Baseball Cards Price

What is the best way to find out the value of baseball cards?

I've stumbled upon a couple of boxes of baseball cards from 1980-early 90's and want to find their values and possibly sell them. I know Beckett's Guide is one of the best, but is there a good "free" site I can go and check the values?

Public Comments

1. Pick up an issue of Beckett Baseball Monthly (any worthwhile newsstand will have it) and review what the cards are valued at, but don't hope for much -- the late 1980s and early 1990s (roughly 1988-94) were an era of huge overproduction, so demand is very low. Having determined if you have any cards that really might be salable, surf completed sales on eBay.com to see what they really go for. Beckett pricing is for the merchant market, and those numbers (except in rare cases for exceptionally hot cards, which is always a short-term phenomenon) are not what you will realize if you try to sell. eBay data is much more market-accurate.
2. There is no free site, Beckett offers their guide online for a fee. If the cards are from the late 80s/early 90s, I wouldn't invest too much time worrying about their value. That was the peak of card collecting and the companies mass produced the products and while the cards may have "book" value, they won't have much real value. There is just a ton of stuff out there from that time period. I can go into my local card shop and buy 1,000 cards from that era for $10-15, which will include all the stars.
3. go to a hobby shop and they know everything to know about hobby's and value. they can also tell if the card is real, fake, in mid condition and even tell if its a rookie.go to this web site http://www.cardpricer.com/
4. Beckett is useless. Values are WAY above what anyone would actually pay. As is the case with any other product, the value is only what someone would actually pay for the card, not what is written in any book. The best way to determine your cards's worth is to set up a booth at a local card show and try to sell them. Beckett can be used as a general guide -- nothing more. Also, in today's market baseball card values are dictated in HUGE way by their condition. Only the most perfect of perfect cards have any real value, other than very old and rare cards (think 60 years old or more). There are two main card grading agencies that will assign an "official" value to your cards based on their condition or "grade" (can't remember exactly who they are). For high-end cards, getting them assigned a condition is an absolute must. No real collector would touch an ungraded card. Your cards are way to recent for grading, however. Cards from 1986 and on aren't worth much of anything. 1985 and earlier cards do have some value for mint condition rookie cards, but you really have to go back to the 1960s for big dollar value.
5. Check ebay... you can see what someone is actually willing to pay for the card. (bring tissue it will be sad) If you find a place to unload the cards let me know. I've got a closet of worthless cards from the same period that I just can't get myself to toss.