What was the salvation of the Prewar card hobby

Vintage Vern · #1 02-10-2025, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by akleinb611

It's not as though vintage cards were considered worthless junk right up to the creation of the internet. The "worthless junk" perception era ended by the late Sixties, and cards of all sorts were barreling up in price by the late Seventies, The end of the Topps monopoly in 1981 supercharged everyone's awareness of the hobby, and that's where the prices began to rise. If you're asking about the mechanisms of collecting before the internet, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Sports Collectors Digest, which absolutely dominated the hobby from the late Seventies to the mid-Nineties. Every week saw a huge publication, hundreds of pages long, featuring auctions and sales of all sorts of material, much of it vintage. Smaller collectors could place ads in the classified section for very little cost. SCD was absolutely the center of the hobby for about 20 years, even more so than ebay is today.

I'm actually more curious about the late 1800s to 1950s on how so many where saved before they had value or means to trade. How did people amass so many, and keep them in such good condition. Was there even a thing like collecting or a hobby in those time periods? I just think about USA history, and what took place in those time periods, and how people lived. I just find it amazing so many made it. I know 1939 is the cut off for prewar, but just wanted to expand to the 50s to include WWII, and many that held those prewar cards.

akleinb611 · #2 02-10-2025, 04:53 PM

Sorry if I misunderstood your question. My guess is that most surviving T cards were pasted into scrapbooks, with a simple flour and water paste. Scrapbooking used to be much more of a thing than it is today. These have been soaked out of the scrapbooks, with such a simple glue leaving little or no residue.

What's important to understand is that the major T card sets, T201 through T207, were produced in astounding quantities, comparable perhaps to the overproduced Topps baseball sets of the late 1980's. Even to this day, T206 cards in a general sense are not rare, considering the fact that they're over a century old. It's possible less than 1% have survived. That should give you an idea of how great the number of cards was originally. It's pointless to try to get to specifics, because even if you could pinpoint the precise numbers of T cards, Goudeys and PlayBalls originally issued, the survival percentages are pure guesswork. Given the huge numbers originally produced, the difference between a 1% survival rate and a 2% survival rate would be gigantic.

JustinD · #3 02-10-2025, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vintage Vern

I'm actually more curious about the late 1800s to 1950s on how so many where saved before they had value or means to trade. How did people amass so many, and keep them in such good condition. Was there even a thing like collecting or a hobby in those time periods? I just think about USA history, and what took place in those time periods, and how people lived. I just find it amazing so many made it. I know 1939 is the cut off for prewar, but just wanted to expand to the 50s to include WWII, and many that held those prewar cards.

I think people can�t really comprehend true collecting with the haze of money they see cards through today. Burdick didn�t care for value he cared about collecting. This has always been the case with human nature with American Indians trading for colored beads and the prevalence of scrapbooks. People collect to collect, I have so many near worthless collections I just love for memories and the hunt. It is the recollection of me and childhood. There are so many stories of barkeeps sweeping the floors of cigarette cards discarded and just as many of children coming in the pick them off the floor. As they aged they were just as wistful as us in wanting to remember childhood. They were buying memories, not value. And they kept them

bigfanNY · #4 02-10-2025, 08:35 PM

I think you need to give PSA some credit for "salvaging" the hobby. Buying cards in some ways became
"safer"with PSA many who would not buy cards before became interested after grading took hold. And the end result was increased demand for cards. Would there have always been collectors of cards Baseball, Other Sports, non sports...Yes! But not at current levels.
JMHO

Jonathan

Balticfox · #5 02-10-2025, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustinD

I think people can�t really comprehend true collecting with the haze of money they see cards through today. Burdick didn�t care for value he cared about collecting.... People collect to collect, I have so many near worthless collections I just love for memories and the hunt. It is the recollection of me and childhood.... As they aged they were just as wistful as us in wanting to remember childhood. They were buying memories, not value. And they kept them.

Well said. I agree.

Snapolit1 · #6 02-11-2025, 12:20 PM

American Indians traded beads as essentially a form of currency.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustinD

I think people can’t really comprehend true collecting with the haze of money they see cards through today. Burdick didn’t care for value he cared about collecting. This has always been the case with human nature with American Indians trading for colored beads and the prevalence of scrapbooks. People collect to collect, I have so many near worthless collections I just love for memories and the hunt. It is the recollection of me and childhood. There are so many stories of barkeeps sweeping the floors of cigarette cards discarded and just as many of children coming in the pick them off the floor. As they aged they were just as wistful as us in wanting to remember childhood. They were buying memories, not value. And they kept them

Snapolit1 · #7 02-11-2025, 12:29 PM

The pull of nostalgia is always, to me, amusing. Long ago and far away . . . everything was great . . . .and people did things for all the right reasons . . . . everyone was kind and benevolent . . . and nobody did the sort of stuff they do today . . . all the players loved the game . . .hell they would have been happy to play for free ....

There are stories in the Bible of people selling what could considered "collectibles" to other people. Go to your local history museum and learn about ancient Egypt and Greece . . . people made stuff and people collected stuff. . . . and people paid "big sheckles" for people to make them cool stuff.

And some guy in 1300 BC was saying "you are going to pay WHAT for that gold vase?? Are you nuts????"

Balticfox · #8 02-11-2025, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

The pull of nostalgia is always, to me, amusing. Long ago and far away . . . everything was great . . . .and people did things for all the right reasons . . . . everyone was kind and benevolent . . . and nobody did the sort of stuff they do today . . . all the players loved the game . . .hell they would have been happy to play for free ....

It's all about recapturing the pleasant memories from our childhood. There was much about our formative years that was nasty, even brutish, and that we'd now like to forget. But our cards and ancillary toys were a refuge from those things. And that's why we now want to hold on to those fond memories in the form of the cards and other now collectible items from those years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amalog Days - Adam Warshaw

That is the collector mentality in a nutshell: memory through objects. History in hand.

That's precisely it! I agree.

BillyCoxDodgers3B · #9 02-11-2025, 01:21 PM

You'll always be a good fit around here if you bust out an "ancillary" or two with enough frequency!

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