Time to Sell Those Sports Cards : How I Auctioned Cards, Bats, Autographs and More

As the sports memorabilia industry continues to make headlines with multi-million dollar auction results, you might wonder what those baseball cards, autographs and game-used balls are really worth. And perhaps you hope to find a trove of sports cards in your uncle’s attic or have rushed to buy boxes of new cards, looking for that limited-edition card that could pay off big. Sport memorabilia and cards, which were once a kid’s pastime and a premium to help sell bubble gum, have suddenly become an alternative investment vehicle pursued by high-end investors and hedge funds. Will this phenomenon last?Time to Sell Those Sports Cards follows a personal trip to market as John Schwarz goes from childhood hobby to an 80-year-old’s cash crop. But not without bumps, side steps and re-calculations. As he finds a sports auction house to consign his collection, he watches the auction market with his Harvard MBA background and reports here on his findings as well as his strategies and successes.While dealing with the disappointments of parting with a lifetime obsession, Schwarz sold his treasures at fair market value rather than let his heirs unknowingly commit the collection’s disposal to their next garage sale or as a donation to Goodwill. If you’re in a similar situation, you’ll want to know this story. This book includes many color photos of valuable items.John H. Schwarz is the author of World Team Tennis: The Legacy of a Sports League, which offers an inside look at another notorious enterprise. He also penned two books of short stories based on his time as an executive in the late 20th century in Living Dangerously and Other Slice of Life Stories and A Day at the Ballpark. Now in his mid-'80s, Schwarz lives in Austin, Texas, where he does some business consulting and spends a lot of time in a rocker on his front porch with his dog. Read more