Well, this is really nitpicking but Paul's story reminded me of this one. In 1976 I was 9 years old and I had an older cousin named Kenny that lived in Kankakee, IL where my dad grew up. (We lived in O'Fallon, IL, metro east area of STL). Anyway, I was into cards for a few years and my cousin had a HUGE collection as far as a 9 year old was concerned. He was probably about 16 at the time. One day when we were up in Kankakee at my grandparents for the weekend he and his family came over and he had a big box with the top cut off (I think I remember it being an old Kool cigarette box) that was full of cards, all in vertical piles separated by rubber bands. There were probably in excess of 5,000 cards. The years ranged from 1974 back to 1955. There a couple thouand from 1973 and 1974. They were all his doubles and he was giving them to me. I remember being blown away and I started to look through some of them. The first pile I picked up and starting going through was 1959, where there were probably only 50 or so cards. I still remember one was Willie Mays #50 and I said "Look, Willie Mays"!!! He said "Let me see that!" and took it back! Well, I stopped looking at that point! I brought them home, and sorted through them. Some of the highlights included 2 Mike Schmidt RC's in incredible condition, tons of stars and high #s from 72, 69 and 68 Mantles, some great 66's including Billy Williams, #544 (you know if you put that set together), Horace Clarke, 65 Aaron and Mays. There were just a few in each year from 55-63, no really big stars. But what it did was give me great starter sets in those years, and about 12 years ago I started putting sets together back to 59, of which I finished about 2 years ago. My cousin passed away much too young a few years ago, but I was always grateful he was generous enough to give me all those cards. Even though Kenny was a Cubs fan.
02-16-2014, 02:47 PM
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