While the majority of present-day card scams relate to more modern era cards that are easier to reproduce, there are most certainly counterfeit cards dating back to the Pre-War era.  

We have covered the evaluation of old counterfeit cards before, yet this piece will focus on detecting some of the more common fakes from the infamous T206 White Borders set.  

Hopefully, this guide will arm you with all of the knowledge you need in order to avoid buying any fake T206 cards.

As always if you come across a good fake or if you need any help in authenticating a T206 card, shoot us an email at help@allvintagecards.com

I’d say one of the most common stumbling blocks I encounter when speaking with novice (and even more experienced) collectors concerns shipping sports cards.

For someone that hasn’t sent a valuable card through the mail, the process can be a bit of a daunting experience.  However, once you do it a few times, it becomes a fairly simple and easily repeatable process.

I put this guide together to help fellow collectors and to provide some further instructions on shipping sports cards.  This guide will cover supplies needed in order to ship your cards, how properly package your cards, along with different methods of shipping and how the process might vary if sending to any third-party graders.  

If you have any questions on this, feel free to leave a message in the comments section, or as always feel free to shoot us an email at help@allvintagecards.com

When I think of Lou Gehrig’s best card, six cards come to mind: the 1932 U.S Caramel, the two 1933 Goudeys, the 1933 DeLong, and the two 1934 Goudeys.

Each card is beautiful in its own right and each showcases different qualities that make them alluring to collectors and investors.

However, I’m here to say that Gehrig’s best card for collectors looking to make a long-term investment is his 1932 U.S Caramel card.

The 1957 Topps Frank Robinson rookie card is one of the key cards in the set.

I’ve always taken an interest in collecting things. I get it from my father, who first began collecting Lionel trains before transitioning into collecting vintage sports cards.

I remember the first card he bought.  He dropped it on the kitchen counter, right in front of my mom and me, saying “Frank Robinson Rookie. First card; we’re going to start collecting vintage sports cards!” with a content little smile.

That ungraded 1957 Topps Frank Robinson Rookie Card was purchased at a tiny sports card store right outside of the Oxford Valley Mall, tucked away, almost hidden, and unknown to most people in the surrounding area.

The store was right near his office, so he would always make it a habit to go there on his way home from work. He would end up staying for hours, looking at and talking sports cards with the owner. 

It got to the point where he’d call my Mom and say he was “going to Warren’s after work”; Warren was the owner of the card store called “All-Star Collectibles”. Anyway, that Frank Robinson rookie was later graded at a Near Mint (PSA 7) and has now realized a modest 2,300% growth in value over 2 decades. 

It was THE card that ignited a passion for collecting between my father and me. 

I was only 9 years old when I started collecting back in 1985. I got a few packs of 1985 Topps and was hooked; as a kid that loved baseball, those little pieces of cardboard were everything to me.

I was obsessed right away and it consumed my entire being, ranging from riding my bike three miles to the nearest baseball card store and setting up tables in my basement for a ‘baseball card show’ amongst friends.

My brother soon opened a baseball card store and I was quickly thrown into battle as a high schooler peddling cards and negotiating purchases. I lived through the peak of the ‘Junk Era’ in which cards were massively overproduced, yet at the time, I didn’t grasp the realities of what was happening with the values of cards.

I returned to the hobby several years after college and slowly started getting interested in cards again –which ultimately led to the launch of ‘All Vintage Cards’. 

I’ve discussed my thoughts about the current market exhibiting signs of being in bubble territory, but this time I wanted to examine the current market environment in relation to the last big card bubble from the 1990s.  

While I lived through it, I sort of always chalked up the bursting card bubble to overproduction but figured there had to be more to it. 

Thus, I went into the archives, did some more extensive research, and spoke to other people in the hobby. 

Thus, here are the results of my exploration into the sports card bubble from the 90s’.   

Note, if you lived through it and have a different perspective, or if you just want to leave your thoughts on my findings, please leave a comment!

An authentic 1954 Topps Hank Aaron rookie card.

With the unfortunate passing of baseball great Hank Aaron, there has been a lot of buying activity with his 1954 Topps rookie card.

There are some pretty good 1954 Topps Aaron fakes out there, so this counterfeit guide will help you avoid getting scammed.

Of course, like anything, even before you read this, make sure you check out our guides on ‘Buying Cards Safely on eBay‘ and our first piece dedicated to authenticating vintage cards. 

As always, after reading if you have any questions on authenticating your Hank Aaron rookie card, please shoot me an email at chris@allvintagecards.com

I typically stay away from writing about cards from the Junk Era.  This website as you might have noticed is dedicated to ‘vintage’ cards, whose definition is still a bit fuzzy among collectors -although usually consensus is that ‘vintage’ is anything pre-1980.  

So, when a reader wrote in recently asking my thoughts on the investment potential for Barry Bonds rookie cards I started to think about it for a while. 

Immediate reaction — ‘eh Junk Era, don’t bother’.   But then I started thinking–hmm, there is still an outside shot at the HOF….so maybe, just maybe some of Barry’s rarer cards from the 80’s are worth another look.  We write about Jordan rookies all the time and it’s from the same exact year, so maybe, just maybe it’s something I need to examine a bit closer.

And so I did.  This piece will take a look at the Barry Bonds rookie cards, and try to determine whether his cards might have good appreciation potential over the next few years. 

As always if you have any questions on Barry Bonds rookie cards, shoot me an email at chris@allvintagecards.com.

Zee-Nut (also commonly referred to as Zeenut) baseball cards were issued over the course of twenty-eight years from 1911 to 1938.  The cards were issued by Collins-McCarthy, a candy company based in San Francisco.  Zee-Nut cards were issued in packages of ‘Zee-Nuts’, which were kind of a different type of cracker jack candy. 

The cards were issued on the West coast and only included players from the Pacific Coast League.  Thus, many of the players in the sets did not even reach the big leagues.  Given the number of sets (25) and the number of cards (nearly 3600)  issued over 28 years, it is rare to find many collectors dedicated to completing all of the sets.  

Most collectors don’t have a lot of familiarity with Zee-Nut cards but some are familiar with the Zee-Nut Joe DiMaggio pre-rookie cards. Zee-Nut cards with a coupon attached are much rarer and deserve a significant premium.

Thus, I thought it might be helpful for collectors unfamiliar with Zee-Nuts to examine the Hall of Fame players (including DiMaggio) from the sets.  Some of the early Zee-Nut cards are super hard to find, so it would probably take you years and a huge budget to try and collect every one.  

At the very least this provides some novice collectors with some more manageable targets, and avoids some of the players many of have never even heard of.

Crypto currency / Blockchain concept with coin on the motherboard.

All Vintage Cards is excited to announce that vintage sports card collectors can now purchase cards via the All Vintage Cards sports card store using bitcoin.  

“This is a big step in the evolution of digital commerce and especially in the advent of what has become a growing market for cryptocurrencies.  Our stance is that bitcoin is here to stay and that we would like to play our part in helping the digital ecosystem evolve into the world of online commerce.  It’s only natural that card collectors have the ability to utilize their cryptocurrencies in purchasing sports cards” -says All Vintage Cards President, Evan Gibson.  

The All Vintage Cards shop carries high quality vintage sports cards, and was recently launched in 2020, following on years of success in helping collector with a plethora of hobby resources, including numerous resource guides relating to spotting counterfeit cards, along with helping to identify good investments in the hobby. 

Sports card values have been on an unworldly increase of late. 

The rise has given credence to the belief that sports cards should be earmarked for collectors as a part of their overall investment portfolio.  

And I certainly have advocated that cards should be thought of as an entirely distinct asset class, separate from stocks, bonds, art, etc. 

Yet, the hysteria of late has me moderately concerned; I’m noticing signs that indicate we may be in the midst of another asset bubble in the sports card world.  

In this piece I discuss some of my concerns regarding card prices, some of the red flags that I’ve noticed and where we might go from here. 

As always if you have any thoughts on the current state of the hobby–please comment below or feel free to email me at chris@allvintagecards.com