a question for the old time collectors

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Posted By: Andrew S.

I've only been collecting for about 20 years. Some here have been collecting for much longer, (Ted, etc.)

1. Approx. when were the first 9 pocket pages produced?

2. How about top loaders?

3. Screw down holders?

4. Card savers?

5. poly sleeves?

Thanks to any who can remember when these first hit the market.

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Posted By: Rob D.

I can attest that as an eighth-grader at Jackson Middle School in 1976, the "new" plastic sheets caused such a stir that I was able to trade three for a 1954 DanDee card. Probably remains my best trade ever. I still have the card, and I imagine those early sheets have turned to dust.



Best double-play combo ever? E-mail for scans and Bump for price reduction

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Posted By: Anonymous

mid-seventies is about right, roughly coinciding with the early Beckett guides. The early sheets become a gooey mess over time also. If you have sets you put away 30 years ago, you need to change into the newer sheets which are made of a different, inert material. The old sheets can warp and leave cards feeling greasy.

The other storage devices, screw downs, top loaders etc. came shortly thereafter.

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Posted By: Anonymous

I remember going to a photography store as a teen in the 70's and getting
plastic pages, with no dividers, something you would put a comic
book in.

Then my mom had this machine that sealed plastic bags shut by
melting the plastic, and I made 4 pocket pages that way for my
Redman's and Exhibits.

They also had 6 pocket sheets for photos, and I put my other cards
in there. I've still got some Redman's and Exhibits in those
homemade card pages. I've still got some cards in those 6 pocket
photo pages.

Somewhere in the early 80's with the advent of price guides by Beckett
and card shops popping up everywhere all the pages/holders became
readily assessible.

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Posted By: Mark Macrae

From my recollection, the first plastic sheets designed for baseball cards specifically were put out by K & M in Southern California during the early 70's (73/74?). They were side loading and designed for standard sized cards. K & M marketed them with a small binder that held about ten sheets. The binder had logos of the Major League Baseball teams all over it. There was an order form included with the binder for additional sheets. I seem to recall that Toys R Us sold them. Prior to that , I used plastic pages designed for photographs that were sold at drugstores (still have a few of the binders and original pages). A few years later a collector named Lebo designed a 'sheet' for the larger sized cards (56 Topps), but it was designed to hold several dozen cards and hang on a wall (somewhere in the archives I probably still have one or two of those... ) The other option available for collectors in the 60's / 70's was the clear plastic peel back pages with lines of adhesive on thick paper. A lot of good cards were stained or damaged using this method of storage. The other methods of storage began entering the marketplace in quantity during the middle 80's.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

After I moved to Cali. I was using photo pages. The first card specific pages I remember were vinyl and were 8 cards to a sheet. First single card holders I remember were the Cardgards that Ken Griffey Jr. endorsed. I remember making my own plexiglas holders in high school (early 1980s) and buying some from a local fabricator out here (which I still have). The mass market stuff all was later on.

Man, bring on the Card Price Updates and the Pop Rocks...

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: joe

late 70's for the plastic sheets. I don't have any cards in these anymore, but have boxes of used ones, they still look good.

Boxingman, how about the Mood rings and Platform shoes.

Joe

Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: Rob D.

Here's the album to which Mark refers (slightly too big for my scanner):

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Posted By: leon

Ya'll are going to force me to break out a jr.high picture if you don't quit with the 70's stuff. I remember my platforms...but pop rocks were later. How many of us had those wacky polyester shirts that made you look like you were straight out of Grease or Dirty Dancing?

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Posted By: joe

Leon, I wish I would have saved the platform shoes, wide colorful ties, those wild shirts, double breasted suits. I could sell them on ebay right now.

Joe

Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: Jantz

I had those plastic lockers to store my cards in. My mother would cut UPCs (bar codes) off of cereal boxes or some other product and sent them in for these plastic ballcard lockers to store your cards in. I still have them to this day & some of my cards from when I was young are still in there. I wish that I could scan one, but they are to big. My baseball cards from when I was a boy have no rubber band marks, but two of the corners are toast. Oh well.



Does anyone else have/had any of these lockers?



Jantz


P.S. - Since I replied to this thread, does it make me an "old time collector". (insert smiley face here)

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

I had a red locker-24 teams worth. The corners always took a pounding!

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Posted By: Jantz

Mine are red also. Sounds like the same lockers.

Jantz

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Posted By: Andrew S.

Thanks for the replies. Now we know if somebody says their grandpa put T206 cards in plastic pocket pages or top loaders before 1970 and they've been stored in the attic ever since, they are lying..lol

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Jantz,

Up here in the Great White North, O-Pee-Chee offered those "lockers" as far back as the mid-late 1970's if memory serves correct. They were available for X number of wrappers in addition to a nominal charge (perhaps $1.50 Canadian). My cousin stored all of her cards in these lockers, and thankfully took such good care of them so as not to ding the corners.

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Posted By: Dave Williams

I used to cram my cards in those lockers. I remember trading a friend a bunch of cards for his storage locker.

We didn't care about condition back then, you could always squeeze one more card in that slot.

If you had 30 Cardinal cards, and that slot was tight at 20, you'd just wiggle them in there.

I forgot about those lockers. I bet I've still got one in my parents attic, so that would be one find from an attic that is actually true. Of course it would be crammed full of 76 Topps with creases and bad corners.....

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Posted By: Jim VB

By 1980, at least on the east coast, the predominant supply seller was Rotman. They were in Worchester, MA. They sold those pages described above that got brittle and oily.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

I walked into the neighborhood card store and asked for a CPU. The owner gave me a funny look, said "you must have been away for a while; they're out of business," and handed me a Beckett's. What a difference a few years makes...

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