Hank Aaron

[Shoeless Moe]

It might be just me, but it doesn't seem like Hank Aaron gets the respect Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, Mantle, & Mays get when it comes to collecting.

Is there anyone on the board whose focus is Aaron, or just in general anyone have any neat/unique Aaron items.

Show what ya got, please.

[Sophiedog]

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[Sophiedog]

In my opinion Aaron's Signed items are way undervalued

[MrSeven]

Found some PSA/JSA 8x10s for under $100. Think I'll be getting a few soon.

[irv]

I believe there are a lot of Hank Aaron collectors on here.

His RC has continued an upward climb since I joined the site in January of 2016 and I don't see that stopping anytime soon.

I have a few Aaron cards, not his RC, unfortunately, but one is definitely on my "hope to own one day" list.
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ron+collection

[Topnotchsy]

I would love to pick up a nice Aaron Negro League item, but have not come across anything to this point. Some amazing pieces were sold back in 2008 when many items from Syd Pollock's estate were sold, but I wasn't in the market then.

[Sophiedog]

Originally Posted by MrSeven

Found some PSA/JSA 8x10s for under $100. Think I'll be getting a few soon.

If you're looking to get Aaron signed photos it would be best to look for seldom seen photos and photos with vintage signatures. Always best to look for those then the ones that everyone else has. As a Mickey Mantle collector I look for his vintage signatures because they are much scarcer than the later autograph circuit ones...those also seem undervalued as well.

[Runscott]

I recently acquired an Aaron 1970's store model Louisville Slugger that is in nearly perfect shape. It was not my primary purchase but was included with something else. I would love to have Aaron sign it.

Aaron is sort of an enigma to me - as a kid he was one of my favorite hitters, along with Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Frank Howard. To us kids, the Aaron card was as sought-after as Mays or any other player after Mantle, and that was well before Aaron passed Ruth. I lived near Houston and we saw the Braves play a lot. Everyone seemed to be at the game to see Aaron (and the Astros) - I never heard anything negative. Yet Aaron has had plenty of bad words for the South and Texas, among other things. I'm sure he didn't imagine the negativity, but I was never too happy with his lumping all of us together.

[Exhibitman]

My close friend/card rival when I was in primary school was a guy named Michael. We competed to find troves of vintage cards around Manhattan. He collected Clemente, I collected Mays, who I started to idolize at age 8 when he returned to NY to play for the Mets. My uncle took me to Shea once to see the great man and I got to see Lou Brock play too. With the help of the ASCCA show in 1976 I put together a run of every Topps Mays card. I remember turning down a 1951 Bowman at the show saying "I don't collect those." I had the Mays cards until I was in my twenties. I soured on Mays later in life, once I met the man at a show. I was very excited to meet him, of course, boyhood idol and all, so I carefully rehearsed what I was going to say when I was finally in the presence of the great man. I said my piece, Mays didn't even acknowledge me, just rolled my baseball across the table to the handler like he was shooing a cockroach from his dinner plate. I was so disappointed in that non-interaction that I sold off my entire Mays collection, 1952-1973, including the autographed ball [which I'd had Mantle and Snider sign too]. For years I refused to own a Mays card. I've made peace with the Say Nothing Kid since then--you gotta have Mays in a baseball card collection--but the idolization was dead the moment I left his presence.

Which brings me to Hank Aaron, the second player I decided to collect. I remember Aaron's quest for the record in the early 1970s. I was too young and too innocent to understand the social and racial ugliness that existed around the edges of the quest; all I knew was that Henry Aaron ["OH! Henry!" as the candy commercial said] was the greatest baseball player around, especially after 1973 when Mays was gone. I was so thrilled to pull an Aaron card from a pack, something I did in 1971-72-73-74-75-76, and had so much fun chasing down the record-holding cards in 1973 and the Hank Aaron Special series in 1974. I put together a complete run of his Topps cards as a kid in 1977. My respect for the man and his accomplishments has done nothing but grow over the years, especially after I read his autobiography and realized what he had to endure in 1973-74 when he neared 714. And best of all, when I got to meet him, Mr. Aaron was every bit the kind gentleman I'd expected him to be.

Figured I'd toss out a few oddball items I enjoy:





My autograph; got it in person:



Nice to have the souvenir ticket with it so I know when and where I got it.