Baseball Card Values have always been a mystery to me. When I was a kid, we flipped and traded cards, put them in the spokes of bicycle tires and just plain mistreated them. These cards often received a lot of hard (well loved) use, wear and tear, and usually were damaged beyond repair, diminishing the supply and increasing the demand (value). I remember having cards of Mickey Mantle, WillieMays, Hank Aaron, Pete Rose and many other all star and Hall of Fame players of the game. Today, baseball card collecting is a multimillion dollar business and the baseball card values received at auctions can be higher when compared to baseball card shops prices. Here is a sampling of a recent auction in January 2007 at the Heritage Auction Galleries

* 1936 National Chicle DiMaggio/EricksonVG $286.80

* 1933 World Wide Gum Babe Ruth #80 SGC $717

* 1954 Dan-Dee Potato Chips Mickey Mantle PSA 2 $507.88

* 1958 Topps Roger Maris $37 GAI 9.5 $2,390

* 1952 Bowman Willie Mays #218 PSA 7 $1135.25

* 1958 Topps Roberto Clemente #52 PSA 7 $215.10

* 1958 Topps Mickey Mantle #150 PSA 6 $478.

* 1975 Topps Pete Rose #320 PSA 9 $227.05

One of the best ways to find the value of your baseball card collection is to have all of the cards appraised. This will tell you if the baseball card prices that you paid were worth it. You can ask a baseball shop where you normally buy cards from if they know where you can find a reputable appraiser. When you locate this appraiser be certain that you take all of your cards with you. The appraiser will give you an accurate picture of what security precautions are needed to keep your baseball card collection in excellent condition.

Another method for finding the baseball card prices is to use books and guides that provide you with the required information. Some items which will be found in these guides are prices for rookie cards, vintage cards and normal baseball cards. They will describe ways in which you can identify the various aspects of the best cards.

While browsing through these guides you will become familiar with the reasons that some cards are more valuable than others. This can be due to several factors like the rarity of the cards, popularity of the cards and the fact that some of these cards are considered to be collectors' items.

Two of the most popular baseball card price guides are Beckett and Tuffstuff. A common thing about different price guides is that they may have different values for the same card. Currently, Beckett is the most commonly used guide. Some collectors love Beckett and some hate it, but the bottom line is that Beckett is the resource that most collectors use.

Price guides will give a high and low book value (BV) for any particular card. You can subscribe to the Beckett site for a low monthly fee and have access to all of their current baseball card listings. They make it very easy to search their site for the cards you want to look up. Beckett also puts out a monthly magazine with the same price information. TuffStuff magazine also has an online version of their price guides located at their website. A valuable benefit to using this guide is that it is free.

Remember, like many other coollectibles, baseball card values increase with age, so don't trash your 30 year old cards too quickly.