Thoughts on Collecting

[JCRedbird]

Card collecting is truly one of the joys of life that one can experience. It’s rewarding, versatile, dynamic, and fulfilling. I’ve been collecting longer than many of you have been alive. This is not to suggest that my card collection is the grandest or most valuable. I’m sure it isn’t. I’m very proud of my collection but it likely pales in value and size to many of yours. I was a kid in the 60s and collected baseball cards from 1961 thru 1969. But in those days “collecting” was buying those penny packs or nickel packs and trading for your favorite team. There were no card shops or shows. You could pull the wax wrapper back and see the card you were buying on those penny packs! I kept my cards by team, with rubber bands. The bad news is I often put my favorite player on the top of each team stack and over the years those rubber bands did a number on some of those favorites. Each year I would nearly fill up a cigar box with cards. In those days, I thought I was an avid collector but in reality I would have maybe 400 or 500 cards of each year. Growing up in a small town in the South, we rarely had the chance to purchase those high series cards. By the time those cards were issued, the grocer was stocking football cards. In fact we didn’t really know how many cards there were in a set. There was no Beckett or SCD and remember—I’m living in a sleepy southern town of maybe 40,000 people. Funny, but my mom would discourage me from also buying football cards. Frankly, I think money was just that tight; I never felt “poor” growing up but in retrospect, I now see that my parents did an amazing job of making ends meet.
Life interrupted my collecting for the next fifteen years. High school, college, marriage, kids, etc. all intervened. I “discovered” my cards in the mid-80s when we moved to a new house. There they were. Cigar boxes piled on top of one another with most of the now brittle rubber bands in pieces, with many stuck to the baseball cards they once held. Card collecting had really become popular and now there was a ton of resources available to aid in collecting. Even in our small town, card shops had popped up everywhere and card shows were often within a short drive once or twice a month. I was bitten. But now, WHAT would I collect?
My small town had been home to a rookie league team of the Cardinals for most of my life. Living in the South in the 60s, kids were likely a Yankees fan, but if not the Reds or Cardinals were the next best bet. Remember that the Braves were still in Milwaukee; there’s were no teams in the South. So, the Cardinals were my team and my Cardinal team stacks were always the fattest each year.
I set out with a goal of completing a team set of the Cardinals for all the years of Topps. I’m not sure I even knew Bowman existed at this point. I used the plastic boxes to store each year of Cardinals before learning that cards prior to 1957 wouldn’t fit these boxes! This was also when I learned about high numbers and the cost of high numbers, even for commons for some years (hello 1961!). As I started down this trail of collecting, I subscribed to SCD and began to learn there was a lot I didn’t know. Remember there’s no internet—at least not as we now know it— for maybe another 10 years or so. Gaining knowledge in those days was much more painful LOL. Fortunately as I learned more about collecting and more about ALL of those Cardinal those team sets that I could pursue, I also found that I had more disposable income, i.e. money to spend on cards. I remember my last needed Cardinal Topps card was a 1952 Topps Wilmer Mizell, one of those pesky high numbers. But even before I achieved this first milestone, I had already set a new goal—to assemble team sets of Cardinals for all baseball sets!
As you know, once you delve into pre-war cards, just knowing WHAT to collect can be a challenge. I’ve probably spent over 30 years trying to define an accurate Cardinals team checklist for every year since 1900, the first year they were called the Cardinals. While I’ve been able to complete the list for most sets, there’s still some sets that are still a challenge to ascertain an accurate team set. For instance, is Walt Cruise shown as a Cardinal in the Felix Mendelssohn set? But, this is another beauty of collecting—the challenge it offers. Even in the early 90s, Goudey, tobacco cards, and caramel cards could be acquired for reasonable prices. While the Redbirds don't demand the price of those stinkin’ Yankee cards, some of those 1930s and 40s teams had some pricey players such Hornsby, Frisch, Medwick, Dean, and the early Musial cards. Still, most of these cards could be purchased in decent shape (mid-grade) for under $100. As a side note, it’s crazy how some cards seem to evade you. I looked for a Batter Up #145 Medwick for over 20 years!!
The 1990s saw the baseball card world explode. Fleer and Donruss had come on board the previous decade but collecting new cards in the 80s was still cheap—and simple. The only really new twist was the “traded” sets that Topps had introduced in the early 80s. But with the 90s things got very complicated and very expensive. Quite frankly, even today the numerous sets, the parallels, etc. are overwhelming, at least to me. But again, to another collector, these sets are sheer beauty. It’s all in the magic of collecting. As the 90s came to a close, I continued to assemble Cardinal team sets and inserts as I could. However, signed Pujols rookie cards were a bit out of financial reach and besides the “old stuff” had priority. The flood of cards began to subside a bit in the early 2000s as Fleer, Donruss, Score, Upper Deck, etc. slowly exited or lost licenses. By now, I had acquired many of the pre-war Cardinals. Those I lacked were either very pricey because of the player, e.g. a Ramly or Williams Caramel Bresnahan, or pricey due to set scarcity such as Texas Tommy’s. So I found myself at a collecting brick wall. Then I realized I could complete those cigar boxes! Once again, collecting offered me another option for joy. Finish all of those sets from the 1960s that I started 60 years ago!
I’ve been retired now for several years. While retirement does demand a little less frivolous spending on cards, it does allow one to organize. I’ve spent the last five years organizing what I had collected for the previous 35 years. Organizing has been so much fun. Another beauty of retirement is that you work on something until you tire of it and then you quit, knowing you can start again whenever you wish! As I organized, I literally “found” cards I had purchased years ago.
Now I see collecting is throwing me one last challenge. I’m soon to complete my 1969 set. What’s my next goal? Of course I’ll always be looking for those impossible pre-war cards I need or those 1962 Jello short prints of Simmons and Grammas—-I’ve never even seen a picture of a 1962 Jello Grammas!! Let’s get real, putting together a 1952 Topps set isn’t practical; it’s a very cool set but I don’t have the time (reality of mortality) and definitely don’t have the money. I’ll probably work on some of those smaller insert sets that Topps put in their nickel packs back in the day—the stamps, the coins, the deckle edge, etc. from those 69s sets. Because that’s the beauty of collecting. There’s always an option to fit your interest, your money, and your time. Never, ever quit collecting!