John, welcome back to the hobby and to Net 54. I truly enjoyed reading your collecting history. I have a gut feeling that before too long, you'll get the itch to dive into pre-War cards (gotta stay one step ahead of your brother!).
I met Killebrew once, at a local card show c. 1990. After his signing commitment was finished, he didn't just disappear like most signers do. Rather, he roamed the aisles of the show for a couple of hours, chatting with collectors and dealers and answering all the questions that were thrown at him. He came across to me as one superduper-nice person. Funny thing is, I was not a Killebrew fan when he first came to the Senators, my home-town team, as a "bonus baby" in the mid-1950s - I thought the Senators made a huge mistake because he struck out so much in his early days. I was a Little Leaguer at that time, and it was a Cardinal sin to my Dad whenever I struck out, because Dad always preached contact hitting to me - consequently, my/our heroes were the .300 batters who hit mostly singles! Besides, I was a skinny kid who managed to hit only one home run during my entire Little League career!
I, too, got back into collecting as an adult, in the 1980s. Fortunately, Mom didn't throw out my 1955 - 1960 childhood collection (yes, I still have my Killebrew rookie card from my childhood days). I had no idea that bb cards existed long, long before WWII until I discovered bb card shows and went to a couple of them. After a few years of working towards completing my 1955 - 1960 Topps & Bowman sets and starting some earlier 1950s sets and later 1960s sets, I went to Bill Huggins' (now Huggins & Scott Auctions) shop one day and traded him some of my 1960 Topps dupes for a T207 Walter Johnson - this is when the bug hit me to focus on pre-War cards, which I have done ever since.
Hope this dissertation hasn't put everyone to sleep!
Val
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