Quote:
Originally Posted by JollyElm
I always hated the 'number 1 card accrues more damage' theory. Growing up in New York, there was not a single kid I ever knew who put the cards in number order. They were always sorted by team and then what we used to call 'junk' - league leader cards, checklists and other stuff that couldn't be classified by team - was put together in the back of the stack. Checklists were plentiful and everyone hated getting them, so we'd actively check them off. That's how we'd know when we finally had a full set.
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Not 50's, but early 70's when I started collecting (At least started buying more than one pack a year) I started putting them in order by teams. Having the 74 team checklists helped. But I didn't have all of them, and even tually gave up and started putting them in number order, with a few I thought were special going in pages and a binder that one of the stores carried.
What a project that first sorting was! I laid out all my 74s in one several lines across the floor of my room, leaving room for each number. it mostly covered the floor and took a long time.
The kids I knew sorted them a bunch of different ways. probably about half did it by number, the rest by team, except a couple kids who had "different " systems. One seemed to just keep them all disorganized in a shoebox. The other had some sort of system I think based on how much he liked the player. Oddly neither had much trouble finding a particular card for a trade.
We didn't usually bring a whole bunch of cards to school. Maybe 50 or so for flipping or trading.
The kids that did things by number did wreck a lot of first and last cards with rubber bands.
The other thing about number order is wether you stack with the #1 card face up or face down. I never noticed until I started buying sets that many people do it what's to me backwards. When I box them, #1 is in front facing front, and whatever is last is at the back. But most of the sets I've bought have #1 in the back facing forward and the last card in front. It takes a while for me to reverse them to my way of stacking.
So stacked like that, the #1 card is the bottom card and will also get exposed to spills and stuff like that a bit more often. (I lost a few last cards from that when I was a kid, a 75 Aaron being the worst loss. )
Steve B