REFLECTIONS of YOUTH

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Posted By: Travis Jensen

I'm 26 years old and strictly collect vintage (pre '60). Most of the older guys are surprised to see that a guy my age is into vintage cards.

I opened my first pack of cards in '86. I really didn't get too serious into collecting until '87. I ripped open an ungodly amount of '87 Topps hoping for Conseco and McGwire rookies, which I think at the time booked for a couple dollars each, give or take. That same year I found an entire trunk of tobacco cards in someone’s trash (maybe 2,000+ cards), flipped through them, and walked away, leaving the cards behind. Unless someone came along after me and scooped them up, the cards are probably decomposing somewhere in the Denver dump.

I stopped collecting in ’91 and didn’t pick it back up until ‘01. I focused my new collection exclusively on vintage (pre: ’70). I always liked vintage cards when I was younger, but could never afford them. My first vintage purchase was a ’61 Topps Mantle. From there things just sort of took off. I was obsessed and spent close to 200K from ’01 to ’05.

This past summer I sold my entire collection and bought a house. I didn’t think about cards for many months after that.

Two weeks ago I started feeling the itch again. I went on a spree and bought a handful of cards. It looks like I’m back in again. These are my most recent purchases (only two of the six are pre-war):