Lionel Carter and old time collecting

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Posted By: warshawlaw 

For those of you who get SCD (shrinking in size by the week, BTW), there has been a fascinating series of articles recently about "card master" Lionel Carter. Mr. Carter has been collecting for like 50 years and had friendships and correspondence relationships with just about everyone who was anyone in the early days of the hobby. He also kept his hobby correspondence and has been permitting SCD to run a series of articles excerpting his letter collection.

The articles are really interesting in terms of what they say about the hobby then and now. To begin with, there was a dramatic lack of information back then. The ACC was out, but there were no checklists to speak of, let alone price guides, and collectors frequently had no idea of what was out there in other regions. They also had to wait weeks or months for information that we now find readily on the internet or in various hobby publications.

There was a familiar chord of complaining: complaining about the hobby publications not being run professionally, about various dealers and collectors who charged too much or who did not pay for stuff they ordered, etc.

There were also the same "brags" about finds and collections.

Condition was barely a consideration. These people were trading cards worth pennies each, so they frequently made comments to the effect that while they would like nice cards, they were fine with excellent condition cards. Also, it is evident that the formal grading regime and nomenclature that we take for granted was in its formative stages, at best, really until the 1980's.

The articles also pointed out one aspect of collecting that has changed dramatically, for the worse IMHO: the decline of informal networks of collectors as the backbone of the hobby. Collectors relied on each other for information and material, and they established local clubs where they would meet, trade and do what we are doing here, discuss our shared passion.

Anyway, the articles are absolutely fascinating.