Alex Grammas has had a lifelong passion for collecting baseball cards that began at a very young age. Growing up in a small town outside of Detroit, Michigan, Alex’s father would take him to Tigers games at Tiger Stadium throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Even as a small child, Alex was fascinated by the players on the field and wanted to learn everything he could about them.
One of the ways Alex started learning about players was by looking through his father’s old baseball card collection in the basement. His dad had cards dating back to the late 1950s and Alex would spend hours carefully examining each one, reading the stats and biographies on the back of the cards. He was in awe of the iconic players featured, like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Sandy Koufax. Looking at the cards helped Alex put names to the faces of the players he saw at the ballpark.
By the time Alex was 8 years old in 1982, he had decided he wanted to start his own baseball card collection. For his birthday that year, his parents gifted him a few packs of 1982 Topps cards to get him started. Alex still vividly remembers opening his first pack and pulling a Rod Carew card out, marveling at the photo and stats. From that moment on, Alex was hooked on collecting cards. He would save any spare change he got to buy more packs at the corner store near his house.
In the following years, Alex’s collection grew rapidly as the hobby exploded in popularity during the junk wax era of the late 1980s. He started attending card shows in the Detroit area with his father as well, trading and buying singles to fill in sets. Some of Alex’s favorite childhood cards included the 1984 Donruss Winner’s Circle set, the illustrious 1987 Topps set with players’ home stadiums in the background, and the ultra-colorful 1989 Upper Deck set that helped revive the industry.
By the time Alex entered high school in the early 1990s, his collection had grown to over 100,000 cards stored in hundreds of boxes in his basement. The rise of the internet also allowed Alex’s hobby to evolve, as he started connecting with other collectors online through early message boards. He began focusing more on high-end vintage cards from the 1950s-1970s, gradually building a world-class collection through savvy buying and trading.
Some of the crown jewels that Alex has acquired over the years include a 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner, one of the most iconic and valuable cards ever printed, purchased for $500,000 in 2005. He also owns a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8 that he spent $250,000 on. Other prized possessions are a 1956 Topps Sandy Koufax PSA 8, a 1957 Topps Willie Mays PSA 6, and a 1969 Topps Nolan Ryan PSA 8, Ryan’s first Topps card.
In addition to his vintage collection, Alex has maintained a complete run of sets from the 1970s and 1980s in pristine condition. This includes multiple complete sets of 1975 and 1976 Topps, which were some of the first sets he ever completed as a kid. Alex’s 1980s collection stands out, headlined by a 1984 Donruss Winner’s Circle set graded by PSA as the finest known. He also owns arguably the finest known 1987 Topps set in existence across PSA/SGC Pop 1/2 grades.
As his collecting passions grew, Alex decided to pursue a career in the sports memorabilia industry after graduating from the University of Michigan in 1997 with a degree in business. He landed a job at a major auction house in New York, allowing him to combine his love of cards with a professional career. Over the past 25 years, Alex has brokered some of the most high-profile sports card and memorabilia deals in the industry.
In 2010, Alex started his own sports memorabilia company called Premier Auctions, based in suburban Detroit. The company has hosted some of the most successful sports card and memorabilia auctions ever. In 2015, they sold the famed 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle that Alex owns for a new record price of $5.2 million. Other top lots under the Premier Auctions hammer include a record-setting 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Superfractor of Stephen Strasburg for $100,000 in 2012.
Today at 51 years old, Alex Grammas’ collection is considered one of the finest ever assembled private collections in the hobby. It is valued well over $50 million and consists of over 500,000 total cards carefully stored in a climate-controlled vault. He continues to actively collect across all sports and eras. While maintaining his prized vintage holdings is a full-time job itself, Alex still enjoys hunting for deals and treasures at card shows for fun.
Through his collecting journey spanning four decades, Alex Grammas has seen the hobby evolve tremendously but his passion remains as strong as ever. He hopes to one day pass down his collection to his son to carry on the tradition. Alex’s story is a true testament to how far dedication to collecting can take you.