Don't sort your cards this way

I was looking for cards to fill out some trades last week when I came across one "shoe-box" type that was full of top-loaders. Those are cards I go through from time to time and what I saw made me laugh.

Apparently I had sorted these cards based on "price". Every single top-loader in that box had a small square that had been cutout from a yellow sticky note. On that square was a dollar value. The only place I could have gotten the values was the dreaded Beckett Monthly Guide. I used to buy those and once upon a time had a subscription.

I pulled two random 1974 Topps cards. Well, they weren't random. I pulled them because of the wide range in "value". Unfortunately, I didn't scan the cards in the top-loaders so you could see the lame "value" stickers.

At some point in the past, the Beckett listed the value of this 1974 Rollie Fingers at $3.00. I don't really know if that's a good number today and I don't really care. It's a great card of a Hall of Famer and that's good enough for me.

At the other end of the spectrum is this 1974 Topps Mike Schmidt. According to the sticky note, this was a $50.00 card. Now that may have been true of a mint card, but as you can see, there are some wicked creases across Mike's lower half, not to mention the damage to his upper left ribcage. Hey, I said not to mention that! I think I laughed to think I would have thought this damaged card was worth that much, but the same goes for this card as the Fingers card. It's a Hall of Famer, it's vintage (at least in my book) and I'm glad to have it, regardless of the value or condition.

I can think of many better ways to sort my cards. I have a whole box full that need some "revaluation".