[RTK]

Hardly mint...

The majority of my cards were obtained after riding my Schwinn Sting Ray through a field to the local Convenient store, standing at the counter trying to decide how much candy versus how many packs of baseball cards I would buy. I opened the cards in great anticipation, hoping to get Cubs and White Sox players. I kept my cards separated by team and held together with a rubber band. Myself and the neighborhood kids traded cards after our trips to the store. I have no idea how many Mantles, Mays or Aarons I traded. The value of my cards for me is how they relate to my childhood, my childhood friends and endless games of sandlot baseball we played. I've bought a few cards over my adult years; Ted Williams, Mays, Duke Snider, Ernie Banks, all '57's. I particularly like '57 cards despite them being from a time before I was born in 1960. I buy them regardless of the condition, more based on players I like and price. I'll probably buy more over time but I'm not an investor or an accumulator of cards, I just like the old cards and what they meant at the time they were printed. The '90's era of card collecting; rookie cards and special cards is lost on me. I never got caught up in that. I'll take a '67 Don Kessinger with rubber band marks any day.