Hi There,
First, thanks for having me as a member on this board. It's been a lot of fun reading posts and looking at some great pictures over the last few days.
As this is my first post, I thought I'd introduce myself (feel free to check out or move on
). My name is Mike and I'm in my mid 30's currently living in Germany of all places. I grew up in South Florida and got into baseball cards in the early 80's as a kid when I started following the only team where a relative lived...the O's in Baltimore (nuts to think about the world before baseball in places like Florida, etc). Anyhow, in 1986, I went to my first baseball card show (an "Andy & Mike's" show in Fort Lauderdale at the old Holiday Inn on Commercial & I-95) with my Grandfather and I was hooked. I was hooked on the new stuff (I still remember the sheer joy of buying a box of wax for $12-14 and enjoying opening each pack) but more importantly, it became a near-monthly ritual of going with my Grandfather to the shows and learning more about the "old" players. My Grandfather was born in 1916 in Chicago and had so many great stories about the Cubs, Sox and all the other amazing players who came to town during the 20's - 50's. Baseball cards were a way for us to connect. He became focused on collecting Yankees for some reason (he always felt Ruth was the greatest) and he helped me (well, completely) create an amazing collection of HOF'ers. I was intent on trying to pick up at least one of each HOF'er and did a reasonable job on almost everything but the 1800's stuff. While I suppose things weren't cheap back then, they seemed approachable and there were some neat relationships made with a few great dealers. Anyhow, as with most things, I got older and the hobby also changed....and not necessarily for the better. My Grandfather actually passed away only about 6 months ago, and while we never collected again like in the mid/late 80's, we always talked about these times...they were special.
I've stayed on the periphery of this hobby for the last 20 years, but wow has it changed. I missed the entire grading phenomenon (the skyrocketing prices, etc) and maybe that was a good thing. Now, I feel like dipping in every once and a while and grabbing a few cards but between goofy slabbed cards and buying fake/trimmed/altered raw cards, it seems like a much more dangerous minefield than 25+ years ago!
For now, I'm largely content to watch, read about and re-learn this hobby. It's nice to be back. Hope to post some pics at some point. If you made it this far, thanks for listening and thanks for having me!
Mike