You may have a point there with the "last card" not getting as much damage as commonly supposed. However, the first card in early '50's sets definitely did get rubber-banded. There was no other way for kids to carry their collections around at that time, without fear of losing them. A friend of mine tried to beat the problem by hauling his stacks of '52 Bowman cards in his lunchbox. Then, opened it one day at noon to find jelly leaking from a sandwich onto the cards...not good. I guess you could have carried separate bags or boxes to the schoolyard, but 8-10-year-olds can only haul so much baggage around.
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