Spring cleaning

It’s time to hit the garage, basement, attic and closets for that age-old task of spring cleaning! Before hauling unwanted possessions to the curb, it may be surprising to learn they might be valuable — especially if there are sports cards and memorabilia gathering dust.

With prices of sports cards rising in recent years, take time to determine if they’re valuable and how to best sell them.

“Older sports cards and memorabilia aren’t just highly collectible; they can be worth lots of money. Recent sales of scarce vintage cards have topped anywhere from thousands of dollars to tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands. And really rare cards can go higher,” says Al Crisafulli, auction director at Love of the Game Auctions, an internet sports auction house that helps families identify and sell valuable items.

Crisafulli has assisted people in selling such keepsakes as a grandparents’ autograph collection and an uncle’s childhood baseball cards, for tens of thousands of dollars. In one life-changing event, he helped a family determine that a baseball bat that spent decades protecting their home was used by Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig — and Love of the Game Auctions sold it for almost half a million dollars. Today, that bat could bring more than a million dollars.

The key is understanding what makes old sports collectibles valuable. 

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