Buck Barker
 

Did anyone in this group know or trade or buy from Buck Barker?

I have a few Buck Barker cards from his collection, never did business with him, he passed away in 1982

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Buck Barker
 

I'm now an old guy, but I always thought of Barker as being from another time, like Lionel Carter.
He had this very distinctive style of printing and would put notations on his stuff. I have old Reach Guides and some Conlon photos where he added things like player stats.
When he died, Rich Hawksley, in St Louis, and, I believe, Lew Lipset auctions off his collection.
I got the impression that he was very popular among the older collectors.
lumberjack

I hold a T5 Pinkerton with Buck's printed name and address on the back. It is one of my "never sell" treasures.

I knew Buck and bought many cards from him. He set up at a few shows in the early days of conventions. It was like a circus around his table. He had SO many cards and was just beginning to sell. He was really pleased at how much he was able to sell cards for (it was obviously much more than he had ever thought possible). He was a lot of fun to deal with and to speak to about cards. And a real throw-back to an earlier time of collecting even then.

Here is a sampling of Buck's penmanship when using the backside of cards as a notepad when researching the identity of players in issues like the Zeenut cards shown. As a note, the "Mitchell" card on far right of second row mostly has writing by someone else, but Barker added "Oliver" to it as well as the last name and two digits on bottom right indicating the person from and what year he obtained this card.

Brian

I wasn't collecting back in his day but here is a letter dated New Years Eve, 1956. (no doubt going to Walt Corson)

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I never met Buck in person but corresponded with him on both collecting and baseball research topics. He really liked W issues and was a fountain of knowledge on them, which he shared generously. This was back when the ACC was the only source otherwise. He schooled me on strip cards and we traded them. I recall him sending me a cigar box full of his strip card duplicates, saying, "Take what you can use," since it was so difficult to describe all the sets and permutations. As a SABR member, he was particularly keen on identifying the players in the T sets and sent around lists of the IDs of future/past major leaguers in T209, T210 and T212, which I can no longer find. One of the treasured portions of my collection is Buck's D311 set, on the backs of which he wrote each player's full name and playing history plus the name of the collector he acquired the card from as well as the year he obtained it. He was a truly nice man.
B0b Rich@rds0n

Will today's most visible collectors still be talked about decades from now? I tend to doubt it because grading has, what's the word, sterilized everything and taken provenance and individuality out of things, but who knows?

I don't know that answer, probably a few but not a lot. I have always felt when there is provenance to our collectibles, even cards, it makes them more desirable.

I was the 2nd "family" to have owned this Arrelanes and Melchoir, sold them in my first collection, then got them back in the BST section :). No value add, but still kind of cool to know where they originated...

Same exact thing with the Weaver, but I soaked him because when I got him the first time (Trucker Boy find) he had a big blob of scrapbook paper stuck to the back.

Buck Barker
 

I too did some deals with Buck back in the day. I was happy to just pick up the below with one of his stamps on the reverse. Brought a smile to my face.

When he passed, I actually bought from Tom Reid some of the "remnants" of his cards. The tough series 57-73, an amazing group of Post Cereal Cards and a few other things. The cost was $1200 which in 1983 dollars was... well let's say a fraction of what that would cost today.

That purchase also moved me from a decent regional dealer to a dealer with NSCC worthy inventory. A couple of the Post Ceral cards had his information on the back and those cards are amongst the very few cards I wish I had never sold in any way

I used to own an N28 (either Clarkson, Keefe or Kelly), that had Buck's address stamp on the back of it.

I bought it in the early 1980s from Larry Shane; and regrettably sold it in 1991.

Steve

I've been enjoying the posts about Mr. Barker. Thanks to All of you. I recall hearing of him. Then, in the early 90's, seeing one of his lists. And then, seeing correspondence from the late 50's back and forth between him and the collector who was buying from and asking questions of Buck.

Baseball has a significant history component, not just through a season, but on from season to season, and transcending generations. Collectors of the old cards have an interest in the history of the game, the cards, and often in the history of the hobby. And that is the history of Mr. Burdick, and the gentlemen who followed... Egan, Barker, Haber, Carter, Heitman, Lipset, and many more.

Imagine the only way to communicate with someone is to make a very expensive long distance telephone call, or write them a letter and wait patiently for the response. It wasn't that long ago....

I think a bunch of us don't have to imagine that, we remember that. We remember waiting until 5pm to call, for that slight reduction in rates; or if it wasn't going to wake up someone, we'd wait until 11pm to call, when the long distance rates dropped to their least expensive rate.

(And the word processing program for Net54 has a grammatical suggestion of hyphenating 'long distance', which isn't how I recall it was used in the 70's. But then I guess 21st century folk have no clue as to what 'long distance' was.)