There is one TV show that I really enjoy that aired on ABC back in the 90’s called Home Improvement. In season 3, episode 9 entitled Dollars and Sense, the three sons receive $50 dollars from their savings bonds form their grandparents. Instantly they want to spend their new fortune and mom wants them to reinvest the money. They begin looking at investing in baseball cards and end up going to a collectables store with their dad to shop around. A collectable / signed yellow RC racecar catches their eye and they pool their money together. After a few hours of of staring at their new investment, they naturally take it out of the protective case and play with it in the driveway and eventually break their investment.

In this fun story, the boys could have doubled their investment over time, if they would have left the RC car alone and kept it in mint condition within it’s protective case. When I was younger, I collected baseball cards. Back then a pack of baseball cards was roughly $1.50 and you would get about a dozen cards. Through the years I probably spent about $100 dollars on baseball cards that now just sit in my basement. It was fun taking a look at the price books each month to see which cards went up and down in value. One card that I remember geeking out about was a Jose Canseco card from 1990 that showed up in one of the packs I purchased. Back in the day that card was worth probably 70cents… Today on ebay, that card is worth $2.25. Will I ever get rich from my baseball card collection? No… But the sentimental value is awesome.

There are some baseball cards that are worth hundreds of dollars. One example is a 1961 Wrigley Field Exhibit Babe Ruth card worth $550 online.. Also online is a 1956 Mickey Mantle Yankees card selling for $1,299.00! Just imagine if you found that card with a piece of gum in 1956 and kept it in your shoe box until today. That would be an amazing return on investment.

A couple of tips to collectable investing

• Know your collectable

• Do your research

• Buy low if planning on reselling