Origins of collecting - how was it done back then?

[Archive]

Posted By: Anonymous

My wife's grandfather was born in 1900 and hung out and did gofor work at the family hardware store in our little town. I'm sure he collected the cards from all the old guys standing around smoking and shooting the breeze, but he also started smoking at a very early age (apparently acceptable back then). I believe, from the collection that he left us, there was some trading or at least special attention paid to saving cards of favorite players. I think there was a regional bias, judging from the number of southern stars (especially Cobb) and other southern players (exemplified by a large collection of t210 series 8s). Lucky for me about the smoking, but not for him, he died of lung cancer in his 60s.