Narrow-minded Collectors

[samosa4u]

I just came up with this phrase right now - sounds a bit funny, doesn't it? However, it's probably true!

Alright, let's say I didn't know a damn thing about baseball. And I had $200,000 USD saved up and that I wanted to buy some sports cards. Now I start hanging out on this forum in order to learn about the best players/best cards, and after a few weeks, or a few months, what would I buy?

Prewar: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner.

Post-war: Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron.

And that's it! Pretty tiny list, isn't it? But that's all you folks ever talk about! I wouldn't know a damn thing about Joe DiMaggio or Satch Paige or Pete Rose or Walter Johnson or Jimmie Foxx. Heck, I would probably even pass on Lou Gehrig and Willie Mays! I'd tell myself "hmmm, I think I read a thread or two about them, but I can't quite remember what they were about! I think I will just buy another Cobb!"

Take a look at this list below:

https://www.baseball-almanac.com/leg.../lisn100.shtml

Look at all those awesome players that never get mentioned here - pretty crazy, isn't it?

And that's my rant for the day.

~The End~

[RCMcKenzie]

Rollie Fingers is on their top 100 list. I guess Chad Qualls is 101. I wish my collection was full of Cobbs and Wagners, instead of Rube Oldrings and Al Bridwells. It would be so much easier to liquidate when the time comes.

[oldeboo]

***Quietly sneaks over to eBay looking for Mark McGwire and Gaylord Perry cards***

[GasHouseGang]

You're right. We need to throw off those guys that just want drive up the prices by buying up the good stuff. From now on we should only talk about players like Cory Snyder or Joe Charboneau. That way we can help drive up the prices of all that junk wax we have left over, and keep them away from the really good stuff!

[doug.goodman]

While I get your general point, I pretty much disagree.

Right now, on the front page of the post-war-pre-80 we have Ed Stevens, Brooks Robinson, Johnny Bench, Warren Spahn and Sandy Koufax.

On the WWII and older page I see Lefty Grove, Sadaharo Oh and the Khumbu Icefall mentioned in titles, and a quick link click gets you Rube Walberg, Leo Durocher, Doc Farrell, Al Spohrer, Luke Sewell, Jack Russell, Al Thomas, Roy Campanella, Joe Jackson, Christ Mathewson, Ray Fisher, etc, etc, etc.

I just thought of a funny phrase right now it's "narrow-minded Net54 readers"

Doug "the vast majority of my want list is players you haven't heard of" Goodman

[todeen]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

While I get your general point, I pretty much disagree.

+1

I think your list of 10 players makes for a good start. They're iconic.

However, collecting not those players is more fun, IMO, and more affordable. My list of individual players I collect is:

Tris Speaker, Ernie Lombardi, Barry Larkin, Johnny Bench, Ken Griffey Jr, Cal Ripken Jr, Bucky Walters, Paul Derringer, Joey Votto, Derek Jeter, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio, and Aaron Boone.

I also collect Wheaties, which just arent as popular as they used to be.

I've also recently been buying pennants due to what I see FS on Net54.

My favorite threads are recent acquisitions for memorabilia, Hey Pennant Guys, memorabilia rooms/displays, show off your Cincinnati Reds items.

I think the longer a board member sticks around, and the more they explore, the less likely they are to be stuck with the top 10 players, and they may branch out into non card items.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[bbnut]

I'm offended Rickey isn't top 20!!

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[tschock]

In 1998, it was a very good year,
Filled with hotdogs and juiced balls and many steroids so near,
It was a very good year.

[Snapolit1]

I don't disagree that a relative handful (or two) of names garner the lion's share attention in the pre-war collecting world. Your point maybe be exaggerated (people talk all the time about Paige and Gehrig as but two examples), but your point is generally accurate. Wait around for an Ernie Banks thread and you might be waiting a while. But have you ever gone to a post war board? Jeez its Mike Trout all day and all night. I think this is just the vagaries of collecting, and would bet it takes place with respect to vintage cars, hummels, Norman Rockwell plates, stamps and everything else. Pecking orders develop in hobbies and are in a way self perpetuating. Why is this plate more desirable than others? Because basically the hobby decided it was because more people talked about it and it got more desirable. Rinse and repeat.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Pecking orders develop in hobbies and are in a way self perpetuating. Why is this plate more desirable than others? Because basically the hobby decided it was because more people talked about it and it got more desirable. Rinse and repeat.

I'm an English literature major, and we call the top 100 books the canon. Generally it is represented by dead white guys, who were chosen by old white guys. But over the last 20-30 years, more open minded academics have started to change the canon by broadening and redefining what's important. It looks a lot like NET54 organization as they break it up into groups. Post Colonialism. Feminism. Realism/Naturalism. Contemporary. Poetry. World Lit. Victorian Era. Elizabethan. African American Lit. It's a glorious time to be alive if you're a reader as the canon has grown to adopt diversity.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Casey2296]

I was hoping to keep my progress on a Gus Zernial master set under wraps so y'all didn't drive the prices up.

[Huysmans]

Originally Posted by todeen

I'm an English literature major, and we call the top 100 books the canon. Generally it is represented by dead white guys, who were chosen by old white guys. But over the last 20-30 years, more open minded academics have started to change the canon by broadening and redefining what's important. It looks a lot like NET54 organization as they break it up into groups. Post Colonialism. Feminism. Realism/Naturalism. Contemporary. Poetry. World Lit. Victorian Era. Elizabethan. African American Lit. It's a glorious time to be alive if you're a reader as the canon has grown to adopt diversity.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Not everyone shares the changing of the canon as something positive, Allan Bloom, in his highly influential The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students (1987) argues that moral degradation results from ignorance of the great classics that shaped Western culture. His book was widely cited by some intellectuals for its argument that the classics contained universal truths and timeless values which were being ignored by cultural relativists.

Additionally, defenders maintain that those who undermine the canon do so out of primarily political interests, and that such criticisms are misguided and/or disingenuous. As John Searle, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, has written:

"There is a certain irony in this [i.e., politicized objections to the canon] in that earlier student generations, my own for example, found the critical tradition that runs from Socrates through the Federalist Papers, through the writings of Mill and Marx, down to the twentieth century, to be liberating from the stuffy conventions of traditional American politics and pieties. Precisely by inculcating a critical attitude, the "canon" served to demythologize the conventional pieties of the American bourgeoisie and provided the student with a perspective from which to critically analyze American culture and institutions. Ironically, the same tradition is now regarded as oppressive. The texts once served an unmasking function; now we are told that it is the texts which must be unmasked." (this was taken from online)

[Huysmans]

Originally Posted by tschock

In 1998, it was a very good year,
Filled with hotdogs and juiced balls and many steroids so near,
It was a very good year.

Well done sir!

[jchcollins]

The hobby is in many ways different than the sport(s) from which it's subjects are drawn, and as was insinuated earlier - the history of the hobby and especially the mainstream, self-aware hobby (IMHO, after about 1980) of course exerts its own influence - and in many cases this is based on sometimes random preferences derived from hobbyists - many of whom are indeed old white guys. I digress:

I collect mostly postwar vintage, simply because while I could choose to pour significantly more financial resources into things like prewar or modern speculation - at some point I stop because I can't get past what I perceive as ridiculous prices to pay for single pieces of cardboard, when in my heart of hearts I realize that anything "old" related to baseball instantly seems cool to me and makes me feel like a kid again. But even with postwar, the general theme of the OP's post rings true. If you followed only whose cards were hot, you would miss out most of the time on players like Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan, Steve Carlton, and a host of others. To me this is where it seems my grass roots collecting background was in many cases more helpful back in the day (late 80's, early 90's) - I didn't know much of the organized "hobby" and it's existence outside of each month's Beckett arriving at my door. So I based my preferences for what I wanted to collect in vintage cards (again, mostly 50's and 60's - prewar cards weren't unheard of when I was a kid, but they were more expensive than drugs...) on what I read of baseball history. An example that I think ties in well here - and nothing today against this player - but when I was like 11 or 12, I would have put Duke Snider at the top of the list in terms of famous '50's players. I had his book, met him and got his autograph at a card show. In my mind he was every bit Mantle's equal. Popular sentiment today would say otherwise, of course, and that is very much borne out in the price of The Duke's cards. But that's what you miss if you go only on what is only popular in the hobby vs. what you might have read about history.

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

If you followed only whose cards were hot, you would miss out most of the time on players like Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan, Steve Carlton, and a host of others.

Willie McCovey.

Guy was the most feared hitter of the '60s, in a league that had Aaron and Mays. Spent his best years protecting Mays in the Giants' lineup and was pitched around like crazy, yet still managed to hit over 500 HRs. Despite missing an average of a few dozen games per season, too.

And other than his rookie, his cards cost pocket change

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

The hobby is in many ways different than the sport(s) from which it's subjects are drawn, and as was insinuated earlier - the history of the hobby and especially the mainstream, self-aware hobby (IMHO, after about 1980) of course exerts its own influence - and in many cases this is based on sometimes random preferences derived from hobbyists - many of whom are indeed old white guys. I digress:

I collect mostly postwar vintage, simply because while I could choose to pour significantly more financial resources into things like prewar or modern speculation - at some point I stop because I can't get past what I perceive as ridiculous prices to pay for single pieces of cardboard, when in my heart of hearts I realize that anything "old" related to baseball instantly seems cool to me and makes me feel like a kid again. But even with postwar, the general theme of the OP's post rings true. If you followed only whose cards were hot, you would miss out most of the time on players like Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan, Steve Carlton, and a host of others. To me this is where it seems my grass roots collecting background was in many cases more helpful back in the day (late 80's, early 90's) - I didn't know much of the organized "hobby" and it's existence outside of each month's Beckett arriving at my door. So I based my preferences for what I wanted to collect in vintage cards (again, mostly 50's and 60's - prewar cards weren't unheard of when I was a kid, but they were more expensive than drugs...) on what I read of baseball history. An example that I think ties in well here - and nothing today against this player - but when I was like 11 or 12, I would have put Duke Snider at the top of the list in terms of famous '50's players. I had his book, met him and got his autograph at a card show. In my mind he was every bit Mantle's equal. Popular sentiment today would say otherwise, of course, and that is very much borne out in the price of The Duke's cards. But that's what you miss if you go only on what is only popular in the hobby vs. what you might have read about history.

Like John, I am a postwar collector. I am absolutely eaten up with the 1950s, particularly the first half or so of the decade, and more particularly still with Bowman. I am a set builder at heart. I have a few graded cards, but I much prefer low to mid grade cards in a binder. Another part of my collecting life is reading. Again 1950s baseball, particularly all things New York, is my focus. My reading drives my collecting, and when I am putting together sets I am pumped when I can add cards of players like Ralph Branca, Bobby Thomson, Carl Furillo, Billy Cox, Sal Maglie, etc. These are the larger than life characters who live on in the books that I read from what must have been such an awesome time to be alive and see baseball at places like the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field. Sure, I also enjoy collecting cards of Mantle, Mays, Jackie, etc., but that whole era has a flavor that would be missed (IMO) if I only collected those stars.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by bbnut

I'm offended Rickey isn't top 20!!

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

I'm offended by the whole list. It's like they put a list of names into a random generator and hit the scramble button a few times and said that looks good.

Just noticed it is a 20+ year old list.

[Oscar_Stanage]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

I just came up with this phrase right now - sounds a bit funny, doesn't it?

I don't get the hate.. there is something for everyone here. And why would you collect players that others wanted you to collect?

there is more conversation and information about 89 Fleer Randy Johnson variations than anyone can ever dream of. Same with Billy Ripken. Topps Venezuela, Gretzy vs Orr, Star basketball. Jackie Robison's facelift, SGC v PSA, T206 back multipliers....on and on and on.

Come here looking for information on the players and cards that YOU want to learn about, and you will find it. if not, start it. and I am sure you will find plenty of takers.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Wid_Conroy

I don't get the hate.. there is something for everyone here.

I don't think his rant was meant to hate. I think it's a great conversation starter, which generally needs to be a little controversial in order to spawn discussion.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[CJinPA]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

I just came up with this phrase right now - sounds a bit funny, doesn't it? However, it's probably true!

Alright, let's say I didn't know a damn thing about baseball. And I had $200,000 USD saved up and that I wanted to buy some sports cards. Now I start hanging out on this forum in order to learn about the best players/best cards, and after a few weeks, or a few months, what would I buy?

Prewar: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner.

Post-war: Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron.

And that's it! Pretty tiny list, isn't it? But that's all you folks ever talk about! I wouldn't know a damn thing about Joe DiMaggio or Satch Paige or Pete Rose or Walter Johnson or Jimmie Foxx. Heck, I would probably even pass on Lou Gehrig and Willie Mays! I'd tell myself "hmmm, I think I read a thread or two about them, but I can't quite remember what they were about! I think I will just buy another Cobb!"

Take a look at this list below:

https://www.baseball-almanac.com/leg.../lisn100.shtml

Look at all those awesome players that never get mentioned here - pretty crazy, isn't it?

And that's my rant for the day.

~The End~

I'm amazed that this thread has gone on so long without the mention of Ted Williams yet? The Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame - for real!