So Base Cards

[creasecollector]

One of these years I'm going to do the Halloween thing. That's a really good idea. I'm sure some people would love that!

And the coolest place to go trick-or-treating goes too ....

[TRDouble]

One of these years I'm going to do the Halloween thing. That's a really good idea. I'm sure some people would love that!

And the coolest place to go trick-or-treating goes too ....

I used to put them in sleeves and hand out three cards per Trick or Treater, trying to make sure one card was a Buffalo Sabres player. The look of one kid when he saw the cards was priceless!

Then the kids starting drying up and it wasn't worth the hassle anymore. But if you get a lot of kids on Halloween, it will probably go over great, as long as you don't forget the candy too ;)

[Sharky94]

One of these years I'm going to do the Halloween thing. That's a really good idea. I'm sure some people would love that!

And the coolest place to go trick-or-treating goes too ....

I have been giving them away on Halloween for years, and we are now officially known as the "Card House." Kids love it because it is the one place where they get something "different." The girls are just as happy about them as the boys because they say they trade them to their brothers. And the parents love it because it's less candy that the kids get. We have one family that moved away a couple years ago, and now the parents drive the kids back that night, just so they can come to our house.

I started out just giving away old base to get rid of it. But I thought that wasn't too cool after the first year. So through the year I try to find a couple cheap boxes of something new. I can usually pick up old MVP boxes for less than $1 a pack. So now I usually give a team bag (which I recycle from stuff I receive in the mail) full of base with a pack of something new, so they can also have the excitement of opening something up.

A couple years ago, I started inserting "hits" into the bags. I'll grab a bunch of low-end inserts that I can't trade and add IP autos I get from the Caps, and include those in the bags too. I am fortunate in that we are season ticket holders, and we go to all the charity functions, and I go to practices too. So I don't have much problem getting Caps autos, especially if I tell them I give them away at Halloween -- they don't mind signing more than one. I will also troll COMC and Ebay, and if I can pick up jersey cards for $1 or less I'll buy a bunch.

Admittedly, I do end up paying a couple bucks for each kid that comes by, and that may a problem for some people. But my wife and I make good money and don't have kids, so I don't mind dropping $50 on Halloween to make some kid's night.

We have to face the fact that if someone doesn't start trying to get kids interested in card collecting, there will be nobody around to buy our "investments" when we want to retire. The card companies certainly don't seem to care about kids, and are just as happy to squeeze every last penny they can out of their existing and aging customer base. But eventually we will all get old and die, and if new collectors don't come along, it will spell the end of the industry. I am certain none of you will care if UD goes out of business. But you will care when you are 70, and there is nobody left to buy that BGS 9.5 McDavid rookie you need to sell to pay for your bypass surgery...

[Taxi]

I actually just burn them and my decoys since my dad burns a lot. I just toss them in. I don't really want to go through finding a way to get rid of them plus they take up space so I just burn them.

All the suggestions above are fantastic and if they aren't an inconvenience then go for it. But you're not breaking a code or anything of you burn them/throw them away.

That is really wasteful.

It's honestly less effort to put an ad up on Kijiji/Craiglist giving them away for free. Within a few minutes, you'll have people offering to pick them up. Usually its dads, who clearly are poor, picking them up for their kids. Carrying them out to some scrap heap to burn is more effort. Plus with all the gloss and chemicals on them, I doubt its great for the air quality.

No, it's not illegal to burn them, but they could bring some poor kid a lot of joy.

[subban7677]

I have been giving them away on Halloween for years, and we are now officially known as the "Card House." Kids love it because it is the one place where they get something "different." The girls are just as happy about them as the boys because they say they trade them to their brothers. And the parents love it because it's less candy that the kids get. We have one family that moved away a couple years ago, and now the parents drive the kids back that night, just so they can come to our house.

I started out just giving away old base to get rid of it. But I thought that wasn't too cool after the first year. So through the year I try to find a couple cheap boxes of something new. I can usually pick up old MVP boxes for less than $1 a pack. So now I usually give a team bag (which I recycle from stuff I receive in the mail) full of base with a pack of something new, so they can also have the excitement of opening something up.

A couple years ago, I started inserting "hits" into the bags. I'll grab a bunch of low-end inserts that I can't trade and add IP autos I get from the Caps, and include those in the bags too. I am fortunate in that we are season ticket holders, and we go to all the charity functions, and I go to practices too. So I don't have much problem getting Caps autos, especially if I tell them I give them away at Halloween -- they don't mind signing more than one. I will also troll COMC and Ebay, and if I can pick up jersey cards for $1 or less I'll buy a bunch.

Admittedly, I do end up paying a couple bucks for each kid that comes by, and that may a problem for some people. But my wife and I make good money and don't have kids, so I don't mind dropping $50 on Halloween to make some kid's night.

We have to face the fact that if someone doesn't start trying to get kids interested in card collecting, there will be nobody around to buy our "investments" when we want to retire. The card companies certainly don't seem to care about kids, and are just as happy to squeeze every last penny they can out of their existing and aging customer base. But eventually we will all get old and die, and if new collectors don't come along, it will spell the end of the industry. I am certain none of you will care if UD goes out of business. But you will care when you are 70, and there is nobody left to buy that BGS 9.5 McDavid rookie you need to sell to pay for your bypass surgery...

That is just too awesome! Congrats on being the cool house on the block!

[Goose97]

Ah the good ole base card dilemma. What to do with them?

I for one do actually offer up my base cards for trade, and even do sell them. Quite a few of my trades have involved base cards, and most of the traders I have dealt with are like me that collect the full gamut of the player they are after. That includes base. Also there are still set collectors out there, and the preverbial team collector. So I have no problem with having base cards to offer. Check out my site, and you will see the detail, plus they are all in theInventory Manager here as well.

This all depends though who you are targeting , and how much work you want to put forward because there is work involved. If all you have interest in is just the hits, then all the options that everyone has stated all work perfect(except the burning one because yeah the cards still have a purpose as stated by everyone else). The work you put into listing them like I do takes a lot of effort, and that effort isn't a high gain for cards that aren't worth a lot, but I do get the satisfaction of working with other collectors that never can find simple base cards of thier player or team, and they become ecstatic that someone actually has something available.

I do however only really keep in most cases a maximum of two individual base cards of the set listed in my traders. The excess I put into randomly made team bags of ~25 cards, and sell them in garage sales for $.50 each or 5 for $2. Even if I have a glut of inserts, I will randomly put them in too.

Another option if it is available to you is to set up at a flea market and sell like I described above.