Personal Collecting History

[Mutton Chop Yaz]

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.