Collectables question (baseball cards)

[Tog_]

Hi all. This question is for a mystery short that I plan to start writing soon. It takes place at an auction, and the dead guy is found inside the vault where the items up for ale will be stored. The general items can actually be anything, but there are a few things that have specific requirements. I need something that looks valuable but isn't.

My first thought was for the stuff to have belonged to a sports doctor that spent 15 years as a team doctor for a baseball team. Over that time, he collected the trading cards of those players that lasted one season or less. Would an album of cards like that actually be worth anything?

Is there something else, other than costume jewelry, that would only look valuable and still be small enough to hide under a jacket or in a backpack?

[gzhpcu]

A key to a safety deposit box? A crumbled note with a bank account number? An old coin (fake dubloon)?

[novaderrik]

these days, everyone thinks every thing is collectible- so how about a 2008 re-issue of the original Optimus Prime Transformer toy?

[Tog_]

I don't think the key and paper scrap would work because I just can't see a reason for them to be sold at auction. The fake coin collection on the toher hand. That has promise. Thanks.

The collectible toy was actually in there, already, but as an actual valuable item that was left behind. The killer needs to make it look like a robbery, but doesn't bother to steal something worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, choosing to take something worth little more than the cost of the materials.

Thanks guys.

[HenrikOlsen]

Have all the baseball cards be autographed, that way they'll look really nice to a collector, but let the players have autographed each others rather that their own, as mementos for the nice doc rather than as souvenirs for fans.

I think it was in The Space Merchants by Pohl and Kornbluth that it was mentioned that anything advertised as collectible is sold in the hundreds of thousands and will only go down in value.

[tlbs101]

I have a large (15,000+) collection of cards.

The vast majority of baseball (or any other sport) cards are called, "commons". They have book values in the few penny range. Even commons from the 1950s are only worth a few US$ each.

Players who only played one year would most likely be considered common players -- if they have a card, at all. A book of cards with players who only played one year would not be worth much money at all, even if they were all from before 1980.

A collection of 100 cards with common players from the 1960s and 1970s would appear to be valuable but might only be worth US$50, topps.

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[ABR.]

A collection of 100 cards with common players from the 1960s and 1970s would appear to be valuable but might only be worth US$50, topps.

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Nice one there at the end!

I'll add that there may be (I haven't checked in a long while) a "common" player whose card may be worth more due to an untimely death/injury or because they are famous for another reason. For example, is there a Michael Jordan baseball card out there? There is always the possibility of lucrative misprints as well, but I can't think of too many of those at the moment.

[Tog_]

Players who only played one year would most likely be considered common players -- if they have a card, at all. A book of cards with players who only played one year would not be worth much money at all, even if they were all from before 1980.

A collection of 100 cards with common players from the 1960s and 1970s would appear to be valuable but might only be worth US$50, topps.

Perfect! Thanks. This is the sort of thing I was hoping to get. I'm still waiting for a single reply of any sort on a card trading forum.