Buck Barker

[Treakle23]

Did anyone in this group know or trade or buy from Buck Barker?

[Jay Wolt]

I have a few Buck Barker cards from his collection, never did business with him, he passed away in 1982

[lumberjack]

I'm now an old guy, but I always thought of Barker as being from another time, like Lionel Carter.
He had this very distinctive style of printing and would put notations on his stuff. I have old Reach Guides and some Conlon photos where he added things like player stats.
When he died, Rich Hawksley, in St Louis, and, I believe, Lew Lipset auctions off his collection.
I got the impression that he was very popular among the older collectors.
lumberjack

[Yoda]

I hold a T5 Pinkerton with Buck's printed name and address on the back. It is one of my "never sell" treasures.

[brianp-beme]

Here is a sampling of Buck's penmanship when using the backside of cards as a notepad when researching the identity of players in issues like the Zeenut cards shown. As a note, the "Mitchell" card on far right of second row mostly has writing by someone else, but Barker added "Oliver" to it as well as the last name and two digits on bottom right indicating the person from and what year he obtained this card.

Brian

[Leon]

I wasn't collecting back in his day but here is a letter dated New Years Eve, 1956. (no doubt going to Walt Corson)

[Robert_Lifson]

Originally Posted by Treakle23

Did anyone in this group know or trade or buy from Buck Barker?

I knew Buck and bought many cards from him. He set up at a few shows in the early days of conventions. It was like a circus around his table. He had SO many cards and was just beginning to sell. He was really pleased at how much he was able to sell cards for (it was obviously much more than he had ever thought possible). He was a lot of fun to deal with and to speak to about cards. And a real throw-back to an earlier time of collecting even then.