Personal Collecting History
 

Hello, all. I'm posting this because I've reached an inflection point in my collecting and have enjoyed reading about other collectors' experiences and collections here. Perhaps this will provide some insight into the thinking of collectors my age (late 30s/early 40s), who were kids during the junk wax era. At the very least, I hope you find it interesting. I'm breaking this into several posts so I can more easily intersperse images of cards with the text.

The first cards I remember collecting were 1987 Topps. My parents bought me a box for my birthday, and my dad helped me open the packs and organize the cards. The prize pulls were Mark McGwire, and because we lived in northern Ohio and were Cleveland fans, Cory Snyder. From that time through about middle school, I lived for baseball. In Ohio, the little league team played on a field without any fences. If you hit the ball hard enough to left field, it would roll out onto a massive church lawn and sputter out. To right field, it would wind up in a ditch on the side of a bordering country road. Conceivably, you could hit a home run into a cornfield on the other side of the road, but I never saw that happen. It felt like the Field of Dreams to me. I played there, imagined I was Babe Ruth, and bought every wax pack I could find.

Somewhere along the line, my parents gave me a 1956 Topps Hal Naragon (because he played for Cleveland) and 1957 Topps Whitey Herzog (because it was his rookie card and he was in the Hall of Fame). Those cards, the popular baseball movies of the era, a baseball encyclopedia I was given for a birthday present (from which I learned about seemingly impossible feats like batting over .400, hitting 60 home runs, and winning 30 games), and some odd 1988 Pacific Legends that found their way into my hands piqued a more serious interest in older players and cards.

In addition to chasing Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr., Mike Piazza, and other then-modern cards, I started adding vintage cards to my collection in the early 1990s. On my budget, that usually meant well-loved minor stars and subset HOFers from the 1970s, but once in a while I would manage to add a HOFer from the 1960s or late 1950s, or a common from an early 1950s set. I don't recall seeing pre-war cards at the shops and flea markets I frequented, and the Beckett price guides started with 1948 Bowman, so my collecting world was entirely post-war. The oldest card I had was a 1951 Bowman common (Fred Hutchinson). I was aware that pre-war cards (e.g., the T206 Wagner and the Goudey Ruths) existed, but as far as I was concerned, those cards, and even premier HOFer cards from the 1950s, were for adults. I could only dream of adding a real Babe Ruth or Ted Williams.

Right before I entered high school, my family moved to an area without any local card shops. I was separated from my best collecting friend, my activities changed, and my interest waned. My parents moved again after I went to college, and all but the best handful of cards I'd collected growing up got lost (or tossed) in the shuffle. I kept those cards with me through law school and various moves, but I didn't think about them much. I started a family and bought a house, and the cards (which were all in much worse shape than I'd thought as a kid except for a reasonably nice 1958 Topps Kaline, 1963 Topps Killebrew, and 1964 Topps Mays) just sat in a little drawer in my office.

About four years ago, I had a conversation that made me realize I could probably collect some of the old dream cards if I wanted to. I spent a fair amount of time considering what I might want to pursue. I learned about third party grading and the market moving online, found this board, and gained a renewed appreciation for the hobby. Eventually, I settled on collecting a playing career-era card for each of the first five HOFers. Poor condition, but presentable, and from a major issue.

I found a local card shop, sold all but one of my remaining childhood cards (see below) for seed money, and found a T206 Johnson pitching and Mathewson portrait on eBay. Getting ahold of these cards felt amazing. It really did fulfill a childhood dream. Eventually, over the course of about two years, I managed to find a Cobb, Wagner, and Ruth that fit the bill. I'm glad I chose this project then, because I wouldn't have pursued it in today's market.

After collecting the "first five," I made a few false starts on a new project before deciding to attempt a basic 1934-1936 Diamond Stars set. I chose this set because it was beautiful, fairly small, and didn't have a Ruth or Gehrig that would be a roadblock to finishing the set. I focused on centering and sought out cards in the VG to VGEX range, including raw cards that I later submitted for grading. Sometimes I fell short of my target (Jordan) and sometimes I did a little better (Foxx), but usually I landed right where I expected (Simmons). I worked on this for about a year, then the pandemic hit and I dropped it to focus on everything else going on in my life and the world. The set currently sits at 87/108.

Late last year, I checked back in to see what was happening in the card world and was shocked. I'd long considered expanding my collection to include a small group of the most consequential players who played both pre- and post-war, integrated baseball, and emerged as stars from the immediate post-integration and westward expansion era, but I thought I would be able to do that down the road at a leisurely pace. Not so! Cards that I thought I could find any time for $125 were suddenly $500 or more. Jackie Robinsons and Satchel Paiges were quickly becoming unaffordable. Star cards from the 1950s were now going to have to be star cards from the 1960s.

I recognized that it might be a bubble. I also recognized that premier cards have tended to hold or increase in value over the long term, and my intention was for my cards to be permanent parts of my collection. So, I thought about whose cards I wanted and what qualities were important to me, investigated card issues I hadn't considered before, made a plan, scoured the listings, and overpaid for everything. Some of my constraints (e.g., an attractive design and image, good centering, and an absence of prominently featured racial caricatures, if possible) made my search a little trickier than I'd anticipated, but I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Pre- and post-war stars:

Early integrators:

Post-integration/expansion stars:

Other than returning to my Diamond Stars set, I'm not certain where this leaves me. My collection feels satisfyingly complete. Modern cards don't appeal to me. They seem complicated and expensive, and watching players in real time through the eyes of an adult somehow diminishes the fun of collecting them for me. They're professionals doing something tangible, working hard to find miniscule advantages, not myths who towered over their contemporaries and whose feats can't be replicated. It's just not the same without the patina of history and a child's frame of reference.

I also don't plan to look beyond the titans already in my collection or seek out more or "better" versions of their cards. One nice example is enough. Maybe I'll change my tune. Maybe I won't be able to resist the call of the hunt. Maybe I'll decide I need a Lou Gehrig or a Cy Young or a Cap Anson. Maybe prices will crash and I'll be able to add or replace cards for practically nothing. Maybe my circumstances will change and I'll have to sell them. Maybe they'll become so valuable that it would be silly not to.

I do know this: as long as I have a collection, this card will be in it. I have it because I used to go to the same barbershop as Mr. Colavito. If you were a boy who liked baseball and left a card with the barber, Mr. Colavito would sign it. It has value only to me, and it's one of the only mementos of my youth that has followed me through the decades. Dinged corners, airbrushed hat, and Chief Wahoo aside, I can't imagine letting it go.

Cheers, and happy collecting.

Thanks for sharing
 

Great story!

Great post and thanks for sharing. Your comment pasted below sums up my feelings about modern and pre-war cards perfectly.

“ Modern cards don't appeal to me. They seem complicated and expensive, and watching players in real time through the eyes of an adult somehow diminishes the fun of collecting them for me. They're professionals doing something tangible, working hard to find miniscule advantages, not myths who towered over their contemporaries and whose feats can't be replicated. It's just not the same without the patina of history and a child's frame of reference.”

I dabbled in pre-war but lacked the emotional ties and commitment to players of that era. My father collected from 1948-1959 and if his memory is correct it was an epic collection. Unfortunately it was reduced to little small bundles of kindling by his family while he was serving in the military. He always shared stories of his days collecting and watching his heros. He fell in love with baseball during the 1950s and loved the Indians and Pirates of that era. He spoke of seeing, Mays, Musial, DiMaggio, Paige, Robinson, Mantle, Doby, Feller, Kiner, and Williams. Inspired by those stories I started collecting in the early 1970s as a seven year old. I collected cards of the players he lost and the players of the 1960s and 1970 I watched. He bought me boxes of wax packs every year until I graduated High School. Then he started buying me cards he remembered having in his childhood collection. Despite the occasional hiatus I still chase cards and fortunately my collection was spared from the fireplace when I went to college. He is 80 now and still buys me a card for each birthday and Christmas.

Mutton Chop, that's a great story, and some very nice cards. Thanks for sharing. Something tells me though you're going to find another card or two to add to your collection before it's done.


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I enjoyed this, and I especially enjoyed the part about the baseball encyclopedia. I had one too and it had some real random stuff in it!

Congrats on the cards of the first 5.

I collect Tris Speaker pre-war. Some other random items, but I mainly focus on him. My grandma told me we were related somehow, and as a young boy that enamored me to that era.

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Likewise, but barely even a dabbling (just a single T206 common and a '33 Goudey Gehringer).

I also feel similar about modern. It's just a little much, while pre-war is not quite enough (as far as card design) to spark my interest either.

So my golden age will always be '48 to '89.

Great journey and great cards. Thanks for sharing, I really enjoy seeing just how unique everyone is in their collecting habits, and yet how similar all of our stories are. Enjoyed the read!

Wonderful (and relatable) tale! Thank you so much for posting. :)

Interesting OP and subsequent posts. It is fascinating to see the varied routes we took to getting here.

I started collecting when I was a tyke, with Topps baseball and football cards. My first big year for those sports was 1971. In 1972 I started ripping packs of basketball cards. 1975 is the year I started buying hockey cards in earnest. I quickly moved on to the chase for older cards. My uncle gave me The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book (Little Brown, 1973; Brendan C. Boyd & Fred C. Harris) and I read it until it fell apart. Still cannot see a Coot Veal card w/o adding a "?" to it. It was my first real exposure to the art of golden age Topps and Bowman and those cards were now on my radar. I found The Complete Book of Baseball Cards: For the Collector, Flipper and Fan [1975; Steve Clark] and was hooked on T cards. I realize now that many of the cards I coveted were desired because of those books.

My first card show was Thanksgiving 1976 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, sponsored by the ASCCA. I’d become a Willie Mays fan when he returned to New York in 1973, so my first great project was to collect an example of every Mays card. I finished the Topps run at that show with the 1952 and 1953 cards. My mother nearly ripped my father’s head off when she found out that he loaned me $45 to buy them.

We moved to L.A. in 1977 and the only good thing about the move as far as I was concerned was that I fell ass-backwards into perhaps the richest collecting environment around. I quickly became involved with the West Coast Card Club, which held monthly meetings in a church basement and later a social hall in Northridge. I also lucked into several collections that were given to me by family and friends.

My collection at that point was pretty much about the four sports, Topps, Bowman and a smattering of T cards. It was during that time that I focused on a few Western regional issues that have ever since fascinated me: Zeenuts, Bell Brand, 1968 Atlantic Oil.

I put away the cards after the 1980 baseball season and really did not return to them for nearly a decade, when I decided to attend a massive show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco as a welcome diversion from law school. Unfortunately, in a moment of existential panic in 1987 I sold off a big chunk of my collection to raise some cash before law school. I really did not buy much at the Moscone show but I was re-energized to start collecting. I then attended shows throughout the Bay area if I could get to them on BART or other public transit.

When I returned to L.A. after graduating and got a job and started having disposable income, I really got back into collecting, aided by the abundance of shows. It was a rare weekend that I did not have at least a show a day to attend.

My collecting changed immeasurably around that time owing to two meetings at shows. At one, a fellow had 1948 Leaf cards of Barney Ross and Benny Leonard. I sort of knew that boxing cards existed but seeing these, I was instantly smitten. I bought the pair for a few bucks and took them home to show my father. He looked at the Ross card and said the words that changed my collection forever: “I think my cousin Ray fought him.”

You could have knocked me over with a puff of air. “Dad,” I said, “if you have a cousin who was a boxer that means I have cousin who was a boxer.” He then told me about Ray Miller for the first time and I realized that I, klutz of the month, was related to a world-class athlete.

The other collection-changer for me was meeting an old-time collector named John Spalding. Some of you might have known John. He was a collector from the Bay area with a strong background in PCL history and sports. But that isn’t what got me interested. It was his album of prewar Exhibit cards. I knew of and had collected the postwar cards from time to time, but I’d never seen anything like these. Love at first sight. Over the course of several shows I purchased stacks of them from John, while making a general pest of myself picking his brain about the issue.

I have never been a ‘own ten top flight cards and nothing else’ kind of collector, yet I’ve also never fallen into the completist category. In other words, I have a big-ass pile of stuff: i call it "The Festival of Bric-a-Brac." I like such a wide variety of cards and memorabilia from many eras, sports, cultural segments, etc. My collection was is a rambling, varied thing with tons of backwaters and tidal pools of micro-collections. The broad strokes are:

--A world boxing type card collection, represented whenever possible by favorite fighters Benny Leonard, Joe Louis and Jim Jeffries
--Some boxing memorabilia, mostly photo premiums.
--A boxing HOF collection represented by career-contemporary cards whenever possible, which I use as the backbone of the type card collection (e.g., I have a type card from the 1931 Bigott set from Venezuela that happens to be HOFer Pedro Montanez).
--Prewar baseball cards and ephemera
--Exhibit cards
--Postwar mainstream collections of baseball, basketball, football and hockey, especially the 1970s (I am a 1970s kid after all).
--Autographs and cards of Star Trek TOS, musicians and comedians.

Modern mostly leaves me flat. There are a few sets I like and I do collect some modern issues, mostly basketball cards devoted to my Showtime Lakers, but it doesn't hold my interest the way a 1976 Topps Fred Lynn will (i mention it because I just bought a stellar raw one to replace a PSA 9 I am going to sell).

Speaking of selling, this crazy market definitely gives an OG collector like me pause; do I sell into it or not? There are some tremendous profits to be taken but if I still want to collect, I am not going to take them: what am I going to do, sell my Aaron RC and then try to replace it a third time? Yeah, not. A nice problem to be sure, though...

And since we need some pictures to go with all the verbiage:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...948%20Leaf.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Marciano.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...on%20ready.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...uth%20port.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...Lipset%201.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20Marx%20.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...ize/image.jpeg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...OS%20Nimoy.jpg

Terrific story. I can relate.

And I knew there was a reason I always like Colavito, even if I wasn't an Indians fan....

Thank you, everyone, for responding so kindly. And thank you for adding your story (as well as your help with that Paige Exhibit), Adam. Really great to read.

Sounds to me like you have a card signed by a barber with a good gimmick ;).

Seriously, though, thanks for sharing your story. A lot of parallels to my own.

Lucas,

I loved reading through this thread and as I began my card collecting with 1987 Topps as an 8-year-old, much of this resonated with me.

Those first packs of 87 Topps that my mother bought me hooked me for life. I started a thread here that touched on this. I pulled the McGwire in my very first pack. And I really had a thing for the Topps All Star Rookies, so that Corey Snyder was big for me too!

Baseball and baseball cards were my life from 1987 – 1991 (ages 8 to 12, when everything is still pure and innocent). From 87 to 90 I was all in on Topps. In 91 I was infatuated by the Bo Jackson Score cards and Fleer Pro Vision subset, and then by 1992 I was out.

During those years my collection was 99% made up of junk wax that I pulled from packs, acquired in trades with friends, or on the rare occasion, bought from a vendor at the mall when shows were hosted. I LOVED stumbling upon card shows at the mall. Even though I didn’t have money to buy anything good, I could actually see Mantle and Mays and Aaron with my own eyes.

Those 50s Topps cards seemed like works of art. Like they should have been in a museum, not on a table in the Schuylkill Mall in Frackville, PA. I dreamed of owning those cards, but had to settle for 85 Gooden’s and 89 Jefferies’. But they were prizes in their own right at the time.

During that timeframe however, near the end of my first period of card collecting I did manage to acquire my first vintage card – a 1961 Mickey Mantle that I got in a trade for a handful of Nintendo games. I owned a Mantle and couldn’t believe it. It quickly replaced my 1986 Topps Traded set as my most valuable asset.

The final card that I received as a childhood collector, is, to this day, my most meaningful. For Christmas 1991 or 1992, my mom surprised me with a 1983 Donruss Howard Johnson. I was a Mets fan and HoJo was my favorite player. At that time he was a star, and my mom probably paid $15 or so for that card. Much more than she could afford to spend on a single baseball card, but she did it anyway. Soon after receiving that card I was headed to high school and the cards were left in my binder under my bed for the next 8 years or so. At that time, I probably considered my collection complete.

Fast forward several years and I’m out of college with a fulltime job. At that point I was living in an apartment in Baltimore and for the first time ever I had some money to spend. It was also about that time that I discovered Ebay and realized that I didn’t have to wait to stumble onto a card show at the mall and hope the dealers had what I was looking for. I could find any card I wanted to at any time and I might even be able to afford it. I remember spending hours browsing the cards I could never afford when I was a kid and realizing that I could own a few of them if I wanted to.

The fist ebay purchase I made was a 68 Ryan / Koosman rookie. That card was special for a few reasons. As a Mets fan, it was a key rookie card of legendary players in Mets uniforms. Also, for a few years in my hometown, there was a tiny card shop on Main Street, and the best card they had in their inventory was a beat up Ryan rookie. I would look at that card every day I went into that shop but could never come close to affording it. I guess no one in town could because it stayed under the glass until the shop closed.

With the Ryan now in my collection, and a paycheck coming in every week, I was back in the game and made a significant run on 70s and 80s rookies over the next year or so until I had everything on my wish list from that time period checked off.

At that point, I was making a little more money and realized that some of those 1950s Topps cards that I believed belonged in a museum could maybe be attained.

The first 50s card I bought was a raw 55 Clemente on ebay for $300. I couldn’t believe I was spending that much on a single card but when it arrived and I held it and smelled the cardboard I was hooked on vintage.

At about that time, the next phase of life happened – marriage, kids, house, dogs, etc. My card collecting days would be put on hold once more.
For the next few years I would dabble here and there but didn’t really make any significant additions.

Once things settled down, and the kids weren’t babies anymore, and I had a promotion or two under my belt, I got back in and decided I wanted to make a run on 52 Topps. The first card I added to my collection this go round was the first slabbed card I ever bought – a 52 Topps Willie Mays PSA 1 for $450.

I decided that for what I considered high dollar cards, I wanted to purchase slabbed, however, I didn’t like the look of the holders for display purposes, so I would buy slabbed and immediately crack them. In addition to the Mays, I cracked several PSA or SGC 2s and 3s including a 52 Robinson, 53 Paige, 54 Banks, 54 Williams, 55 Koufax, and 58 Maris to name a few.

The most recent stage of my collecting has taken me to the land of prewar, specifically T206, 33 Goudey, and 41 Playball. My goal here was to start big and fill in with the Tier 2 cards afterwards. I’m glad I did this because I was able to get most of the Tier 1 stars (Johnson, Mathewson, Young, Lajoie, Gehrig, Foxx, Williams, DiMaggio) before prices went insane. I’m still mad I missed the boat on the Goudey Ruths, but the first T206 I added was the Red Cobb Portrait.

So that’s where I am today. The cards I really want are now out of my reach – 33 Goudey Ruth, the blue background American Caramel Wagner, the 52 Mantle (which has always been out of my reach). So, I’ll probably add some minor T206 and Goudey hall of famers here and there, or begin to save up for one of my whales. Either way, I’m glad to be fully back into this, with my 54 Aaron and 33 Gehrig right next to my 83 Hojo and 87 McGwire.

Chris

Thanks for sharing, Chris! Great cards.

I see a lot of similarities in our stories. I would have traded all my Nintendo games for a Mantle back then too.

And thanks for the picture additions, Adam. Fantastic.

Chris,

Thank you for the great post and card images. Gently loved cards have character. I enjoyed reading your collecting journey.

It was a solid package! Bases Loaded, Tecmo Bowl, Double Dragon 2, and Tyson if I remember correctly. I did not include Baseball Stars or Tecmo Super Bowl, so I considered it a win!

But yes, lots of similarities in our stories. I love hearing about other collectors’ paths.

When it comes to T206s and Goudeys in my personal collection, I actually prefer fairs and goods. I want them to look like they are 100 years old. I love the character.

I liked this very much. I told my wife that I want my collection to be like a museum with rotating exhibits. Right now my allowed display space has my Tris Speaker stuff in it, but it once had Reds memorabilia and autos. I'm thinking of doing a modern-vintage (1989 - 1995) exhibit next.

Last summer I told my wife I would support her in paying off debt and reduce my monthly card money. So I picked up some of the modern cards I'd always been wanting, were widely available, but I'd never gotten around to purchasing. The 89 UD Griffey, 93 Topps Gold Jeter, and 93 SP Jeter were all at my LCS. I'm glad I bought them in June last year, because I got them just before they went crazy in price. The Griffey Tiffany I bought at the beginning of its climb on ebay, and I thought I got a nice example for a 7. Then, the more I've been on this site, the more I've learned about regional and SGA cards. I've explored that, and I learned about the Kahn's sets that have many a Reds star. So I picked up the Kahn's Larkin RC to add to my collection.

All of these cards came out in the hey-day of my youth. I wanted to pull a Griffey out of a pack, so I purchased lots of 89 UD and never got one! That's when I decided buying packs was foolish and I hated the chase. I'd rather just pay the inflated price for a single card, or the complete set.

That's funny, Tim, how similar our pack-busting experience has been. I have busted dozens of boxes of cards since 1990, and the only good card I ever pulled was this one:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...size/Jeter.jpg

To compound the injury, when Jeter got popular in the Yankees' run of the late 1990s I thought about getting a RC but figured why bother since I already had the coolest Jeter ever. D'oh!

Chris, they are still selling plenty of cards through the bid board auctions up there in the Schuylk. Mid level vintage weekly it seems. Interesting place.