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[Mesquite]

Hi, new member checking in with my story. I recently pulled my box of baseball cards out of storage in the back of a closet, and thought I should figure out what I want to do with them. I began collecting as a kid, back in 1969, with the orange-backed Topps set. I vaguely remember buying the cards from a large "candy truck" (sort of like a "roach coach" food vending truck of today), which would regularly drive through the neighborhood, and all the neighborhood kids would swarm the truck.

The truck sold all imaginable kinds of candy, as well as baseball cards. The neighborhood boys would trade cards, or trade cards for marbles (card collecting and playing marbles were how we spent our time back then), or we'd bet cards on games of marbles. That's how I acquired my pre-1969 cards. I don't have that many pre-69 cards, and I have a lot to learn about grading.

Around 1976 I stopped collecting (I found "other interests" as a teenager, and they were left sitting mostly untouched for several decades). By then, my collection consisted of a couple thousand cards, mostly in the 1969-1975 range. Around 1991 I had a renewed interest. I think there must have been a lot of TV news and magazine coverage of valuable baseball card collections (there was no internet to speak of, so those would have been the only sources), so I took a trip to a local baseball card shop (there were dozens of them back then), and added to my collection. I bought a few complete sets from the 1987-1990 range, and a few individual cards from the early 80's. We all know what happened to values after that, and the cards sat idle for another extended period, until last week.

It's funny, as I look through my cards, I can see that over the years I got much better at careful handling. Most of my 1969 and prior cards suffer from handling flaws and have soft edges and corners (none of us ever thought that pristine condition would matter). The 1970 and 71 cards are generally better preserved (especially, and unfortunately, the lesser-known players since those didn't get handled much), but I think it's very unlikely any would grade higher than PSA 7 or 8, with most being a couple/few ticks below that. The black borders on the 1971s are pretty unforgiving and simply sorting through them seemed to wear the black on the edges. The 1974s, as a set, seem to be in the best condition overall.

So I hope I've come to the right place, and that there are a number of you with interest in the late-60's and early-70's cards. There are dozens of online forums for sports cards, but most of the other forums I came across seemed to have most of their activity around much newer cards, which I'm not really interested in. If I've not come to the right place and there are other forums where the 60's and 70's cards are more popular, please let me know.
Thanks.