The Macon Find

[Tsaiko]

First off, I’d like to thank Leon for hosting a grand central station for information about pre war baseball cards and of course all of the knowledgeable people here at net54baseball.

My grandmother gave me her baseball card collection when I was about ten and I’ve taken it out of my safety box at least once a decade to admire them. The last time I took them out it was in the 1990’s and there was no such thing as google. In 2009, I took them out again and it only took me about two google searches to find net54. When I first started reading net54 I was so naive that when I saw references to OJ’s, I thought people were collecting O. J. Simpson cards.
It’s been almost two years that I’ve been searching for information on her collection and I think I know everything there is to know about it. I’ve also learned a lot about the hobby in general.

I admit that I saw dollar signs after I received some initial feedback from people I told about the collection and had planned to cash the collection in and have some fun with the money – grandma would’ve wanted that.

So I sent a lot of the cards to an auction house, requesting that my grandmother be made prominent in the auction, so that she might gain some sort of recognition in the hobby. I sent pictures of her along with her bio and sat back to await word on the auction. Well, two or three auctions went by and none of her cards were in them and that’s when I learned an important lesson.
Auction houses can’t really afford to auction off anything that isn’t real nice or rare. My grandmother liked to handle her cards and none of her cards were in very good shape and weren’t worth any real money.
So I asked for her cards back and waved goodbye to my imaginary fortune. Once I had the cards back, I proceeded to scan them all, so I would have a digital record, and I realized that I felt a whole lot better keeping the cards. They are worth far more to me sentimentally than they are monetarily and maybe my heirs will feel the same way.
Imagine a pre teen girl keeping her cards until she is in her mid 60’s, then giving them away without any restrictions or advice on value, just love. That was my gram.

So, it’s been a lot of fun rubbing elbows with you guys, while I got to pretend to be a collector. I really have an education in something I never thought I would. I’ve also met some diverse characters that have shown me several sides of the hobby, so I feel like I’ve broadened my horizons during my brief run through these bases.

I wanted to honor my grandma and her collection the best way I could think of, so I built a website dedicated to her. It’s my first attempt at building a website and it’s rather simple, just 6 pages, but it does show her collection, which is it’s primary function. I need to rescan some of the cards and I will be adding more pictures and scans from her scrapbooks in the future, but I’m totally burnt out on cards right now. What’s done can be found here: www.themaconpeach.com Feedback welcome.
It’s been 50 years, almost to the day, that gram gave me her cards, so this is a real milestone for me. She had them for 50+ years and I’ve had them for 50 years. Hopefully they'll still be together in another 50.

A special thank you to the few people who helped me out, for your patience with me during my stay here, I really appreciate it.

Now back to my regular life, where the only thing I collect is dust….and the occasional taiko.