[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by trdcrdkid

And in response to some of the other posts in this thread, I don't think it does much good to view Mastro as a one-dimensional villain, incapable of positive human emotion. I'm sure he did love collecting and the cards themselves, and I have no reason to doubt that his friendship with Nagy and affection for his family was genuine. But Mastro does describe himself in the article as "a little rich kid from Jersey", and he obviously had quite a bit of money to throw around given that he set a new record by spending $1500 for a Wagner at the age of 19 (see here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=217776). So money was always a big part of collecting for him, and when the amounts of money grew exponentially in later years, the lure of cash obviously seduced him into doing bad stuff.

+1--I'm sure he loved the cards. We're all such a complex mixture bottled into one being.

Happy collecting,

Larry