The 1933 and 1934 sets of baseball cards issued by the Goudey Gum Company of Boston are recognized as two of the most popular sets in the history of the hobby. One would think that the company would have continued to do more of the same in 1935.  

Instead, as a sequel, Goudey produced cards that were quite different from the offerings of the two previous years. While they are not as sought after as cards from the other two sets, 1935 Goudeys nonetheless have an appeal of their own.  

The set is known by several names.  The fronts of the cards are divided into quarters, each of which includes a picture of a player. So, the cards are sometimes
referred to as “4-in-l’s.”

The backs of the cards have no biography; they show a section of a large picture. When 6, or in some cases 12 particular cards are placed together in a
proper order, the backs form a complete large picture, of either an individual player or a team. Hence, 1935 Goudeys are also called the “Goudey Puzzle Set”.

In addition, the set is sometimes referred to by its American Card Catalog number, R321. 

The 1935 Goudeys are, for many collectors, fun to collect and interesting to study. In more ways than one the set IS a puzzle. The set was checklisted several years ago, but there always seem to be new and different ways of looking at the 1935 Goudeys.  This article is a combination of old knowledge and new thoughts about the cards. 

For many readers (including myself) the T206 Honus Wagner card is mostly out of reach from an affordability standpoint. 

A recent example for the card in Poor condition sold for $1.4 million at auction. 

So unless you have some serious cash hanging around, the Wagner might not necessarily be an affordable investment at the moment.

Still, I thought it might be fun to examine the current values and populations for the T206 Wagner, while trying to see if we might be able to determine a future value for the card.  

Of course this is just an exercise, and nothing in this article should be construed as fact; we are mostly having some fun with numbers to see what the possibilities are.  

Do you have a T206 Wagner card?  Get in touch with me at chris@allvintagecards.com — I’d love to see it! 

I get a lot of questions regarding the authenticity of Michael Jordan rookie cards, but I also get a lot of questions on what grade a card will receive from PSA.

While we’ve covered the basics of card grading (along with a visual representation of card grades), I thought it might be fun and even helpful to create a similar sort of visual guide for card grades using just Jordan’s rookie card. 

If you’re new to card grading or just looking for a quick visual representation for Jordan rookie cards (or even any card for that matter), this should be a good resource.

As always, feel free to shoot me an email at chris@allvintagecards.com if you have any questions. 

Despite the big move in vintage cards over the past few years, I still think there are great opportunities for collectors looking to invest in vintage baseball cards.

While in the past, I’ve advocated for strip cards as an under the radar investment in the hobby, in this piece, I’m going to take a closer look at pre-war baseball caramel cards.

Many vintage collectors often get consumed with early tobacco cards, such as the T206 White Borders set or the T205 Gold Borders set.  

However, many early caramel cards issued around the same time or a few years later, are rarer and often times less expensive. 

So, come along as I offer up ten vintage pre-war caramel baseball cards that I think could be excellent long term investments for vintage collectors.

Some recent vintage auction house finds have brought to market some of the rarest sports cards in the hobby.  

A current auction at Birmingham Auctioneers showcases some one of a kind vintage basketball cards, some among the rarest in the hobby.

Included in the auction is a George Mikan autographed 1948 Bowman rookie card, one of only six copies that have been graded by PSA. 

Mikan rookie cards along with other vintage basketball cards have been on a tear of late.  

Note that many of the cards featured in the auction were first referred to All Vintage Cards. 

If you have a collection and are looking for a free estimate, be sure to get in touch.  

Let’s take a closer look at some of the offerings:

Vintage basketball card prices have been on a roll of late, fueled by speculation and demand for some of the hobby’s most prized possessions from the past. 

The boom in values has been fairly widespread throughout most of the vintage sports card market, but the flame seems to have really been held to basketball card values.

Why the increase in basketball card prices?  It’s hard to pinpoint an exact reason, just like it’s hard to tell you why Pets.com was one of the most loved stocks at the height of the stock internet bubble in 1999.  

Momentum can be a funny thing.  Using stock prices as an example, once that excessive demand builds in something that everyone wants to own, the underlying valuation of the item at hand tends to get thrown right out the window. 

It’s a lot easier to put a value on a stock then it is a basketball card.  With a company, you can evaluate the profits relative to the company’s value and growth prospects to determine if a company’s stock is over or undervalued.

One of the most frequent questions we get from novice collectors is in regards to the ‘Authentic’ grade from third party grading companies.

It’s confusing, since we automatically assume a card we get graded is authentic to begin with; thus why does a grading company label a card as solely ‘Authentic’ with no numerical grade (from 1 to 10)?  And then ‘Authentic Altered’…what’s the difference between the two?

Simply put, an ‘Authentic’ grade means that the grading company identified something wrong with the card, usually an alteration or some other major defect, which prohibited them from assigning a numerical grade to the card.  

In what follows, we will examine some of the nuances of ‘Authentic’ graded cards and why they are graded that way.  Hopefully this will help clear up some of the confusion.

Be also sure to check out our piece on ‘How To Spot a Trimmed Card’ which talks more about grading and trimming. 

This Sweet Caporal pack was recently offered in a Facebook group for $1800 but I soon realized that there was zero possibility the pack could contain any T206 cards.

I recently came across a Facebook post with a seller trying to sell an unopened Sweet Caporal cigarette pack. 

The pack looked to be in relatively nice shape and the seller was asking for $1800, which to me seemed somewhat reasonable given that a T206 card might be nestled inside. 

I hadn’t really explored T206 unopened packs before and the listing triggered me to do some research into the topic.

Could this unopened pack hold a T206 card?  Imagine if it had a Honus Wagner, or even a near mint Cobb portrait.  The possibilities seemed nearly worth the risk at that point. 

However after researching old tobacco packs and examining some of the finer details on the pack, it was quite clear that there was zero possibility this pack held any cards from the T206 set. 

In this piece, I’m going to walk readers through the steps one needs to take in order to assess whether an old tobacco pack might contain a card or not.  

I also speak to noted tobacco pack expert Jon Canfield to discuss the topic in more detail.  

Please let me know if you have any packs that might be of interest.  Feel free to email me at chris@allvintagecards.com

One of the most intimidating situations can occur when a loved one leaves you a collection of valuable baseball cards.

For many, the cards represent a piece of their family member, and selling it can bring up a whole range of mixed emotions.

In addition to the emotions involved, if you’ve never bought a pack of baseball cards, inheriting a valuable sports card collection can certainly be an overwhelming situation. 

Sometimes the collection isn’t worth as much as you might have expected, although there are times when the value of the inherited collection exceeds all expectations. 

This resource will walk you through the different options for evaluating the inherited collection, including how to determine values, how to sell the card collection or holding onto the cards and safely storing them.  

Always feel free to reach out to me at chris@allvintagecards.com with any questions. 

We have a lot of collectors asking about grading, namely how to do it, and whether they should do it?

But one of the bigger questions that has come up lately is this:

Do PSA Graded Cards sell for a premium over graded cards from SGC and Beckett?

I always assumed that this was true, but decided now to do a deeper dive into recent sales data to see if it was actually true.

Our findings: for older pre-war cards, PSA graded cards do carry a small premium over SGC and Beckett.  For newer, modern cards, PSA pricing is more in line with the other grading companies.

Let’s take a closer look.