Vintage Cards - Not

[53Browns]

It never ceases to amaze me when you see an ad in the paper for someone selling "vintage" baseball cards. Then when you go to view them you see it is loads of crap from the 80's and 90's. Vintage???? Please!

Sorry, just had to vent for a second.

[FUBAR]

craigslist is full of vintage cards from 1991

[53Browns]

I guess if they call that stuff "vintage", they would call the stuff we collect, "ancient".

[ullmandds]

Perhaps the problem lies with the overusage and mis-usage of the term vintage. Vintage is only supposed to be used in conjunction with a year...ie..."this card is vintage 1910." But today, the word is more commonly used to mean something that is once again in fashion. So maybe we should be more specific in our wording in relation to "old"...I mean really old baseball cards.

[ctownboy]

I can not tell you how many times, in recent years, I have seen the words "vintage" and "old" used to describe baseball cards and memorabilia in auction, yard sale and classified ads. Then, when I call about the items, I find out the stuff they are trying to sell was made after 1980.

That is why I was shocked about three weeks ago when I went to a yard sale that was advertising baseball cards for sale to find out the cards really WERE "old".

A 62 year-old man and his wife were selling their home and he had cleaned out a closet and found a shoebox with the cards he had collected as a teenager. They were from the mid-1960's and included a couple of Mickey Mantles and a Roger Maris. The man said he was asking $25 dollars for the box and they were the first thing that sold.

Because I made a wrong turn, I missed the cards by five minutes.

Other than that, I haven't seen many really old or vintage cards for sale in the last 10 years. Living in Indianapolis, I thought there would be more popping up out of the woodwork especially during the bad economic times we just had. So, I don't know WHERE the older stuff is.

David

[steve B]

Could it be a thing with younger people? After all, even 1988 donruss are the same age as some college graduates. So if you're young and define "old" in any way that relates to your own age, yeah, late 80's and early 90's cards are "old".

Steve B

Old? Kid I was a has been before you were born.

[ChrisStufflestreet]

When I was collecting as a kid during the 1980s, it seemed the "older" collectors usually considered 1973 a good "cutoff" year since the series ended then. In my own age group, 1980 is a more logical point; I began busting wax in '79 and new companies started selling cards in 1981.

However, in 1986...20 years was a reasonable amount of time to go back to consider cards "old." Well, today, 20 years ago was 1990.

When I go to shows or stop in a card shop for the first time, I know I'm going to have to have a protracted discussion about what I mean when I ask if they have old cards. "Here's some stuff from 1981." "No, a lot older than that." "Okay, 1976." "No...what do you have from the 1950s?" "Nothin, but here's a signed/game-used card of (pick a player who played 30-50 years ago), you can buy that..."

(sigh)

[ethicsprof]

i'm still shown the shinies in the best of antique stores.
looks like they'd know better.

best,
barry

[Vintagedegu]

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