WHY DO PEOPLE COLLECT 19th CENTURY?

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Posted By: Anonymous

MIKE: FIRST OF ALL, THANK YOU FOR A SERIOUS RESPONSE. There seemed to be a shortage of those here. Secondly, your story seems to most match my own.

YOU:
..........started buying/selling in 1983 or so and bought a lot of wax cards/sets/singles/etc. After realizing that that was washed up in the early 1990's, I went into autographs (hence my email address) and after those became fraught with peril, I moved to vintage cards.

ME:
I started with "current popular" rookies, at the time canseco and griffey. (I admit relatively a newbie). I went to every baseball card store and bought up rookies of all the current popular players. It was exciting to find new rookies that I didn't have yet since I had to go to several stores to find them. Shortly thereafter, ebay came into the picture....I couldn't realize why although Randy Johnson and Sosa had some pretty amazing stats yet their rookies were so cheap. It didn't take me long to realize that there were millions of rookies out there and that they would "NEVER" go up in value. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't initially buying the cards for strictly investment. I really enjoyed the game and the players and records and history and the like. It was easy for me to decide early that I wanted all the rookies I personally watched with my Dad that he was really fond of...bench, drysdale, koufax, etc...These were much harder to find in nice condition.

I soon found I was spending a lot of money, and realized that I wanted to know that it would be something "worthwhile" that I could pass down to my family (unlike my wife's seal collection) where it would have value.

I started doing research, and then I started compiling some statistics, and found that I could start a collection that I felt I could "complete" and that could potentially increase in value, AND I could enjoy...

THe plan was to have the best "centered" grade (within my budget) rookie of all HOF'ers and future HOF'ers from the T206 cards to present, as listed in the SMR. I wanted cards that I could be proud of, and found that there are some HOF'ers and Future HOF'ers that I just could not get excited about their rookie card, no matter how high the grade. Seriously, how excited can one get about a 1989 Donruss or UD Randy Johnson...yet my collection could not be complete without a nice card of his that would also be a good investment card. So, like you, I collected auto's of players that didn't have a good rookie card...and again, like you, the auto's went to hell. After a little research, I have found that I can find a rookie or pre-rookie of every HOF'er or future HOF'er that would be unique or in demand that could be considered for uniqueness and investment....Surprising enough, I have found that there are MANY collectors out there that share the same interst as me....

YOU:
Nothing better than looking at Old Judge cabinets or vintage cards like E-Caramel cards. While I do still have a lot of sets from the 1970's/1980's, there's just not the rush of getting a new Louisville Old Judge pose that I don't have. I can't compare that to picking up an 89 Upper Deck set because it's not comparable.

ME:
I can honestly respect that, and glad that there are so many that enjoy collecting the "OLD STUFF". For me, I just find it difficult to have an interest of someone I never heard of. But, that being said, there are several baseball players that I never heard of prior to collecting which are now a necessity in my collection (IE satchell paige) ==== no smart alecs here please. I have never professed to be a big history buff on the sport

YOU:
I guess to some people, completing a 1970 set in PSA9 is a real challenge, but I just can't see paying $20-$30 for a common card when there's 700 of them to complete a set. For $100 I can get a couple nice E90-1 American Caramel commons or a low-to-mid grade Old Judge card.

ME:
I guess everyone has their own interests. I never did understand myself why some people collect entire sets including commons of unknown by most players? That is beyond my comprehension, other than they just want to say the "completed" the set??

YOU:
I REALLY don't understand someone buying graded brand new cards paying 1000's of bucks for them because they are basically a dime a dozen. Granted population reports may say that there's a small census of 10's but there's still so much wax on some of this stuff that no one can be really INVESTING in that stuff.......

ME:
I personally ONLY buy the most limited sets of the HOFers. I don't see any sense in buying a 1986 Topps Traded Bonds card, even a MINT10... I do however own a 1986 TIFFANY BONDS BGS 9. Print run only 5000 and I would guess less than 100 in high grade exist. I want BOND's BEST CARD in the best condition I can find, especially when I know there are only 100 of them in the world.

YOU:
But that's why there's so many different things people can collect. I also collect bats, baseball pens, bat banks, etc. There's probably few people here that don't collect more than one type of things......vintage photos, cards, bats, gloves, etc. Everyone sets their own investing targets or just based on their own likes and dislikes.

ME:
AGREED - THANKS FOR THE HONEST AND SERIOUS POST...