[brian1961]

Arnie----Hate to say it, but a lot of people aren't intelligent enough to appreciate the merits of vintage lesser grade cards. Don't give up. If you haven't already done so, arm yourself with a bit of quick history of the facts of cardboard life to convey:


-- the paper drives of two world wars
-- the millions of mothers throwing away their children's card collections--- unless the kid himself threw them away during adolescence
-- as millions of people moved to the suburbs in the 40s-50s, and really anytime, objects seen as junk were left behind or pitched. I lost half my childhood collection when my family moved to a different Chicago suburb in 1964.
-- that card preservation holders were not even invented until the 1980s
-- baseball cards were not perceived as valuable until the adult hobby began to organize in about 1969. Collecting Consciousness, whereby everyone started to save everything, began in the mid-1970s
-- long ago, when baseball cards were simply thought of as cheap boys' toys, boys handled them a lot as they loved them, looking over the pictures and the write-ups again and again--improving their reading, math and organizational skills. They played games with their cards--flipping and other thought-up games. They used them to enhance the sound of their bicycles. I remember reading a story in the magazine, Reminisce. Kids would take their collection of Goudey cards and, with a hole-puncher, punch a hole in a bottom corner area, then attach their stack of cards to a sturdy detachable ring. They'd wear their ring of cards around a belt or belt loop. Before and after a neighborhood game, they'd show off their cards, and perhaps work a trade. Yup, cards were loads of innocent fun.

This might help, emphasis on might. If not, throw it back at them with something they might relate to. Is the Barbie you played with as a girl pristine? Why not? Is the car you drive still pristine? And why not, bub?

You collect rare survivors from a time when cards were loved, but often, dis-carded. It is what it was.

--Brian Powell