Collect by team: what team and why?

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Posted By: david Poses

I've been doing my best to only buy cards of Yankees/Highlanders from pretty much any pre-war set that interests me (there are many). About a year ago it started bothering me that I had a collection that was all over the place (to each his own). I wanted to narrow my focus so that I had somewhat of a cohesive collection, relatively manageable goals, etc. I'd like to assemble raw subsets of T205, T206 and T207 Yankees, and have at least one example from the other criteria (pretty much any pre-war set that interests me).

I have kept the focus intact for nearly a year (minus a detour to collect T205 Minor Leaguers, which is nearly done), but I'm starting to branch out to Pirates cards with the same set goals and criteria.

Why New York Yankees? I live in New York, and my family's business is, and has been, the largest employer in the Bronx for the past 101 years. I feel a connection to the Bronx.

Why the Pirates? I have never been to Pittsburgh, but Pirates appear in so many sets that the Yankees are absent from (E93,95,96,D322,E90-2, etc) and I simply wanted in on those sets.

Do you collect by team? Which team? Why?

Here's one of my favorite Yankee cards and my first Pirate. Crappy condition, but it was an emergency that I buy something on Sunday...

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Posted By: JohnnyH

I am more of a set and player collector but my friend only collects St. Louis Cardinals. He has about 90% of all Cardinals from 1909-present. His dad always talked about gathering around the radio and listening to the games. He was a huge comic book collector and I gave him some vintage Cardinals years ago and he got hooked, probably hasn't bought a comic in almost 10 years. I love looking at the progression from prewar to modern day. Good luck with your Yankess and Pirates !!

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Posted By: Jason L

For me, it's the Cubs. Grew up there, tradition, etc. Instilled the love of the underdog in me.

Thus far, I have completed the T200, T201, T205 and T206 team sets. T207 is missing only the very very tough and exceedingly expensive Ward Miller, so I consider myself done with this one as well!!! (best part of collecting hobby is that I get to make up the rules!!!)

I have 1 T202, 1 E90 card, a few M101-4s and some postcards, and hope to add examples of the T204, T222, CJs at some point...

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Posted By: J Levine

I love this question and being able to tell this tale....

In 1981 I was ten years old. My grandfather, the main reason I love baseball, used to get great seats from his job (Sears and Roebuck) right behind the visitor dugout. My grandmother would always come with us and bring a paper and pen or a ball for me to get autographs. I loved catchers and was always bugging them for autographs. One afternoon I went to see the World Champion Phillies take on my Dodgers, I was leaning over the fence with my ball and pen screaming at Bob Boone for an autograph as he was warming up a couple of players along the side. After about 5 or 6 minutes of calling I was getting desperate. The batting practice cages were coming down and the players were heading inside. I yelled one more time at Boone as he went into the dugout. The player immediately behind him grabbed my ball and pen and walked into the dugout as well. I turned around and must have looked shocked and defeated and I remember my grandmother dryly saying, "well, maybe you were too loud." A minute or two later the player who grabbed my ball came back and handed it to me saying, "Here, maybe this will keep you quiet." The ball was signed by Boone, McGraw, Schmidt, and the player who grabbed it, Steve Carlton. From that moment on I became a Phillies fan with Boone and Carlton my two favorites. Still have the ball in the safe.

In 1989 I decided I wanted to put together a Phillies colleciton. I started out with Topps issues and worked my way backwards. An off-hand comment by a fellow collector started me thinking on a Phillies master list. I spent the next two years putting together a list of every Phillie card ever issued between 1886 and 1989. The list was 21 pages long with a 7 font. Over the years I have whittled the list down to 13 pages and, thankfully, a 14 font. The listed still contains 3 full pages of Old Judge cards, 1 full page of 19th century, and a whole bunch of oddball and rare stuff. I have been fairly fortunate over the years to get some great pieces and type cards for my collection.

When I am not focused on my Phillies collection, I work on T205s.

Joshua

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Posted By: leon

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

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Posted By: Mike

Good question, David.

For me, its been pre-war Pirates for some time now - with the not-so-minor digression into T207 in all its glory(?). Can't really say why, other than the Pirates have been my favorite team since the early 70's, and there really wasn't anywhere else to go after the Topps team sets. After being away from the hobby for the entire 90's, I picked back up again relatively recently as things go.

edit for spelling.
--
Mike

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Posted By: Tim

I collect Boston National cards. I found that any other cards had a short shelf life in my collection. So I focused my collecting primarily on them. My main focus has been a T206 Super Set, but as the availability of those cards have slowed down I have started a T205, T207, and N300 Boston set.

I have fun sets for Braves players that have won NL Rookie of the Year, NL MVP, and now I'm working on a set for all the Braves that have hit for the cycle.

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Posted By: Jeremy

I collect the Nashville team. Whether it be the Nashville Sounds(78-Current) or the Old Nashville Vols(1901-1964), collecting the city I have grown up in and lived my entire life is pretty rewarding. I starting collecting Nashville Sounds Team sets as a boy... They started strong out of the gate in 1978, and with in just a few short years Willie McGee and Donnie Baseball came through among several other's that made being a Sounds fan a blast. I remember Jordan Mania when he was in AA ball with B'Ham and the games would be sold out when he came to town to face off against our AA team (Nashville had 2 teams for a couple of years fielding Double A and a Triple A Team) I remember sneaking in my Hitachi 8mm video camera and taping MJ's every move in RF, including his AB's as well. I had tix on the front row in RF and burned a few hours of the NBA Legend in spikes. As a collector, I have been all over the board, and about 4 years years ago I started selling off my HOF collection. (I think I was down to about 14 HOF players or so) I was wanting to pursue my Nashville theme a little more so I started buying T210's, then into T211's, and so on. Fast Forward 4 years later and I still am as passionate about the Nashville Southern League stuff as ever. (Just dog gone hard to find, but the wait is worth it...) This has been my most rewarding collecting venture and I don't see any end in sight as I still am trying to complete every known card of a Nashville player. Seems like a lofty goal, but there really are not that many types out there, but of the types, they are certainly rare. I think the T210's set the passion on fire and followed up with the Red Sun's and the T213 Coupon's, I became totally hooked. I also have enjoyed the Caramel side of Nashville with Colgans Chips. I have recently been putting together Hindu's. I certainly lack some from every Type, and I have also been acquiring Bats,Balls,Photo's, and have recently acquired a very rare 1908 Team PC from a board member that depicts the Championship team of the Southern league from that year. (Probably my pinnacle piece). I collect mostly on the pre-war side, and I am still in search of a 19th century cabinet, cdv, photo of a Nashville team or player... Also I still lack 4 team sets from the Sounds so my collecting of Music City will keep me busy for some time, but also keep my budget in check as so far for 2009, I have only acquired one piece. A E270 Red Border... My ultimate goal with these cards is to eventually display them via a website. Simply to share with other Town/City collector's.

~ Jeremy ~

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Posted By: Larry Ordet

Josh - great story re: Lefty.

Since I was a kid, I've always collected Phillies' cards. I have a very large Mike Schmidt collection and my kids have started on Utley, Howard, Hamels and Rollins. In the past 10 years, I've started focusing more on the pre-war Phils, grabbing a '33 Klein first and then moving to a couple of Alexanders (Sporting News Supp and M101-4), to add to Ashburn, Roberts, etc. My biggest add was a Mayo Del and I've been looking for a Mayo Hamilton to give me a "matched" set. I have a number of other Phils' stars to add, including Sam Thompson, Sherry Magee (an easy one, just haven't done it yet), etc. I'd like to add a lefty Jack Clements, but haven't found the perfect one (cheap, nice) yet.

Josh's amazing list is a lot longer than mine, which is probably a good thing!

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Posted By: Marty Ogelvie

Great Story Josh.. would you be willing to share that list of yours?

marty

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Posted By: Larry Ordet

Forgot to ask - Josh (or anyone), are there any Lajoie cards on the Phils' list?

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Posted By: J Levine

I honestly do not share the original for the simple fact that over the years I have added and subtracted to it. The original list is on a disk in my safety deposit box. If you want to see the current list of needs it can be found here:
http://www.oldbaseball.com/wantlists/philwant.htm

The answer to the Lajoie question unfortunately is yes, and it is a rather pricey one at that...
M101-1 Sporting News Supplement

Off the top of my head that might be the only one issued during his career with the Phils.

Joshua

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Posted By: Rich Klein

Or did you live there in the mid 1990's -- I could have sworn I met you as you were very advanced at the time with computer skills and using them to get Phillies you needed

Regards
Rich

P.S. If I did meet you; it was while I was visiting with Frank and Vivian Barning

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Posted By: Marc S.

I was four years old when the Phillies won their first World Series. Like Larry, I have a fairly extensive Mike Schmidt collection. Given that there is only a limited amount of budget to collect pre-war interests, I've found it particularly enthralling to get involved in, study and collect pre-war Phillies.

My favourite "could have been" player is Chas. Ferguson. My neatest item related to him is a one page note on Philadelphia National Ballclub letterhead written entirely by hand (and signed by) Harry Wright, to serve as a one-year contract extension for Chas. More importantly to me, the item is ex-Halper, and as some may now, as a 15-year old punk, I was given the opportunity to spend a day at Halper's collection with Joe D.

Phillies all the way -- so much rich history. Plus, from a personality perspective, I am a bit of a masochist. Despite being the reigning World Champions, the Phillies could win every game (e.g. 162-0) for the next seven seasons and still not be .500 as a franchise.

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Posted By: Ken McMillan

David,

I actually collect 3 teams with a very narrow focus. First, like Jason, 1912 T207 Cubs. I am missing the 2 tough cards in Ward Miller and Vic Saier. I also collect all the Topps cubs including all errors and variations. This is a complete set up to the moment. The reason for the Cubs is they have always been my team since the late 60's. Growing up in Central Illinois, you are either a Cub fan or a cardinal fan and there is not much else.

I also Collect E121 series of 80 and 120 Yankees and Giants. The reason for this is that my great great uncle played for the Yankees in the 1921 World Series. His name was Elmer Miller. He led off the series for the Yankees and got a single being the first Yankee to ever get a hot in a world series. He was able to reach second on a sacrifice and he scored on a single off of Ruth's bat becoming the first Yankee ever to score a run in a world series. Hence the reason for a 1921 World Series collection.

Of course I also collect all varieties of Uncle Elmer's cards (10 different varieties to date)


Fun question

Kmac

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Posted By: Anthony S.

I collect Dodger cards. Then I draw small manacles on the players' wrists and conduct show trials.


Five Days until Giants Opening Day.

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Posted By: J Levine

Rich,
It very well could have been me. I do live in Southern California. Frank actually did a write up on me and my collection in SCD in the late 90s. I would not call myself advanced but I was certainly using the computer to acquire cards before it became the norm for collectors. I was on the Prodigy bulletin board service in the late '80s when Prodigy would not allow buying and selling of items over their service. We used to have to have a code to buy i.e. I will give you 11 George Washingtons for you E92 Magee...

My original ebay account was dated June 1996 as well and the very first item I bought was a Father and Sons Shoes Phillie. Have not seen another on ebay since and only a handful in major auctions over the last few years. I remember no picture for it (as many did not have pics back then) but I took a chance and was very happy with the result.

Things on the computer front in terms of bargains and phillies have certainly dried up but every now and then I am surprised by something (heck, just ask Brad Green about a Phillies/A's set we cannot identify).

Joshua

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Posted By: Scott

I grew up in the west-side suburbs of Chicago and have been a White Sox fan ever since. Got into vintage card collecting about 5 years ago and have tried to collect as many differenct types of cards that feature Sox players. After obtaining what I call the more common vintage types (T200, T201, T202, T205, T206, T207, T3, caramels, Cracker Jacks, Goudeys, Exhibits, etc) I became a bit frustrated as there are several sets that don't feature Sox players. I attribute this, in part, to the fact that the Sox have been a mediocre at best franchise and have not been blessed to have many of the game's greats play for them. I spend most of my time now looking for harder-to-find card types (eg. E107 Breisch Williams, E90-3, rare backs) as well as players who played for the Sox but are shown when playing for other teams--this allows me to focus on sets with no Sox players and/or minor leaguers and/or foreign cards.

While I have been rather disciplined in my focus on White Sox players, I somehow managed to pick up a Wagner E102 and am constantly tempted to pick up some of the other big names as well as start on some of the many T206's I like.

I only know of a couple other Sox collectors--guys I ran into thanks to this board.

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Posted By: Jim Rivera

I collect the Baltimore team, mostly because I live in Maryland and I grew up within walking distance from Memorial Stadium. I went to my first O's game in the late 60s and was in full force in the 80s going to every 3-buck night. During the late 70s & 80s, the Orioles had 3-buck night and if you went to every 3-buck night, you would see every American league team. I have been hooked on the Baltimore team since I was a kid and started collecting the Topps cards around 71 or so when I was six.

Later, about 89/90, I got into T206 and have been adding vintage cards to my Baltimore collection ever since. I have most Topps and vintage issues from T205, T206, T213, T214, T216, C46, CJs, E106 and some OJs and Goudeys.

My wife also worked for Crown Petrolium in the advertising department. She would always have tickets to the games. Brooks Robinson was the spokesperson of Crown and they would both be there at the grand openings of the new stations.