Recollection of a Unique Type of Collection

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The recent George Weiss rookie card thread here on Net54 got me to thinking for the first time in a long while about those types of items that I salivated over for a decade while assembling what morphed into my version of the "Earliest Photographic Collectible of every single member of the Baseball Hall of Fame" as of 2013, which stood at 310 individuals at that time. I thought that some here might enjoy hearing about my journey, which began simply as a collection of vintage, post-war Baseball HOF Rookie Cards.

One day back in 2003, while I was doing my daily e-bay searches looking for BGS 10's of the day's big rookie cards: Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Frank Thomas, etc., I happened upon a listing for a Bob Gibson RC in lower-grade condition for sale at $40. That got me to thinking, I'm spending thousands on these modern cards, which can fluctuate greatly, and here is an all-time great pitcher's nearly 50 year-old rookie card for pennies on the dollar compared to the stuff that I was collecting at the time. So, I went ahead and made that first vintage card purchase and I was hooked after that.

As I mentioned previously, my initial plan was to collect all of the post-war HOF rookie cards so I bought a current Beckett Baseball Price Guide. I then proceeded to calculate 10% of the current "high column" price and those would become my target prices to pay for each card. Of course, this resulted in primarily low-grade cards but it was a way that I figured I could "collect 'em all" before embarking on the real challenge of researching the pre-war HOF rookies, which was, for the most part, uncharted territory beyond what Hal Lewis had compiled on his website along with a few other select Net54 members.

While I was able to complete the post-war part of the collection over the next two to three years, the research on pre-war continued seemingly endlessly as I began to pick up some of the Goudey cards from the '30's, American Caramel cards from the '20's and tobacco cards from the earlier 1900's as well as 19th Century ballplayers. It was at this point that I also made the decision to have every card in my collection graded by one of the big three grading companies, PSA, SGC or Beckett. Being that I lived within a half hour of the SGC office at the time, the vast majority of cards went to them for grading.

As I learned more about the pre-war cards, I began to realize that some of these rookie cards were going to be quite pricey. At the time, I was a bank manager so had a decent amount of disposable income to work with but I was far from being an attorney, doctor, etc. nor independently wealthy so I quickly realized that I was going to need to find a way to come up with alternatives to some of these highest priced cards that I would never be able to afford. Thus, I began looking into other mediums such as photographic pinbacks, newspaper supplements, premiums, postcards, type 1 original photographs, cabinet cards, CDV's, scorecards, programs, etc., pretty much anything that I could buy at a more affordable price to cover that individual's spot in my HOF collection. It was at this time that I also began including team pictured items such as postcards, photos, premiums, etc. in my collection as well. Besides tending to be considerably cheaper, this option offered me the opportunity to pick up multiple HOF Rookies in some cases which were all pictured on the one team image.

As you can see, what started out as a pretty clearly defined Baseball HOF Rookie Card collection had evolved over the years into more of an earliest collectibles assemblage. The amount of fun that I had while all of this was going on was incredible. I made it to 10 straight Nationals from 2004 to 2014, including the last one when I had a massive heart attack only 4 months prior. I didn't want to break my streak so I rehabbed quickly enough to make it in 2014. As a side note, the streak would end in 2015 as my family relocated to Orlando, FL from NJ. Prior to the move, I had started auctioning off the entire collection as I had begun getting deep into Negro League material after doing tons of research in that area over the years trying to identify collectibles for those Negro League greats in the HOF. Thus, I ended up taking all of the funds from my auction proceeds and putting that money into Negro League material, primarily team items again.

The Negro League stuff kept me busy for the next few years and finally, I auctioned off that entire collection in 2021 at the peak of the sports card market. Unfortunately, after the heart attack, I have never been able to sustain full-time employment again so my collecting days have trickled down to primarily bargain box stuff at local card shows down here in FL and what remains from the auction sales over the years as much of those funds get used up every year for basic living expenses.

To be clear, I am not looking for sympathy from anyone here, I just wanted to share my story with everyone on the board, including those who helped me greatly along the way and the many great hobby friendships that formed over the years. A couple of the biggest things that I learned from this amazing journey, try to hold out for the card that you really want as long as it is somewhat realistic rather than settling for something else and then later on, having to replace it with what you really wanted in the first place. I found that, in most cases, you end up losing financially this way. Also, don't be afraid to try new things, everyone should collect what they like, don't rely on what other people tell you that you should or should not buy.

Right now, I would just like to mention a few of the grading highlights from my ten-year BB HOF RC collection. Due to my insistence on having every item in my collection graded (unless size made it physically impossible), I believe that I was the first one to submit to the TPG's for grading/encapsulation: M101-1's, M101-2's, M101-6's, W603's, etc. along with many team issued premiums, programs, scorecards, etc. I also believe that I was one of the first, if not the first, to have the grading company include player identifications on the flip (primarily SGC) for team photo items such as postcards and premiums where there were no player identifications printed on the item itself. Needless to say, it took lots of documentation and research but thanks to the willingness of individuals at SGC back in the day such as Derek Grady, Bob Luce. Scott Hileman, etc. to listen and be willing to make informed decisions.

A couple of final memories from the collection were my collaboration with Lyman Hardemann at OldCardboard.com to create and maintain a Baseball HOF RC's webpage, highlighting the five earliest baseball cards for every member of the BB HOF. We recently updated things after many years in between and there is still more work to be done with this, hopefully, will be fully up to date at some point in the near future. Lastly, thanks to all of the years of research while I was compiling my collection, I was able to self-publish two reference guides which many board members have purchased from me over the years. The first was called the "Negro League Baseball Collectibles Guide" and the second was the "4-Sport Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Guide", covering baseball, football, basketball and hockey.

In closing, I am so thankful that I was able to embark on and complete such an amazing journey at the time that I did it. I don't believe in today's world, with EVERYTHING being so expensive, it would be possible to duplicate again. Not only because of the money, but just the extreme rarity of so many of those items combined with the explosion in the number of collectors across the hobby. I hope that everyone enjoyed my story and I would love to hear similar tales from other board members as to what their collecting journeys have been like.