Guys...i couldn't agree more with the evolutionary factor of both the hof-rookie craze and the subsequent inflated, over-produced era.
It seems like most of us got "burned" if we were collecting in that era, but we've overcome.
If it weren't for that era, I wonder how many of us would even still be collecting?
Personally, about 1987 some friends from my softball team started talking about baseball cards one day...it reminded me that I still had dozens of boxes back at my mom's house...it wasn't long before i was reliving the early 70's by rummaging through those cartons.
Over the next few years i bought thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of baseball,football and hockey cards.
Again most folks seem to crap on the monthly Beckett magazine that dominated that time, but they did include pricing back to 1948 Bowman, and those listings eventually made me seek out older cards by any means possible.
SCD was also in its heyday, so the ads contained many resources to get older cards.
So while the mid 80's overproduction, Beckett and SCD no longer get much respect among the collecting community...i would think of them as stepping stones, or foundations of what has evolved into more advanced collecting.
Naturally, i wish i hadn't spent the time and money on the cards that I mostly gave away or want to throw away, but without those roots, I doubt I would have eventually discovered the passion I have for the pre-war sets, HOFers and the history of each.
Now i just mark it off as the cost of learning
