The Goudey Gum Company was founded by Enos Gordon Goudey in 1919 and opened his first factory in Boston. He eventually became known as the “Penny Gum King of America”. Goudey decided to throw his hat into the baseball card arena with the debut of the 1933 Goudey Baseball Cards. The 1933 Goudey Baseball Cards, designated R319 in the American Card Catalog, are considered to be the most popular pre-war cards. The 1933 Goudeys were the second baseball card set to be mass marketed, 22 years after the T206 Tobacco card set was the first. The Goudey Gum Co. succeeded in rekindling collector interest ..read more

The 1952 Topps Baseball Card Set was printed and issued by the Topps Chewing Gum Company of Brooklyn New York. This set is one of the most beautiful ever produced, and also one of the most popular. Sy Berger and Wally Gelman, the founders of Topps, knew if they were to compete with Bowman, their follow up to the 1951 Topps products would have to be much better. The product would have to be brighter, bolder, a game changer! After months of work they unveiled their final product, the 1952 Topps set. The 1952 Topps Set is considered the absolute pinnacle of post-war sports card issues! In terms o ..read more

Bill Heitman appropriately named the T206 Baseball Card Set ‘The Monster”. There are 524 cards in the set with 37 different tobacco advertisements that can be on the back of each card. If you include all of the front/back variations, there were close to 7000 different T206 Baseball Cards produced. These famous baseball cards were also the first to be mass marketed in the United States. The T206 Baseball Cards were sold in cigarette packs from 1909 to 1911 by the American Tobacco Company. This set is one of the hobby’s most revered and iconic, and contains 38 Hall of Fame baseball players!! Wit ..read more

The Midwest Baseball Card Set Run During one of our Buying Trips we received a call from a gentleman who had a ‘few’ baseball card sets to sell. After a brief discussion, he decided to come see us. A few hours later we were looking at a 1951 Bowman baseball card set! I made an offer, he nodded, and then pulled out a 1948 Bowman set. I made an offer, he nodded and then said, ‘your offers are really fair, let me go out to my car and get the rest of the sets’. He came back in with an additional 15 sets!!! I was stunned because he never mentioned the size of the collection. The Rest of the Basebal ..read more

My basketball card is worth more when it’s graded, right? We have seen some very poor decisions made by collectors when grading their basketball card by a professional grading service like PSA or SGC. The biggest misconception is that grading a basketball card will make it worth more money. Grading a card or several cards from your collection can be a money losing proposition, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. Kurtz Kardz grades a very small percentage of the cards from the collections we buy! We will grade a basketball card only when it increases the value of the card. This is ..read more

When dealing with a collection 100’s of miles away, it is important there are no miscommunications. Below is a good example of a minor detail that was omitted that almost ruined a great deal. A gentleman contacted me about a run of Baseball Sets from 1954 to 1979, Football Sets from 1954 to 1979, and Basketball Sets from 1957 to 1979. He provided images of the significant cards and after multiple phone conversations, we had a mutual understanding of the collection’s condition, retail value, and purchase price. The pictures of the 1957 Topps Johnny Unitas and 1958 Topps Jim Brown football cards ..read more

Short answer: no. Here’s why! When you search “sports card shops near me” your search engine will bring up a list of local card shops that are not necessarily the best. Why? They are generally not well equipped to appraise or purchase vintage collections of any magnitude. These retail stores are usually under capitalized and are focused on selling modern products and simply don’t have the time or the knowledge to carefully evaluate vintage collections. So, now the question is, how should you proceed on selling the collection? Who do I contact? Who can I trust? How do I establish the value? Wha ..read more

Killer collection of graded Sports Cards purchased at the Atlantic City National Show A gentleman walked up to my table and started a conversation about the sports cards hobby in general. After 10 minutes or so, he asked if I was interested in buying graded sports cards. I asked what he had, and out came the cards. He had over 100 graded sports cards that were pretty significant! It was at the tail end of the show, so we reconvened at my Sheraton hotel room across the street. Included in this great group of sports cards were a 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle Rookie, 1951 Bowman Willie Mays Rookie, o ..read more

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle & Willie Mays Baseball Cards highlight the Massachusetts Collection A longtime friend, who I met in the sports cards business many years ago, arranged a meeting with a collector who had a phenomenal collection. The highlights were: 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle 1952 Topps Willie Mays 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth 1933 Goudey Lou Gehrig 1934 Goudey Lou Gehrig 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson Rookie 1939 Play Ball Ted Williams Rookie 1939 Play Ball Joe DiMaggio 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle Rookie 1951 Bowman Willie Mays Rookie 1965 Topps Joe Namath Rookie 1980 Topps Larry Bird/Magic Johns ..read more