Quote:
Originally Posted by rgpete
If you bought the star cards like Ruth, Young, Dimaggio, Williams, Mantle and etc back in the 70's and 80's you were lucky getting in on the ground floor before the hype.
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Quite.
I think it should be mentioned that the hobby grew exponentially in the early 70s at the rate of almost year by year. It was in the mid-70s when John Q. Public was finally made aware of the increasing value of baseball cards through television reports and various feature articles in newspaper and magazines.
Result?
The public began to dig in their cellars, attics, trunks, closets, garages, and those of their parents and grandparents. Once in a great while white whales would be found and brought to the hobby via shows, answers to advertisements placed in newspapers. Certain dealers, especially Alan "Mr. Mint" Rosen, were spending a fortune in advertising just to get the attention of hobby people and particularly any of those fortunate few who found those white whales. As I am certain you already know this, among those who phoned Mr. Mint was a guy in the mid-1980s, whose Dad was a rep for a sporting goods distributor. He had this one sealed case left over from the early 50s....the find of a case of 1952 Topps High Numbers and semi-highs. From which eventually came the 10 PSA graded MINT and GEM MINT 1952 Topps Mickey Mantles, as well as a the rare opportunity to purchase ultra high-grade semi-highs and the intensely desirable other high numbers. I dearly wish I had ... oh never mind.
It was indeed a ground floor boom time.
Collecting hobbies virtually always have items that are particularly prized, and valued accordingly if they have been certified/authenticated and graded Near Mint/ Mint or better.
Interesting topic. ---Brian Powell