This is the best thread I've seen in quite a while. Really enjoyed it, thanks!

Do you ever wish you would've held onto it and then sold it now? Not sure what you sold it for originally but dang...1.2 million off of an $1100 investment. That would've been a helluva payout.

How many kids in the '70s even cared about tobacco cards? All I cared about was finding Tigers players in my Topps packs. If I had somehow stumbled upon a Wagner, I would have traded it straight up for a 1979 Aurelio Rodriguez without batting an eye.

http://img.beckett.com/images/items_...6077/front.jpg

Hi Jeff:

At the time I sold my collection to Halper he was just coming into the hobby and was paying three times what anyone else was paying. The fact that at the time I was living about 20 minutes from him enabled him to visit and make it easy to move the collection.

Also I was soon to be married and wanted to start a business down the line. All of the above helped in my decision to sell.

Sure I have thought about it over the years. However the way I look at it is, if I held onto the Wagner I would have been baseball card "rich" and cash "poor".

I took the $$ I got from the collection and eventually turned it into a business that supported my family and me through the years, allowed me to own my own home mortgage free, put two kids through college loan free and have a net worth now north of what the Wagner sold for.

I would have not been able to start the business without the money I got for the collection. So, in the long run I think I came out OK.

BUT it sure would be nice to have my collection back, and as mentioned Wagner was not even my favorite card, nor were the tobacco cards. I know that is heresy here on Net 54!! I was REALLY into Topps stuff, test sets etc., odd ball issues and regionals.

Fred

Boy, does THAT hit close to home.

Sell when you can, not when you have to.:)

What a great thread

FRED M. : I KNOW YOU HAVE NO NEED FOR ANYONE TO EXPRESS THIS TO YOU, BUT AFTER READING YOUR VERY MOVING REFLECTION OF YOUR PAST, I AM REMINDED OF THE WORDS AND SPIRIT OF THE KNIGHT FROM "INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE"-----------"YOU HAVE CHOSEN.....WISELY."

SALUTE. ---Brian Powell

Enjoyable thread. Thanks for sharing Fred.

In about '73, when we were in 7th grade, some friends and I placed ads in The Trader Speaks and a new magazine called Sports Collectors Digest, offering something like 50 '71 Topps for a T206, or 75 '70 Topps for a T205, etc.
We thought we might get one or two, but the first week we got blitzed with T205's and T206's. We had to go thru the neighborhood and put signs up at school offering to buy collections just to fill the demand. All worked out fine, and we each ended up with about 150 T206's each and about 50-60 T205's. But it was a bit stressful the first few weeks filling the orders.

I love your story Anthony, that's entrepreneurship at its best! I can picture you and your friends scrambling to meet the demand, that's great.

RC