19th Century Card Prices in 1981
 

I was going through a box of old mags and found the first issue of BASEBALL CARDS from 1981. I was finishing High School.

Love the Lew Lipset article titled BEFORE THE SURGEON GENERALS REPORT, about 19th century cards. Some of you may have it. Includes a price guide.

See it below. Old Judges price $20. Old Judge Cabinet for $200, and HOF for $400. Hess Newsboys for only $75. Check out the price of Yum Yums.

All I collected then were the current baseball cards I could get from Topps. Was not collecting any vintage. Any of you remeber these prices?

Frank

The "good old days" were good in theory, but the reality was that it was almost impossible to find old cards back then for the normal collector.

bbcard1
True enough. I dont remember knowing how to look for or get to a card show at age 17. Figured only a flea market. In Miami, very little of the card market that I remember. Maybe Iggyman had a better idea about Miami market then. On top of it, I was concentrating on getting to college then.

This was my 1st Old Judge card. I purchased from Bill Mastro at a Plymouth, Mi show in the 1990's. $100.00 raw.

Joe

Great deal Joe

Frank

Gypsy Queen large
 

Gypsy Queen large- HOF'er $600.....give me a dozen please.

Very good point. No ebay, no Net 54, no local card shop even handling Old Judges. Everyone was excited about the fact Fleer and Donruss were producing baseball card sets to compete with Topps. Sigh....

I differ to beg
 

I agree that information about vintage cards, and tracking down specific cards was quite a bit more difficult back before the internet and ebay, but there were plenty of opportunities to purchase cards...Sports Collectors Digest was a once week treasure hunt I enjoyed much more than I do the daily ebay grind, and card shows could be extremely fruitful, as long as you had a wide range of collecting interest within vintage bb. I have a listing of 19th century cards for sale that Lew Lipset mailed out in the early 80's that would rival any top notch auction house offering today. And although I didn't subscribe (because I didn't know about it!) the Trader Speaks provided valuable input about vintage cards. But all these options just didn't come streaming into your house like they do now...you had to seek them out.

By the way my first Old Judge came from a SCD ad by Wayne Miller (if I remember correctly). It is a Good condition card with a nice bold photo of Ezra Sutton, and it cost me $12.00...so that Lew Lipset price guide was on target. It was the only 19th century card I owned until a couple of years ago.

Brian

But.........
 

Brian, perhaps you lived within driving distance of card shows featuring pre-war cards and possibly had card shops nearby which had tobacco and caramel cards for sale, but for those of us living in the hinterlands, pre-war cards were few and far between. As much as I hate the "new" ebay, the "old" ebay was directly responsible for many sets of pre-war cards I accumulated.
tbob

Not impossible
 

Hi Bob...I took exception to the previous statement that vintage cards were nearly impossible to find. Yes, I did live in a big city close to multiple card shops, but only a few handful of my cards came from shops. I relied on SCD ads, the occasional show and a few dealers such as Lipset, Fritsch, and later Mark MaCrae and auctions for my cards. All of these were available to collectors throughout the US...you just had to somehow find out about them. The internet has been great in connecting cards to collectors. My collection has benefited greatly as well from ebay and even contacts made on the internet and here on Net54. I was just pointing out that it wasn't impossible to locate cards back then. I fully acknowledge the incredible spending bucks for cards ease that exists today...my bank account reflects this.

Brian

Lew ran lists back in the 1980's he called "The Fortunate 500" that offered simply amazing material. I bet I still have it in one of my folders.