‘The Whole House Is a Mess,’ Says Owners of 900,000 Cards

Cards, everywhere, at Ed Harbert’s house, and all in less than a year.

Baseball cards, 900,000 of them. Football cards, basketball cards, even some old hockey cards make it a round total of about 1 million cards, all bought in 13 months.

“The whole house is a mess . . . shoe boxes, cardboard boxes, a closet full, the game room, my bedroom, on the dresser, on the TV . . . cards are everywhere,” Harbert said.

Harbert collected baseball cards as a kid, but never like this.

He sold his boyhood collection in 1980, but his interest was reborn when his son asked for a set of baseball cards.

“A year ago December my son wanted a set of Topps baseball cards for his 14th birthday,” Harbert said. “I bought them and ol’ Dad was hooked again. It started snowballing.”

Harbert has bought some cards as an investment. He bought asmany of Roger Clemens’ rookie card as he could find after the Red Sox pitcher won the Most Valuable Player and Cy Young award.

“I started just as a collector, because I’m really a sports nut,” he said. “But after I made a couple of big buys I realized this could be a good investment, so now I go at it both ways.”

Harbert said his goal right now is to get a Mickey Mantle rookie year. He said the cards were worth $2,500 to $3,000.

Meanwhile, he is trying to organized the collection.

“I’ve been working on an inventory, and we’re not talking about $4,000 or $5,000,” Harbert said. “I mean several thousands.”