New member intro

[Mesquite]

Hi, new member checking in with my story. I recently pulled my box of baseball cards out of storage in the back of a closet, and thought I should figure out what I want to do with them. I began collecting as a kid, back in 1969, with the orange-backed Topps set. I vaguely remember buying the cards from a large "candy truck" (sort of like a "roach coach" food vending truck of today), which would regularly drive through the neighborhood, and all the neighborhood kids would swarm the truck.

The truck sold all imaginable kinds of candy, as well as baseball cards. The neighborhood boys would trade cards, or trade cards for marbles (card collecting and playing marbles were how we spent our time back then), or we'd bet cards on games of marbles. That's how I acquired my pre-1969 cards. I don't have that many pre-69 cards, and I have a lot to learn about grading.

Around 1976 I stopped collecting (I found "other interests" as a teenager, and they were left sitting mostly untouched for several decades). By then, my collection consisted of a couple thousand cards, mostly in the 1969-1975 range. Around 1991 I had a renewed interest. I think there must have been a lot of TV news and magazine coverage of valuable baseball card collections (there was no internet to speak of, so those would have been the only sources), so I took a trip to a local baseball card shop (there were dozens of them back then), and added to my collection. I bought a few complete sets from the 1987-1990 range, and a few individual cards from the early 80's. We all know what happened to values after that, and the cards sat idle for another extended period, until last week.

It's funny, as I look through my cards, I can see that over the years I got much better at careful handling. Most of my 1969 and prior cards suffer from handling flaws and have soft edges and corners (none of us ever thought that pristine condition would matter). The 1970 and 71 cards are generally better preserved (especially, and unfortunately, the lesser-known players since those didn't get handled much), but I think it's very unlikely any would grade higher than PSA 7 or 8, with most being a couple/few ticks below that. The black borders on the 1971s are pretty unforgiving and simply sorting through them seemed to wear the black on the edges. The 1974s, as a set, seem to be in the best condition overall.

So I hope I've come to the right place, and that there are a number of you with interest in the late-60's and early-70's cards. There are dozens of online forums for sports cards, but most of the other forums I came across seemed to have most of their activity around much newer cards, which I'm not really interested in. If I've not come to the right place and there are other forums where the 60's and 70's cards are more popular, please let me know.
Thanks.

[swarmee]

Welcome to the board; the boards at the bottom of the main forums page are for discussion of cards from 1950-1980, and 1980-current. So that's probably where you'll spend most of your time. It's great you still have your early cards; I had thousands from 1987-1993 and after carrying them around, I kept the stars and donated all the commons. Nobody tries to complete those sets anyways.

[clydepepper]

Welcome aboard.

There are indeed members interested in cards from the time frame you mentioned. Everyone I have dealt with have been upstanding, honest guys who share their vast knowledge on virtually every card ever produced. You in safe hands here.

Have fun and take an extended look around the 'property' to see all it provides.

Again, welcome to Net54,

Raymond

[trdcrdkid]

Mesquite --

Welcome! I'm a relative newcomer here myself (joined in February), and I don't spend much time in the post-war forums, but there's plenty of activity there (especially the 1945-1980 one), and I'm sure you'll be welcomed with open arms.

I'm a few years older than you (my childhood collecting years were 1976-82), but I also got back into it in 1991. I did buy a wax box of Topps and collect the set that year just for kicks, but I soon focused on older cards, which I had already started to get into in my early teens. I now have a couple of thousand pre-war tobacco and caramel cards (baseball and nonsport) and several thousand advertising trade cards from the late 19th century. About 10-15 years ago I decided to collect cards from the decade between when I was born (1966) and when I started collecting, because those were the bulk of the older cards that circulated when I was a kid. I now have complete Topps sets from 1968 (my favorite as a kid), 1974, and 1975, and near-sets of the other years from 1967-76. I also got the Topps sets from 1983-90 and some Fleer and Donruss sets from those years, but of course cards from that era are crazy plentiful and not worth much.

[swarmee]

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=201410

You may be interested in this club, at the thread above.

[Mesquite]

Thanks for the warm welcome, and for the pointers to the other discussion areas.

PS I can't seem to find any forum limits on posted photo sizes or maximum number of photos per post. Are there any limits like that?

[begsu1013]

welcome mesquite! fairly new here as well. i mainly post to the post war forum as that is what i mainly collect as well...1951 - 79, but check in over here at the pre war forum every once in a while as there are some good threads here and the wealth of knowledge here is absolutely incredible...
freedom of speech is also more tolerated on this board vs some of the others.

not sure on the max size and limits of posting pics, but post away...

there's usually a monthly "pick ups" thread in both forums that is fun to peruse and certainly helps the wallet get a little lighter each month...