[greymule]

Interesting article. I'm not an expert in the value of sports cards, but I suspect that old guy's cards from the 1940s are the real gold mine. I had zillions of baseball cards from between 1957 and 1963, but so did a lot of other kids. Yes, the spokes of the bicycle, and inside the cap, partially so the brim stayed up, partially so the talent of the guys on the cards would be magically imparted to the wearer. My Little League hat contained Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra. (Yet I didn't make the Majors.) Since my cards have lain in a shoebox ever since, I doubt that they're worth much. I have a Topps Mets 1962 team card, though.

My father deals in art, which led an acquaintance of his to approach him for an appraisal of a painted metal sculpture for which a fancy studio had offered $5,000. Supposedly, the studio's "buyer" was leaving for Europe and had to have it immediately, couldn't wait, etc., so the offer was good for only one day. (Hmmm . . .)

My Dad advised him not to sell it to the dealer. A few months later, it brought $110,000 at Christie's in New York.

Years ago, here in New Jersey, there was a guy who paid his trash collectors $1 for every painting they brought him, no matter what it was. (This was when $1 was actually worth picking up off the sidewalk.) Over the course of a couple of decades, the trash collectors made hundreds of extra dollars from the guy. The guy himself made hundreds of thousands.