[Al C.risafulli]

This is such a great question.

My love of prewar cards and memorabilia has nothing whatsoever to do with money. I love prewar cards because I love the history of the game, I love all the colorful stories of its early days, and I love trying to envision a time when baseball was in its infancy, just beginning to write its legend. The idea of this new game, sweeping across towns and factories, and eventually turning into a thing that could provide a CAREER for people, is amazing to me. There's nothing I love more than a crisp, sharp photo of people from the early days of the game, where you can make out faces in the crowd, writing on signs, and other little details to help you get a feel for what it must have been like to be there.

I love the mysteries that the early game provides, over bits and pieces of the game's story that have been lost to history. I love trying to rediscover those stories by researching names and places, and I LOVE the sense of accomplishment of putting together the pieces to a puzzle - whether it's a big, significant find or a minor detail. It's like detective work to me. Detective work mixed with poetry.

I also love the techniques that companies used to manufacture the memorabilia and cards we collect. Who can deny the beauty of a colorful 19th Century lithograph, or a well-composed studio cabinet photo, or even the writing, design and assembly of a vintage book? Even looking through things like old Spalding guides, full of pictures of small, regional teams - it's amazing to think of how many mysteries could be solved by those old guides, and how many answers to so many questions that there are right in our own collections.

It's also amazing that we have this forum, so that we can connect the dots and get answers to all those questions, while building relationships in the process.

As I'm writing this, I'm immersed in research and photography and copywriting for a catalog, and I've got to say, all I can think about how how fortunate we all are to have such an amazing, amazing hobby.

-Al