Friends who don't understand pre-war collecting.

[sandmountainslim]

Just makes me want to shake my head.
I have a friend who is long time friend and plays in the same fantasy baseball league with me now/played in the same Little League with me 34 years ago and has collected cards since he was a kid. He collects Johnny Bench cards and has a pretty good collection of 70's thru modern cards mostly Topps. I try to talk bb cards with him and he likes my Dimaggio Exhibit and my Willie Mays cards and my Mantles and Hank Aaron cards as well as the Fleer Ted Williams stuff I have but when I try to talk T206 or anything from the pre-war era like my small Goudey collection he just turns up a nose at it all!
I was telling him about my T206 Gandil and the Cicotte card I got last week and I may as well been telling him about Soccer or WWE cards, "Nobody ever heard of those guys. Why would you pay money for them?" Nobody ever heard of them?? What baseball planet did you come from?
I need to start dissing his Johnny Bench rookie like he walked up with a Sammy Sosa collection
I had to rant to someone and ya'll are it

[BruceinGa]

I heard the same thing this morning at the Waffle House! Guys said they've never heard of those players.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by sandmountainslim

Just makes me want to shake my head.
I have a friend who is long time friend and plays in the same fantasy baseball league with me now/played in the same Little League with me 34 years ago and has collected cards since he was a kid. He collects Johnny Bench cards and has a pretty good collection of 70's thru modern cards mostly Topps. I try to talk bb cards with him and he likes my Dimaggio Exhibit and my Willie Mays cards and my Mantles and Hank Aaron cards as well as the Fleer Ted Williams stuff I have but when I try to talk T206 or anything from the pre-war era like my small Goudey collection he just turns up a nose at it all!
I was telling him about my T206 Gandil and the Cicotte card I got last week and I may as well been telling him about Soccer or WWE cards, "Nobody ever heard of those guys. Why would you pay money for them?" Nobody ever heard of them?? What baseball planet did you come from?
I need to start dissing his Johnny Bench rookie like he walked up with a Sammy Sosa collection
I had to rant to someone and ya'll are it

I actually think this is very common. People get stuck in one era of collecting and don't care about any other era. Post about modern cards on this forum and you would get the same response as posting about WWE cards. I think it is very normal really.

A good friend should at least act interested, I know when I bring up cards several of my friends act like they care.

[sandmountainslim]

Originally Posted by BruceinGa

I heard the same thing this morning at the Waffle House! Guys said they've never heard of those players.

Don't it just burn you up?? Lol it does me!

[sandmountainslim]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I actually think this is very common. People get stuck in one era of collecting and don't care about any other era. Post about modern cards on this forum and you would get the same response as posting about WWE cards. I think it is very normal really.

A good friend should at least act interested, I know when I bring up cards several of my friends act like they care.

I went to a flea market (Collinsville Trade Day) saturday and a guy with a table of junk had a common rough 59 Topps on top of a stack of cards held together buy a rubber band....so naturally I hoped there were MORE fifties Baseball cards in that pile. I asked to see the stack and there was that 59 followed by about 35 cards of Brutus Beefcake, The Undertaker etc lol I guess his ploy SORTA worked but I didn't buy anything so it didn't work like he had hoped.

[conor912]

That doesn't surprise me one bit. I think a lot of collectors, probably even the majority, directly associate collecting with their childhood or players they've actually seen play or both. As hard as it may be to believe at times, I would guess that prewar collectors make up only a very small percentage of the overall sports collecting community.

[drcy]

Tell him that Bench was soft, playing with gloves and shin guards.

[BruceinGa]

10 or 12 years ago my wife and I would go to Scottsboro for Trade Day and Unclaimed Freight and made it once to Collinsville, lots of guns, chickens and goats, lol.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by conor912

That doesn't surprise me one bit. I think a lot of collectors, probably even the majority, directly associate collecting with their childhood or players they've actually seen play or both. As hard as it may be to believe at times, I would guess that prewar collectors make up only a very small percentage of the overall sports collecting community.

I agree. When people hear that I collect baseball cards, they ask me "who do you have?" I ask if they've heard of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Cy Young. Most of them haven't, but for those who do I tell them about or show them some cards.

I very rarely come across anyone who can identify lesser hall of famers, let alone Gandil and Cicotte. The last time someone at work said that he too collected, it turned out that he had a Derek Jeter rookie. That's why I'm here on Net 54. Without these guys I would never have anyone to talk with about pre-war cards.

[Section103]

I'm glad for all of them that just don't get it. I don't need the extra bidding competition.

[BruceinGa]

Originally Posted by Section103

I'm glad for all of them that just don't get it. I don't need the extra bidding competition.

Great point!!

[abothebear]

There was a steep learning curve for me when I first started looking into pre-war cards, and I collected cards for most of my childhood. And if I didn't have the internet I probably would have given up. Anything before Topps was fog in a land with little to get your bearings with. Building a context to understand it takes time and effort. And it helps to have an entry point. I started by looking for pre-war Cardinals HOFers, the team I was a fan of and a franchise that happened to have colorful characters and a winning history in parts of the pre-war era. From there I learned more history, and then knowing some history helped understand some of the other cards, and back and forth, etc. In some ways, though the sport and the medium are the same, pre-war card collecting is as different from modern card collecting as stamp collecting is.

[Stampsfan]

I'm always amazed at people who claim to be fans of any sport, and have little to no knowledge of anything historical. When I was in school and I had a reading project, it was all about any sport, and reading about days gone by. I still remember getting (and still have) the Mickey Mantle story, ordered in paperback through Scholastic books.

[toledo_mudhen]

Pre war refers to Vietnam..... Right?

[Bocabirdman]

Originally Posted by Section103

I'm glad for all of them that just don't get it. I don't need the extra bidding competition.

Exactly.....Phil Lesh, the bass player for the Grateful Dead, has wondered aloud, pre-decriminalization, "Do you think reefer would be as expensive as it is these days if we smokers didn't turn on so many damn people back in the day?".

[glynparson]

Gets my approval.

The worst is when you make a pick-up that you're super excited about but would rather not mention to your wife, then you think about telling one of your friends but quickly realize they wouldn't understand, so you then decide to post it in the pickups thread and get no response.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Gobucsmagic74

The worst is when you make a pick-up that you're super excited about but would rather not mention to your wife, then you think about telling one of your friends but quickly realize they wouldn't understand, so you then decide to post it in the pickups thread and get no response.

There are so many great, great cards listed in the pick up threads that sometimes they don't get responses. IF you have a really great, new pickup then could start a new thread, show it, and tell others to show that series too.....then you can get a little more exposure and have fun seeing other ones too. Just a thought. Many times I see a freaking awesome card and it gets a little overlooked; and it shouldn't.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by conor912

That doesn't surprise me one bit. I think a lot of collectors, probably even the majority, directly associate collecting with their childhood or players they've actually seen play or both. As hard as it may be to believe at times, I would guess that prewar collectors make up only a very small percentage of the overall sports collecting community.

If you're old enough, prewar is your childhood.

[SAllen2556]

I wonder what percent of pre-war collectors are also just history buffs in general? My guess is it's pretty high. Personally, living in Detroit, the history of this city is fascinating to me, and I read all I can about it. That's what got me interested in pre-war more than anything else. I think you need a certain curiosity of the past to appreciate owning anything with, say, Sam Crawford's name on it.

You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know. - Jerry Garcia

[tschock]

Originally Posted by SAllen2556

You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know. - Jerry Garcia

Hmmm... that was probably John Barlow, but hey, I'll go with it!

[nebboy]

Give him a good book about the pre-war era. The history may connect better to the cards for him. Just an idea.

Originally Posted by Leon

There are so many great, great cards listed in the pick up threads that sometimes they don't get responses. IF you have a really great, new pickup then could start a new thread, show it, and tell others to show that series too.....then you can get a little more exposure and have fun seeing other ones too. Just a thought. Many times I see a freaking awesome card but it gets a little overlooked and it shouldn't.

Good points Leon. I don't crave the feedback all that much but its always nice when a pickup you're excited about gets good response.

[Orioles1954]

The pre-war collecting hobby is only a tiny, tiny fraction of the overall sports collecting industry. From my experience, collectors of "shiny cards" are fans who do actually appreciate older players. However, from a historic standpoint, there is so much to explore that they don't know where to start. Conversely, I've found that many in the pre-war collecting hobby are far more elitist and reject anything they perceive as "new" off-hand. I don't actively collect anymore, but when and if I do return it will be toward modern cards.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

If you're old enough, prewar is your childhood.

That you Frank?



Tom C

[Nashvol]

I only dabble in prewar, but several years ago I asked a vendor at a local card show what his thoughts were about T206s and he said, "Good luck - most of them are fakes." I had been steered to him for his expertise.

My budget, not his comment, keeps me from delving deeper into them. I love the historical cornerstones of the hobby and the expertise of the members of this forum...

[Rookiemonster]

Originally Posted by Gobucsmagic74

The worst is when you make a pick-up that you're super excited about but would rather not mention to your wife, then you think about telling one of your friends but quickly realize they wouldn't understand, so you then decide to post it in the pickups thread and get no response.

The struggle is real lol . As I only have a few pre was cards I find that most don't even know mid to low range hofers from 50s and 60s

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

Originally Posted by SAllen2556

I wonder what percent of pre-war collectors are also just history buffs in general? My guess is it's pretty high. Personally, living in Detroit, the history of this city is fascinating to me, and I read all I can about it. That's what got me interested in pre-war more than anything else. I think you need a certain curiosity of the past to appreciate owning anything with, say, Sam Crawford's name on it.

You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know. - Jerry Garcia

I can relate to this. I was born in 1973 and have collected 1950s and 1960s. However, I am also a huge history buff (with a Master's to prove it), and I am beginning to put more and more of my collecting attention to pre-war as a result. Postwar has gotten sort of blah for me. I don't mean to belittle postwar collectors or anyone at all because that is what I have been. For me, pre-war takes me back to baseball's earliest days, and I find myself digging in and having to study to make sense of what I am seeing and trying to piece stories together.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[conor912]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

If you're old enough, prewar is your childhood.

True that. My grandfather was born in '31 and remembers collecting '38 Goudeys. He still calls them "the cards with the funny heads".

[Bocabirdman]

Originally Posted by tschock

Hmmm... that was probably John Barlow, but hey, I'll go with it!

Barlow lyrics indeed (Bobby did the vocals)

[clydepepper]

A few weeks ago, my brother and his wife came to town (they live in an Atlanta 'burb) along with my (half)sister from Utah.

I live alone and my condo is set up that way...just this side of being agoraphobic. In short, I'm not very skilled as a host.


Well, big brother prevailed upon me to show off some of my collection:

I went off to my secret hiding place and brought back one of my fire-proof safes.


There are 69 high-dollar cards in that safe and many of them have good stories behind either the player or the actual card.

As I expounded on each, I did not see any eyes rolling and heard no heavy sighs.


Whenever I discuss my cards to someone 'outside' the hobby, I try to explain that I'm attracted to the fact that each card is like a tiny time capsule; a unique slice of history.


My three guests, all being of the baby-boomer generation appreciated that note as much as the rich details I laid on them so very skillfully.


I do my best to stay away from those who don't appreciate history, especially those who refuse to learn from it.


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