such as PSA, Beckett or SCD Authentic will sometimes vary on how a card is rated on any given day and who looks at the card. If you wish more details on grading of vintage sports cards, simply consult one of the fore-mentioned guides or consult our article on How We Grade Vintage Cards .

It is not uncommon for even experienced collectors to grade the exact same card differently. To account for this subjective human element, Dean's Cards offers a money back satisfaction guarantee on all the cards that we sell. A purchase from Dean's Cards is NOT complete until you are 100% happy with your card. That being our policy, we tend to grade cards on the conservative side to avoid having to frustrate our customers (and also having to go through the cumbersome hassle of refunding money). In our case, it is just good business.

Sport Cards Conventions and Shows

Twenty or thirty years ago Card Shows were the traditional way to buy, sell and learn about cards, but now the shows seem to cater more to the autograph collectors. They still offer the opportunity to mingle with other collectors. The shows offer the advantage of being able to touch, feel, and smell the card before you buy. It is also fun to strike up a conversation about the particular player's card you are holding at that moment.

The main disadvantage of shows is that if you are looking for a particular item, it can be very difficult (or impossible) to locate. The dealers at the shows usually only have a fraction of the inventory that Dean's Cards has to offer. This makes perfect sense if you think about it. Dean's Cards does not have to bring our warehouse of vintage cards to you, but you come to us via the Internet. And best of all, we are always open!

The biggest surprise that I encountered at the card shows was the prices that these guys charge for their vintage cards. When we started Dean's Cards, the idea of a Vintage Card eStore was a brand new concept and untested. I assumed that we were going to have to charge a slight premium for the convenience and superior selection that we offered. After attending several local shows, I discovered this was not the case.

Many of these dealers mark cards at Full Book Value for cards in Excellent or Very Good Condition and then offer a small discount. I guess that this makes sense when you consider the expenses that they have to pay to travel to the shows, stay in hotels and rent the tables. As a result, the price of cards at Dean's Cards is usually lower when you compare cards and also consider the condition of the card. This became clear to me, when I discovered the high cost of renting tables at these shows. Many of the dealers at shows will charge close to book value for cards that grade much lower than NEAR MINT.

When I started Dean's Cards a few years ago, it took about six months to launch the website. During that time, I was buying inventory and working on the eStore. About two weeks before the store was ready to go, I attended a local card show and told a few dealers that I met about the eStore concept to get their input and comments. They totally did not get it! The guys that I spoke with were convinced that the eStore concept would flop!

By that time, I was too far along with the store to back out. Thank God! I am so glad that I did not talk to these guys earlier or I may have gotten cold feet and backed out. Dean's Cards is now the #1 seller online eStore for vintage cards. We have well over quarter million cards posted online and ready to buy. This is far more than any other eStore.

Please do not get me wrong, I try to attend at least a show a year. It allows me to hang out with my son and also get new ideas for our online business. If you have time to kill, card shows can be an enjoyable way to do it.

The Neighborhood Sports Card Store – Where have you gone?

Card Shops offer the customer to physically touch and feel a lot of the new cards. They serve a different niche of the hobby than Dean's Cards, as their clientele is mainly kids (and their fathers) who collect the new sports or fantasy cards. Unlike Dean's Cards, vintage cards are not their specialty.

For every collector of the vintage sports cards, there are probably a hundred new card collectors. Most of the new card collectors prefer the current players that they recognize and can still see play at the ballparks. Most card shops keep a few vintage baseball cards in the display case for show, but it is impossible for a retail card store to do enough traffic to sell more than a few vintage baseball cards.

The traditional “strip mall” card shop is quickly disappearing. Only a fraction of the stores remain that were in existence twenty years ago, most vintage card trading is now done online. It is just so much easier and efficient. The traditional sports card store started appearing in the 1980's and by the early 1990's the number peaked at approximately 5000 stores nationwide. Today, there are less than 1200 of these stores left and many more are closing every year. I would not be surprised if that number goes below 500 by the end of decade.

Many of the surviving card store owners are now focusing on recent sports cards or the fantasy game cards and the kids that play them. They sponsor tournaments and get new customers that way.

This 21st Century tend is the same thing that is happening to music stores and used-book stores. Although there are several trends responsible for the decline in the number of sports card stores, there is no doubt that the ease, efficiency and overall large selection of cards that are available online has attracted their customers and also brought many new collectors back into the hobby. The trend is continuing. Overall eCommerce sales are doubling every three years. I would assume that this trend holds for baseball cards. Every week we get dozens of new customers who have never bought online before.

I firmly believe that the internet has provided a huge boost to the card collection hobby – especially the harder to find vintage cards. It is just so much easier and efficient to purchase cards from an e-store. This makes the hobby more fun and accessible

Buying Vintage Baseball and Football Cards off of eBay and other online marketplaces

Once I discovered eBay, I was quickly able to spend hundreds of dollars on cards. Many of the purchased cards were over graded. In some cases, the cards I bought never arrived. All too often cards that were represented as Ex/Mt would really be EX or even VG. I quickly discovered that it was a major hassle to get my money refunded. eBay seems to have a culture of overgrading cards. I soon came to the conclusion that buying cards on eBay was not the most efficient use of my money or my time. As an experienced collector, with decades of card collecting experience, I could only imagine the frustration of the new card collecting hobbyists.

As an experienced on-line shopper, it shocked me to find that it was so difficult to find the type of online vintage sports card store that was available from other top on-line retailers, such as Amazon.com. The few true on-line shops that I did locate offered very awkward web sites on which to navigate, inconsistent inventories, no scans of the cards, no discounts and an overall dissatisfying experience. On several occasions, I would order the card that I wanted and send my money, only to be informed later that the card had been sold weeks earlier. This tremendous level of frustration that I experienced is what motivated me to launch Dean's Cards.

I realize that there are some cards that can be bought online at good prices. The problem is finding them. After I factored in the “lemons” that I purchased and the hours that I spent searching, bidding, and paying for the needed cards - I came to the conclusion that on-line auctions were not the best use of my time as a collector. At the shows, I spoke with other collectors that had similar experiences. I felt that there just had to be a better way for my hobby to participate in the online revolution. This encouragement from other collectors is what prompted me to start Dean's Cards.

We buy cards from eBay, Naxcom, Beckett Marketplace other other vintage card eStores to complete sets that we are building. I have not found the selection of vintage cards any better than at our store and I am often forced to pay above book value for cards that we need. I truly feel that Dean's Cards is the better value when buying Vintage Cards. Of course, these are strictly my biased opinions, but feel free to read what other collectors have said about Dean's Cards on our Message Board.

Lastly, it seems as if eBay is on the decline. eBay has been steadily raising their fees over the last few years. This has raised the price that customers have to pay and decreased the profits that the eBay seller earns. The selection of vintage cards avaiable today seems far less than what it was a few years ago.

Sending Your “Want List” to a Card Dealer

Many established Card Dealers advertise in the price guides that they have huge inventories and if a collector sends them a “Want List” – the dealer will fill it. I have found "Want Lists" an extremely ineffective way to buy vintage cards.

Recently, we were attempting to complete the last 50 cards or so from three different vintage sets. I e-mailed my “want list” out to seven dealers who had just recently advertised in a collector's magazine. Out of the seven e-mails, I received only two responses!

One guy got back to me two days later and insisted that we talk first before he went to all of the work of looking to see that he had the cards. I read this email late at night so I could not call him so I emailed my reply and said that I really wanted the cards, but I was busy and really did not have time to talk. He never responded! The other problem is that many dealers sell cards part-time as a hobby and it could take days to get a response and a week before they mail the cards that I purchased.

The other guy that I contacted answered me a few days later. He had about 60% of the cards in various conditions ranging from VG to Ex/Mt. The problem was he wanted me to pay about 80% of the Full Beckett's Book Value for the cards - as if they were in Near Mint Condition! He acted like he was doing me a big favor because he was giving me a 20% Discount off of Full Book Value. I am not trying to be critical of this dealer, after all this is America and he can charge whatever he wants. It just shocked me. I knew that Dean's Cards was so much faster, easier and had a better selection, but I was surprised that we that the price we charged was lower.

The buying experience was like stepping into a time warp and being transported back to the 1970's. Although most dealers will have a website, they do not have many cards listed online. They tend to use the website as a bulletin board to entice the collector to call them. Most of the established dealers have not advanced their business techniques in thirty years! It was then that I was sure that Dean's Cards was on to a good idea.

Dean's Cards is a faster, easier, and cheaper alternative. You can just go on-line and easily search for the cards you need, see the available “up-to-the-second” inventory. In many cases you can check out a scan of the card and buy it through our secure server. No one offers a better selection or sells more cards online. Your cards will arrive in two or three days. Please spread the Good News!

If we can be of assistance, please contact us at dean@deanscards.com

There has to be a better way to buy Baseball Cards !@#%&*!

It just amazed me that the card collecting hobby was so far behind the times. So much so, that I decided to start an e-store that would fill this void. I certainly did not invent all the advanced eCommerce concepts that Dean's Cards offers - but we definitely brought most of them to this hobby and hopefully improved the Vintage Card Buying Experience for all of us. Many of these e-commerce concepts have been used successfully in other industries.

For years, I sat back and watched the changing trends in Vintage Baseball Card Collecting. As the internet picked up steam, it offered some huge advantages for collectors. eBay has shown the possibilities, but still has drawbacks and is now less of a factor. Naxcom and Beckett Marketplace specialize in cards and have fixed prices, but they still have most of the same weaknesses. The biggest problem is the inconsistency in the quality of the products offered and the dealers that offered them. It was clear to me that the eStore concept, that has been successful in so many other industries, is what this hobby needed.

Recently a couple marketplace stores that sell cards that are posted by hundreds of different dealers. I have found it difficult to buy from these type stores, because if I buy 100 cards, I many be dealing with 30 or 40 different dealers! The means multiple shipping charges and varying grading standards. Although there prices are very comparable to Dean's Cards, I have often received cards that were consistently overgraded by at least a grade. I think that many of these sellers count on the fact that most buyers will not go through the hassle of returning over graded cards. I worked for fifteen years in Software Sales Development and Product Marketing. I would like to believe that my talent is to take technical solutions and implement them to improve a business concept. I felt that my marketing background, combined with thirty years of collecting cards, gave me a unique skill set. The concept for Dean's Cards was born.

My wife and I are both have MBA's and business backgrounds. She quit work to stay home with our kids. One morning over coffee, she had said that she would like me to develop a part-time business for her to manage. After some thought, I told her that I had an idea - but that it probably was not what she expected.

After developing a business plan, everything seemed feasible. The problem was that with the hours I was working in Corporate America, I did not have the time to manage the project – so it was put on hold. About a year later, I was offered a buy out (a.k.a. laid off) by my company, and the rest is history. Although the industry has no concrete numbers, few hobby experts will dispute that Dean's Cards sells more vintage cards than any other online store. With 250,000 vintage cards online - we certainly have a better selection than anyone. Dean's Cards is a “Labor of Love” for me.

Dean's Cards - A New Concept

With the new technology available, Dean's Cards offers the collector several big advantages compared to card shows, traditional dealers and on-line auctions. First of all , the Dean's Cards Inventory is multiple times larger than most dealers. The card you are seeking is also easier to locate, simple to examine and available for immediate purchase.

Best of all, Dean's Cards is located as near as your computer and open 24 hours a day - 365 days a year. Compared to on-line auctions, there is no searching, bidding or waiting. The price of the card is set, so you can buy it now in one simple step. The inventory that you see online at Dean's Cards is always current, so you are not looking at cards that might have been sold last week.

Dean's Cards is my full-time occupation. I escaped Corporate America to start this business (during the dot-com bust) a few years ago and have not looked back. My background is software sales and marketing and most recently, I was a global product manager for the third largest software company in the world - Computer Associates. At this writing, the Dean's Cards Staff is myself and almost twenty part-time people, including my wife and father.

Dean's Cards is like no other place that sells Vintage Sports Cards. We offer:

1. The Largest Online Vintage Card Inventory. When it comes to vintage card inventory, size definitely matters. We have 250,000 vintage cards listed online. The inventory is always current and no other e-store has more cards listed online!
2. Buy all your cards from one source. There are sites that allow dozens of dealers to list cards. The problem is that if you need to purchase fifty cards, you will probably getting cards from three dozen different dealers with varying grading standards. You also have to pay three dozen different shipping charges. If there is an issue with any of the cards, you only have to contact one person.
3. Scans of the Cards. The high dollar cards are scanned for your viewing. You can see what you are buying. We also have thousands of "stock images" of the common cards, so that you can visualize the card that you are purchasing.
4. Quantity Discounts on all orders over $50. The larger the order, the deeper the discount. More information regarding discounts is detailed in the article "About Dean's Cards" posted on the website.

You will be satisfied with the way that we grade cards. For us, it simply makes good business sense. I would much rather undergrade a card than overgrade it. For that reason, we tend to grade the cards we sell more conservatively than most, but judging a card's condition can sometimes be subjective, so we offer a 100% Money Back Satisfaction Guarantee on all purchases. Just contact us within two weeks of the purchase date and we will either make it right or refund your money.

There is no doubt that Dean's Cards is the easiest and fastest way to buy cards - but I also think Dean's Cards is the most cost effective way to add cards to your collection - especially when you are looking for specific cards. Often, I will need about fifty or so cards to complete a certain set. By the time I bid on auctions, send “want lists” to dealers, pay multiple shipping charges, and factor in the lemons that were badly overgraded – it would have been cheaper for me to buy the cards from a store like Dean's Cards. This cost does not even factor in the numerous hours of my time that I spent looking for and buying the cards.

This is the type of online store that I was seeking when I was a customer. We are often told by our customers that Dean's Cards has taken the concept of the Vintage Baseball Card e-Store to the next level. Our customers have told us that “Dean's Cards is the Amazon.com of Card Collecting” .

Is Buying Online Really Safe?

We have all heard reports that buying online can be a risk because someone could get your credit card number. It is true that this has happened upon occasion, but the occurrence of it is relatively rare. The Dean's Cards Server is completely secure. We have never had a problem and we process thousands of orders each year. It is impossible for someone to get your credit information from our server because it is encrypted and not stored on the server. Even we can not access the information!

In truth most of the victims had their credit card numbers stolen because they freely and willing gave out the information by either e-mail or on the phone. This is how the scam usually works. The bad guys send out thousands of e-mails threatening to shut down a certain account (usually a bank or paypal) unless you provide confidential information.

The e-mails look official and have official e-mail addresses. The person responds with either credit card or bank info and the scam is on. The person then finds himself or herself with a dozens of bogus charges on his or her credit card.

There is really no reason for the bad guys to go through the difficult task of braking into a secure server. They simply do not need to go to that trouble when unsuspecting victims are willing to e-mail them the information. Please save yourself some grief and never answer these e-mails. In case you still have doubts about online shopping, please consider this fact: Unauthorized online charges to your card are usually insured by the bank that issued the card . If someone charges on your credit card without your authorization, you will not have to pay the bill . If this is not the case with your credit card issuer (which is very rare), then you should probably switch cards.

If someone charges on your card, you will then be issued a new credit card and the charges will be forgiven. It is that simple.

Please do not let these fears keep you from buying cards in the fastest, easiest and most efficient way. There is nothing to be afraid of, but if you are still uneasy then just pay by Purchase Order or Cashier's Check.

I truly believe that most of these credit card theft horror stories are started by the mall retail stores and broadcast by the TV news. Both of these organizations are losing millions of customers a year as people are buying (and getting their news) online. I have found many of these reports to be biased at best and down right false at worst. If we can be of assistance, please contact us at dean@deanscards.com

Selling a Vintage Card Collection

If you are looking to sell a Vintage Card Collection or just trying to determine how to go about it, you have come to the right place. Dean's Cards spends thousands of dollars each month buying collections. I truly believe that we usually pay more than most other dealers, because we cut out the middle man. What we purchase goes directly into our online store. For detailed information and tips, please see our posted Article on Selling Vintage Cards.

Go Forth and Collect

Collecting Vintage Cards is great fun. I can only hope for you that you will get as much enjoyment from the hobby as my family and I have received over the years. I also hope that you enjoy my web site. As always, I welcome feedback on ways to improve it.

Take Care, God Bless, and Enjoy!

Dean

dean@deanscards.com