By Steve Stecklow

LONDON, (Reuters) – My mom had many amazing qualities. One of her most remarkable feats was not to throw out any of my baseball cards.

Around the time I was 12 years old, I started collecting them. Each pack cost a nickel at West Orange’s local pharmacy. The thin, pink bubble gum wafers that were inside the packs are still a strong smell and have contributed to many cavities.

My cards were better than most of the other children in my area. They would play a card game on the patio next to my friend’s house and flip their cards.

One flip of the wrist will see a child drop a piece of paper that shows the player’s picture on one side and his stats on the other. The next child’s opponent’s cards will win if they land in the exact same fashion. If they didn’t match the card, then the first person wins.

I was never a big fan of flipping – or, for that matter, sticking cards between the spokes of a bicycle wheel to generate a loud clicking sound. They were damaged by both of these practices.

Unlike many of my friends, I also didn’t just collect players on my favorite team – in my case, the Los Angeles Dodgers – and trade away the others. Collecting all-stars meant that I would be willing to retain players I did not like such as the New York Yankees.

As a result, I ended up with the cards of many players who went on to make the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York – including Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski and Stan Musial.

My collection of over 1,000 cards, which I had amassed while at college, remained in my closet in shoeboxes. They were not kept by my mother, which I can’t remember me ever telling. She did however, except for one thing. She eventually got rid of my bulletin board.

In the corner of the right was the 1955 rookie season card of Sandy Koufax (my Dodgers hero). I had ordered it directly from the company that made the cards – Topps Chewing Gum Inc in Brooklyn – for around 15 cents, sending off a dime and a nickel taped to a file card.

The Koufax would be worth many thousand dollars in today’s money.

DECISION TIME

My collection was rarely seen in the years that followed. It was a treasure trove of stamp books and coins, which I kept around for several decades.

In 1998 when I first moved to London, I started renting safe deposit boxes from the United States. This allowed me to keep everything in one place. The annual rental fee eventually exceeded $1,000.

After more than 50-years, I finally had to make a decision about what to do next with my baseball cards.

My mother died in 2015. Two years ago, my sister sold her house in northern New Jersey and closed her bank account – along with a safe deposit box that I was using to store my cards, since I didn’t have my own U.S. account. It meant I had no choice but to start a fresh stash.

Is it worth what my cards are worth? All of my attempts to figure it out have failed. In the 1980s I brought them along to a card fair and was told that they could fetch $700. However, like Wall Street, the baseball card market plummeted.

A year ago I began to see news reports that there was a resurgence in the demand for memorabilia from sports. A long-time friend of mine who used to collect cards suggested I consult him. Lelands, an internet auction house in Matawan (New Jersey), suggested that I sell my collection.

Last November my sister, and I, drove to an empty strip mall in order to meet Keith Breitweiser who was the acquisitions specialist at the company.

Before I started to prepare for this event, I went through every card since my teen years. I used an online price calculator to select the ones I believed were most valuable. This took several hours. It was almost 450.

Keith met me in a small conference hall. Keith met us in a small conference room. I placed a large black binder that contained my cards on the tables. He immediately said that this type of card was the “bread and butter” for the auction house. He’d be interested in offering them in the next sale – the “Winter Classic 2022.”

I inquired what they might fetch.

According to him, they could be sold for as little as $3,000 or even $5,000. A second specialist who has more experience in selling baseball cards suggested that they could bring in over $5,000. However, both men stated that they were unable to predict the future because of their belief in the current market.

Keith also explained that Lelands would charge a 15% commission, plus fees for getting around a dozen of my cards professionally graded – about $30 a card.

Grading firms authenticate the cards and give them a rating on a scale from one to 10. This includes factors like the condition of corners and edges, as well as how well the images were centered. High grades can be worth a lot of money.

Intriguing, Keith agreed and I left my cards at Lelands.

“THE SMART MONEY”

It ran for one month and began on February 13. Four separate lots were available for my cards. There were 10 Mickey Mantle cards between 1958 and 1968, as well as a rookie Nolan Ryan Nolan Ryan card, 40 cards featuring Hall of Famers, and 379 other cards.

The auction was not known for its highlights. The Winter Classic 2022 auction featured a “Championship Rookie Ticket 2000” signed by Tom Brady. It also included a 1934 Babe Ruth card and a Joe DiMaggio card.

My cards did draw bids however. You could also follow my online.

The total value of all four lots was $3,486 after two weeks. My friend texted me: “It’ll heat up in the final.” The smart money is late.”

There were nine days before the deadline and bids had reached $4,469. On the final day, with about 12 hours left, they had hit $6,333 – surpassing Keith’s prediction. They had the Mickey Mantles at $940 and Nolan Ryan’s rookie card at $777. The Hall of Famers was $1,832 while the rest of the lot reached $2,784.

My friend was correct.

When the auction ended late in the evening of March 12 – while I was asleep in London – the total was $7,719. All the buyers paid 20% on top of winning bids. This meant that my cards were sold for $9.263, well above my expectations.

I made around $6,200 after subtracting the 15% seller commission of $7,719, and the grading fee.

As another friend – a longtime foreign correspondent whose mom had tossed out his baseball cards years ago – said via text: “Home run!”