The most dreaded eight word sentence in the hobby.

[Archive]

Posted By: Brian Van Horn

"My mom threw out my baseball card collection."

Now, we've all heard this statement at some point. Does anybody have any specific recollections of this happening to them or anybody they know?

This has not happened specifically to me, but I remember hearing this statement at more than a few shows over the years. I'm sure there have to be a few good stories to tell.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Mine was thrown out, but it wasn't a terribly large collection, so I survived it in one piece. I think the best card I had was a 1960 Hank Aaron, so when I got back into collecting my mom agreed to buy me a new one. Thought that was fair.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

As soon as I finished my last post I went into the other room to watch the Mets-Yankees game. A commercial was on and in it a kid picked up a baseball card and placed it against the wall. It was a 1960 Hank Aaron, exactly the card I posted about a minute before. Now that was spooky!

[Archive]

Posted By: davidcycleback

Mine didn't, and I kept them in my parents' home when I went to college.

If mothers didn't throw away cards, they would be less expensive today.

[Archive]

Posted By: Mike

Mine didn't. I took them when I left home. And I have honestly probably lived in 20 diffrent places, and two different states. How I managed to hang on to them, ranks right up there with my chances of playing shortstop for the Yanks. 0%. All my spare change went towards cards when I was a kid. I was obsessed. I still have thousands and thousands of cards from about 1958 to 1965. Then I met a pretty girl, and that as the end of card collecting. Until I hit 30 years of age, then I started up again. The one thing I did not take with me, was a few hundred mint Marvel comic books from 1963 to about 1967. and i mean mint. My mom sold them for 5 cents a piece at a garage sale. Many are hundreds of dollars now. I used to read them once, and then neatly stack them. Oh well.....in my next life.....

[Archive]

Posted By: judson hamlin

My friend's mom was going to throw out her son's cards, but gave them to me instead (1977 or so) :0p -- near complete sets of '72, '73 and '74. Thank you Mrs. Katz, wherever you are.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jerry

I went in the Navy in 1966 and while I was serving in Viet Nam , my mother gave my cards to the kid across the street. I know I had atleast (5) 56 Mantles.

[Archive]

Posted By: David Smith

When I first started collecting in 1977, the Minister of our church left and there were a number of fill-ins until the congregation found a new Minister. Every new Minister that came in, I would ask if he collected cards when he was young and if he still had them. Only one, that I can remember, said he did. He was older than most of the other temps, probably early 50's.

He said that he collected as a kid in the 1930's. When he went to serve in WW II, he put his cards and other things in the attic for storage. When he got out of the service, he went back home and some of the "more important" things were still in the attic but his Mom had thrown (or contributed to the paper drive) the cards away. I felt sick when I heard this.

Recently, at a Thrist Store that I go to, I was talking to an old guy who works there about sports and baseball and I asked him if he collected. He said he did back in the 1930's. He said he would go to the Drugstore in his town in Pennsylvania every weekend and buy packs or packages of cards. He would take them home, look at them and then put them in a box and store them under his bed. He, too, went to WW II but when he came back, his cards were still in his room. The problem came in the 1950's when the old house burnt down.....

David

[Archive]

Posted By: Paul

My mom didn't throw out my cards, but I did. My cards were in the attic in a box with no lid, my cat would hang out in the attic, so you can guess the rest.... Very stinky indeed.

[Archive]

Posted By: Bill Stone

1958 --we moved from California at government expense and my mom through out all non-essential items which unfortunately included my shoe boxes of 1954 and 1955 Topps ---later in life she gave me the huge volume of the Complete Picture Collection of Topps cards to make up for it --would rather have had the cards but I don't think any of us realized exactly what we had at the time.

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob

i thought the most dreaded eight words were: "be advised that UPS has lost your package."

[Archive]

Posted By: boxingcardman

"Honey, we need new furniture; sell some cards!"

[Archive]

Posted By: judson hamlin

Dear, what's this that came in the mail?

[Archive]

Posted By: Jay

"My mother is coming to stay with us."

[Archive]

Posted By: Dan Koteles

were you listening to Joplin and having a "sixties" flashback ?

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

I can't have a 60's flashback because in a manner of speaking I'm still there. I'll grow out of it one of these days!

[Archive]

Posted By: Ken McMillan

my mother was going to throw them out, but called me while I was at college before she did so. Needless to say, I came home on the weekend to pick them up. That was 25 years ago and I still have the bulk of them for my Cubs topps set.

[Archive]

Posted By: dennis

why is it that dad never threw out the baseball cards?

[Archive]

Posted By: Eric

My father collected baseball and hockey cards and comic books as a kid. This was through the late 50's and through most of the 60's. My grandmother threw out everything except about 200 hockey cards that managed to get misplaced. I have those hockey cards right now, and there are some good ones in there (Hull, Orr, Howe, Harvey). And they are in very good shape.

He doesn't remember specifics of his baseball card collection, but he did have a few. That bothers me a little bit, because we all know who played in that era of collecting, and some cards carry a very high premium.

His real love though, was collecting comic books. He does remember a lot of what he had, and when I hear about what was thrown away, it makes me sick to my stomach. Fantastic Four #1, The Amazing Spiderman #1, The Incredible Hulk #1. These were his favorite series, so he had a lot of these in sequential numbers. He also had a lot of the early Superman's, Action Comics, and so on.

Because this happened to him, he obviously vowed never to throw away anything I collected.

[Archive]

Posted By: peter ullman

My dad who grew up in the late 30's-early 40's remembers having baseball cards...but no specifics. He just lost track of them and assumes they were thrown away. His dad also had a babe ruth autographed home run ball that he gave away.

My childhood collection was mainly obtained from family friends whose kids had grown and moved out. They must have been bummed to return home someday to have found them gone! All those late 50's -present cards I literally gave away in exchange for a beat up old 77' camaro!

pete in mn

[Archive]

Posted By: davidcycleback

My dad wouldn't have thrown out my baseball card unless my mom told him to. Both as he wouldn't have an inclination and as mom was the boss over what was stored in the back of closets. So mom gets credit for the cards not being tossed. Dad gets credit by association.

My mom would keep our stuff, but it had better be packed away neatly. If I had kept my baseball cards in a garbage bag on the basement floor, she might have thrown them away. But I had them in boxes on a shelf in the back of a closet, so that was no problem.

The interesting thing is, though today I live about 2,000 miles from where I grew up, I live a couple of miles away from my retired parents. As I live in a condo and they in a house, I still have baseball memorabilia stored in their house.

[Archive]

Posted By: Paul S

My mom would drive me out to ADCO Sports Book Exchange where Goodwin Goldfaden would break out his stuff for me. I got my first pre-wars that way. So she knew the deal. She could drive me crazy in other ways, but not this one. If anything, I had been more lax in storing them through the years: there's been minor water damage and mold on a few. No more though.

[Archive]

Posted By: T E

Forget baseball cards. My dad, who was in sports newsreel biz, had collected Worlds Series programs from the years he was on the beat, 1948 thru 1961. Multiples, beautiful.

My room was a mess, I came back from camp, and everything was gone. Including dad's programs.

This one is even worse.

My dad was the on-camera guy for Movietone News. Jackie signs with the Dodgers, dad gets to know him well (Dad still wilth us, a blessing, he talked to me yesterday, Father's Day, about Jackie, what a sweet guy he was as well as what a great gal Rachel was)

So dad is setting up the shot of Jackie signing his contract to play major league ball. They do a shot of hoim signing a standard ML contract, not the actiual one. Then they want to re-shoot. Pop sticks the first contract Jackie signed in his pocket. Takes it home, puts it in his papers. Years later, goes looking for it, it is gone.

Did mom throw it out? Or did it just get tossed in one of our many moves back in the 60s?

We'll never know (although I do still keep an eye peeled anytime I'm looking through family documents)

As for my T206 collection, much of it was stolen from my apartment in NYC back in 1981.

[Archive]

Posted By: James

My mother never threw my cards out. I still have my 1990 Sundin RC - thank God for that.
Sundin is a hockey player just in case you guys were wondering. And yes I am from the vintage hockey board.

[Archive]

Posted By: T206Collector

...my mom kept my 1990 Donruss cards and 1987 Topps cards, otherwise I wouldn't have a constant reminder that shiny crap sucks sitting in box after box on shelves in my garage. (But, I still won't throw them away, of course.)