does anybody really connect with what they collect??

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Posted By: Morrie

I mainly lurk, but this seems as good a way to introduce myself as any.

Like so many of you, my card collecting started with family. Dad loved baseball. He had memories of his own father bringing cards home for him. After a windfall in 1953, my grandfather brought dad home a whole box of the new Topps cards (I don't know that the 52s ever made it to their home town), which they opened together. Dad didn't like them as much as the 1950-53 Bowmans, and all of them got boxed away when he went off to college. They eventually ended up in a communal storage area beneath my grandparents' apartment complex. Someone stole the cards (including I don't know how many 1950-52 Williams cards, dad's favorite player) some time in the 1970s. His collection, less a single 1953 Bowman color Jimmy Dykes (I think) was probably sold at a Nashville flea market before my little brother was even out of diapers.

Dad started us out with 1979 Topps, then 1980. I still remember grabbing rack packs off pegs on the cereal aisle at Giant or Safeway and giving mom my best "You love your kid, right?" grin. I don't know that it worked every time, but it worked often enough. Once I started to really get into baseball history, dad started buying large lots of low-grade cards at local card shows and auctions. We'd get a few select cards for birthdays and Christmases. This is how I got my first t206's, a Mathewson portrait and a Bresnahan batting. That was a good Christmas.

Now, every time I buy a t206, it's like being a kid at Christmas again. So, do I connect with my cards?

Yeah. Yeah, I do.

Morrie