Pre-WWII definition for card collecting

[ChrisStufflestreet]

Originally Posted by Potomac Yank

There are a couple that post like if it means pre Desert Storm.

It's all about perception, my friend.

In my case...Desert Storm was a war I was involved in (I was in the Army then) so it's actually a logical point of demarcation for me.

That said...I don't intend to post here about '86 Topps anytime soon. And as a student of history...there was no WW2 until 1941. Before Pearl Harbor, there were two large-scale conflicts going on: one that encompassed Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East and another between China and Japan. Once the U.S. was brought into the conflict, the war became global.

In the case of our British allies, they definitely began a war against Germany and Italy in 1939 but really weren't counting the Japanese as a belligerent party until they took sides with the U.S. Not that it was a hard decision for them, as the Japanese were beginning to threaten British territory from India to Australia and likely needed the excuse to expand their way as well as into U.S. possessions like the Philippines, Guam and Midway.

But I'm sure we're splitting hairs here. In the baseball card hobby, the fact that sets stopped almost cold after 1941 makes the distinction easy for us.