Give me some support!

[Sheesh]

As you may know, I have recently begun sorting over 3 million cards of all types: Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey, Racing, Elvis, Beatles, Marvel Comics, Playboy, Hot Air Balloons - and I'm sure I missed a few other types. This is proving to be a daunting task!

I have two, large, 10' long x 3' wide work benches on which I am sorting the cards. I am sorting them into type, manufacturer, year and run. At one point, I thought that I might be able to recruit some stay at home friends to put them into sequential order but doing so for so many cards REALLY is a daunting task. Perhaps just for high-value sets :) Edit: Let me add that every 5 row box I pull has a mix of cards in them. Very few have entire rows of the same sport and set. However, suprises do happen! Most have 5-50 cards lumped together in the row, which is better than EVERYTHING being mixed about.

I, literally, have HUNDREDS of little card piles on these two work benches, grouped by card type (i.e. sport for most). I never knew there were so many types of cards and types of sets within each year for particular manufacturers. I already hate Upper Deck for producing so many baseball runs for a given year, so many inserts, so many STAR ROOKIES - all having the SAME holographic graphic on the back. I already hate Donruss (have a 5 row box FULL of red 90 cards), hate NFL Pro Set (1 1/2 5 row boxes), but LOVE the many older Topps baseball and football, love the metal, chrome, prisim and refractors that I am coming upon, the Fleer Flair basketball are really nice, and really like seeing some of the weird stuff, including naked babes :)

And THEN, I need to find a home for these guys when their piles get to large for the benches. I can't really put them away for good, as I'm sure that there will be more to go into each of the 5 row boxes. Each box has to be marked, both inside and out, including raised tabs in each box for different year products. On one side of my work room are 60 5 row boxes of card "ore"; On the other, 20 5 row boxes of sorted product in various states of fullness, ready to accept more as they are sorted.

And, I have yet to touch but 1% so far.

Anyway, I'm just venting a bit. When I first came here, a few of you said that you "envied" me. Let me tell you first hand: This is hard, tedious work.

Thanks for "listening"!

[LakersMC]

If you were near me, I'd totally help. Sounds fun to me. But like you said, I guess it only sounds fun.
Well, keep up the hard work. Hard work pays off.

[jaybiddyforeal]

i wish i had 3 million cards to look through. gl with finishing that off....

james

[Sheesh]

Still sorting. Thought that I would give an update.

* Found 3 envelopes with 8 postcard-sized Bill Purdom lithograph prints in each. Ripkin, Clemens, Jeter, Griffey Jr., McGwire, Piazza, Garciaparra, and Sosa. The Goodsportsart.com site lists them at $100 each.

* Been finding some auto cards. So far, 10 Pedro Martinez RC, 50 Brian McRae, 20 Shane Andrews RC, 50+ Scott Cooper, 50+ Mike Fetters, and 4 Tom Chambers (basketball). Some autos have been graded (USAsportscards), including Aubrey Huff, Nelso Lara, and Tomy Armas. Also found 25 Edgar Bennett (Packers) and 30 Jake Lamotta (boxing). Interestingly, the Lamotta's are on Colorado Comic Future Stars cards.

* I have found plastic snap boxes full of star cards, including Larry Bird, Clemens, O'Neil, Nolan Ryan, and a host of others. Additionally, many of these plastic snap boxes contain complete insert sets.

* Keep finding all kinds of cards. Today, found a bunch of Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, WWE, guns, motorcycle, and LOTS of hologram cards depicting not only team logos but also Upper Deck loony tunes w/ Reggie Jackson and other players. This is on top of the thousands of Marvel Comic cards, Elvis and Muhammad Alli cards I have found.

* Currently have sorted approximately 250K cards of all major sports. Lots of base / common cards (for example, 35K NFL Proset 90s) for certain, but have also found many higher end cards. And, still going. These are all being sorted into sets, regardless of the player (i.e. I am not cherry picking the sets).

Hoping to soon start putting them on a website for sale.

Thanks for reading!

[potzie165]

Just wondering, what did you pay for 3 million cards?
Kirk

[Sheesh]

My wife's sister and brother-in-law traded an engraving machine AND got $8,000 from the folks who inherited the cards from their family member who had this collection. Since they were not doing anything with it for the last three years, my sister and brother in law said that I could sell them for 50% of the proceeds.

[potzie165]

Not a bad gig. I would be in heaven, love sorting cards. Where are you located?

[Blazin Pyro]

Hey I noticed you said you had some non sportscards. If you run into any cards that are Fire Engine ones give me a yell.

[trampus]

Wait, gun cards?! Are they like old muskets and stuff or newer models?

[Sheesh]

I'm located in California, outside of Yosemite NP.

I'll watch for those fire engine if they come up :)

Guns, both muskets and new models. Have some unopened packs of Great Guns, Series 1.

Also have hundreds of Playboy cards, some with autographs, too :)