What was the salvation of the Prewar card hobby

[Exhibitman]

Oh, yeah, the home run chase, boy, did that open the spigot of interest in baseball history in cards and Topps was really on it. First, the 1973 all time leader cards. I wonder how many kids' first Ruth, Cobb, Young, or Gehrig card was a 1973 Topps ATL card? I know my friends and I chased those cards relentlessly.



The 1974 Aaron card and subset put me on a chase for every Aaron Topps card.



And don't forget the 1975 Topps MVP set. I went after the subset and the actual cards. Bitterly disappointed to learn that there was no 1955 Campanella or 1962 Wills. It all just sucked me into the vintage vortex. For me, the capstone was the 1976 Topps All Time All Stars subset. A perfect set for the Bicentennial of the USA and Centennial of the National League.



I don't know of anyone here bothers with them, but that was also the era of an explosion in really obscure regional sets and product sets. I felt like I was just stumbling across pissant baseball sets everywhere i went



We'd all end up with bits and pieces of weird stuff in our collections that we never could quite figure out.