Collecting Baseball Cards
can be an enjoyable Hobby

Generally, baseball cards feature one or more players on one side and information, mostly the player's statistics, on the other side. The standard size is 2 1/2" x 3 1/2".

Sports cards were often included with cigarettes starting in about 1886. Later, about 1933 cards were included with candy and chewing gum.


Topps was one of the companies that included cards with its bubblegum product line. It had a monopoly for about 20 years. In 1981, Fleer and Donruss issued card sets, in 1988 Score and in 1989 Upper Deck entered the card business.

The market got saturated and the 1994 players strike forced a combination of the industry. Presently, only Topps and Upper Deck are selling cards.

If you are collecting sports cards and want to estimate the value, you can go to a bookstore or Internet collectibles site. A sport's website will have price guides, where you can search the brand, year and player's name. Then you need to determine the condition of the card. Price guides will list values for various conditions.