If you could travel back in time...

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Posted By: Brad Green

If you could travel back in time to just one year in history and collect as many baseball cards from that year as possible, what year would you go to? Of course, you would want to take as many screwdown holders, rigid toploaders and albums as you could to preserve the cards that you've just pulled out of the cigarette packs, gum packs and exhibit machines. After the year was up, then you could bring the cards back in time to the present.

What year would you go to? Perhaps you would choose a particular year that you knew you could get the most valuable cards. Or perhaps you would choose the year in which your favorite set was produced, irregardless of value. Maybe you would choose the year because a particular player that you collect had a lot of cards that year.

I would choose to go back to 1933. More cards of Lefty were distributed in 1933. His DeLong, Goudey, Tattoo Orbit, George C. Miller, Eclipse Import and Rittenhouse Candy cards (among others) were made that year.

Of course, this scenerio will likely never be possible, but it certainly is fun to imagine what it might be like if it was!

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Posted By: barrysloate

I would go back to 1869 and hang around Peck & Snyder's on Nassau and Ann Street, and pick up a few hundred of their various trade cards. Of course, I'd have to find a way to bring them back to the present.

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Posted By: Al Crisafulli

1933, no doubt. For all the reasons indicated above, and for four Goudey Ruth cards.

-Al

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Posted By: Bill Stone

1910

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Posted By: Brian E.

No doubt 1909, VA and NC....T's and E's. I'd also have to take a trip to Detroit and see the greatest ballplayer whoever lived

But if I brought all the cards back, the pop reports would look much different than they do now!

Brian E.

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Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

I would go back in time to work at a cigrette factory for a couple of weeks and lift every card I could, maybe even bring back a case or two of those fine cigrettes. In my down time I would pick up every T3 I could.

Most importantly I would pay attention to how the cards were made so I could come back to write a book that explains how the T206's were made. I'm sure that what I made off of the sales from the book would help me buy the T206's from 1911 and a couple of 1914 Cracker Jacks.

Now I got all worked up just tinking about it. Whose got that time machine!!!

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

If you allow me....my fantasy time period is twofold.

1st......I can just imagine in the Summer of 1888,
as an 8 year old spending all my allowance on Old
Judges, Allen & Ginters, and N162 Goodwin Champions.

2nd......By the fall of 1949 I would be 69 years old
and I would be re-living my actual youth buying 1949
Bowman High #s (Satch Paige, Duke Snider, Bob Lemon)
and 1949 (2nd series - scarce) Leafs (Doby, Feller,
Kell, Slaughter, and Satch Paige).

And, if God willing, in this fantasy I was still alive
today....I would be 125 years old. And, hopefully not
too feeble to enjoy my vast collection of sports cards.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

If I was doing it purely to get cards, I would probably choose to go back to the 1930's (before the big paper drives of WWII) and simply advertise in newspapers around the country that I was buying worthless baseball cards for seemingly high prices--then you would get all kinds of cards coming out of attics, etc. from all eras.

As a baseball fan I would love to go back to the 1870's to 1880's and watch some baseball games-I've always been curious as to what it would be like to see Radbourne pitch, Anson bat, etc.--that would be worth more to me than baseball cards.

-Rhett

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Posted By: Anonymous

Ted.
I wonder how many 8 year olds that spent all thier money on cigarettes in 1887 made it to 1949..

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Murcerfan

My Uncle John (Rochester, NY) did. He was born in
the old country (Greece) in the 1880's and lived
till the late 1960's. And, he smoked tobacco.

My wife's Father lived into his 80's and smoked
tobacco all his life. It's in your genetic makeup.
Everyone is different.

Pennsylvania Ted

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Posted By: honus3415

....but only if I was lucky enough to live next door to the chain-smoking old man with no friends or relatives, who had a 20 pack a day smoking habit and took me under his wing because of my angelic nature.

WOW......can you imagine the first mass distribution of hundreds of different COLOR CARDS with pictures that actually looked like the players. That had to be the advent of the first baseball card woody....and a tobacco habit that would kill those first card fanatics by the age of 30. If he had lived through serving in WWI.

Remembering back to seeing my first Babe Ruth card....a 1961 Nu-Card Baseball Scoops and asking the neighbor where he got it...well the rest is history...which if I had all the money I have spent over the years on tobacco I'd could own a GAI 1.5 T206 Honus Wagner (and all the controversy that would go with it). AND if I had all THAT money AND the money I've spent on my baseball card addiction over the years....I could afford to pay the medical bills for all my tobacco smoking relatives since 1909.

No production in any year since has provided a greater change in the landscape of baseball cards, after that we began to care more about who was on the card.

Final answer....1909.

I remember less than most people have forgotten but I still remember more than I really care to.

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Posted By: Paul

1888. I'd scoop up all the N172s I could find, order all the N173s, get every N175 small card I could find, hang out in tobacco shops looking for N175 larges, chew that G&B brand chewing gum until I completed their set (with several copies of the Spalding), get a few nice N162 sets, some N43 Ewings, maybe a Yum Yum set or two, and see if I could find any collectors out there with a few "old" N167s from two years earlier.

I also like Barry's idea of hanging out at the Peck & Snyder store in 1869. Another interesting time would be 1903, opening packs of Breisch Williams caramel, and seeing if the good folks at Sporting Life would still send me their cabinet cards from 1902.

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Posted By: David Vargha

1948 -- I would solve the Hal Lewis/Leaf Card/1948 or 1949 controversy once and for all. I would write a brilliant pamphlet entitled, "The Hal Lewis Controversy -- Settled!". I would be ridiculed by society and written off as an eccentric madman. However, some 57 years later, my brilliant pamphlet will be rediscovered and I will be vindicated. From then on, I will be known as the prescient and brilliant David Vargha. Both the warden and my fellow asylum inmates will never look at me the same after that.

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

I'd like to see Radbourne pitch, the first game of the 1919 World Series (close enough to hear Schalk blow his stack at Cicotte), and see Reese casually drape his arm over Jackie's shoulder, discussing ss-2nd base strategy...

Cards would be nice too.

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

One year? Probably 1889 then.

I could pick up Old Judge cards of some of the best players of the era but better yet get to see them play the game. How great would it be to see HOFers like Mack, Robinson, Clarkson, Beckley, Thompson, Keefe, O'Rourke, Ward, Welch, Rusie, Nichols, Kelly, Anson, McPhee, Galvin, Radbourn, Ewing, Connor, Brouthers and Hamilton ply their trade? Not to mention guys like Hoy, Browning, Van Haltren, Caruthers, Mullane and White among others.

I'd be like a kid in the backseat of the car on the family vacation - "Are we there yet?"

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

I couldn't afford to bring back all that 1888 currency to pay for the Old Judge cigarettes, but Barber dimes wouldn't be so bad. Same goes for clothing - easier to get hold of 1909-ish duds on ebay.

The women were also hotter-looking (IMO) in 1909...hey, if I'm going back for a full year...

Finally, there would be better spare parts available in 1909 to make repairs to my time machine, and gas-powered vehicles to move it if necessary.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Late 1933 with a pile of vintage lincoln pennies to pay for all the gum packs I'd be able to get at a discount from local merchants eager to get rid of old stock of cards, plus a nice stash of folding money to pay for ads in local papers so I could buy up all the cards I could find. I'd also visit every candy wholesaler and candy store I could find and ask the owners about old unopened materials.

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Posted By: Mike Campbell

1933. What a great year for cards. Depression period. Forth coming military conflict. New Era in Politics. Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Grove etc. etc. Interesting time in history. My favorite time for baseball, and the cards that evolved during it.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakisc

Dave, you'll have a year's wait if you go back to 1948.

We have settled this controversy many, many threads
ago. Back in the 1980's I had a full uncut 49-card
sheet of these LEAFs (1st series). The cards on that
sheet have a mixture of 1948 and 1949 Copyrights.

Dave, did you ever collect these Leafs as a kid ?

I did, I clearly remember when they were first available;
it was positively with all certainty, very early spring
of 1949. I grew up in Northern NJ.

Peter Thomas (Forum member) collected these cards in his
youth in the Boston area, has also confirmed that these
cards were NOT available before 1949.

And, most older hobbyst who collected them also agree.

In 1948 us kids collected all kinds of Bowmans Sports
cards, Movie Stars, etc. We also collected 1948 LEAF
Football, Boxing, and even "Pirates of the Seas" cards.

Dave....TRUST ME....THERE WERE NO LEAF BASEBALL CARDS
issued in 1948....PERIOD.

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Posted By: identify7

Id go back to when you could buy Cracker Jack sets by mail from the manufacturer. And I would order a few per day for about a month, then hang out and try to stay out of trouble, but since I already know the outcome of major sporting events and other things, becoming a "gambler" is a natural.

Actually, forget the Cracker Jacks. If I had access to a time machine and a knowledge of history, why invest? That takes too long. Just bet.

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Posted By: John S

It makes me feel better to read posts regarding this topic. I realize that I am not the only deluded board contributor. I have actually had dreams (on multiple occasions) about going back in time a purchasing cigarettes for the cards. My years would be 1894-1895 to collect the N300 and N302 sets.

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Posted By: Josh A.

I'd have to say 1933, to pick up some of that great Goudey Gum, er, I mean cards! Or 1914 and buy as much Cracker Jack as I could stuff into my pockets.

Julie, you may not have to travel back to 1919 to see the Sox in the Series. Just come to 35th and Shields this month to see the '05 Sox! That is, if they play better than last night.

But the important question is, where would you all get the money to pay for this stuff? Because, as we all know, if you bring money minted in 2005 back to 1933, well, you won't have anything! Unless you have a coin collection, then you are in business.

"I'm thinking about getting a plasma T.V., in case I need a transfusion."- Steven Wright

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Posted By: Chris Mc

I would travel to 1928. Fantastic candy and ice cream cards, strip cards and other black and white issues.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I would go back to 1948 so that I could hang out with my other time-traveling buddy, David Vargha, before he started his long stint in the looney bin for predicting that baseball cards would actully be WORTH something... and for talking about some futuristic demonry known as the "Internet."

Then, in early 1949, Vargha and I would hang around outside the stores in New York and New Jersey and when a young little kid named Ted Zanidakis came out of the store with his cards...

we would trade him all of our 1949 Leaf Luke Appling cards (a well-known commodity at the time) for all of his 1949 Leaf Leroy Paige cards (who has ever heard of "Leroy" Paige??).

Then... I would get back in my time machine... come back to 2005... and remind Ted Z. about how he once was the owner of 75 Satchell Paige rookie cards... and I would ask him if he still had those 75 Luke Appling cards.



So Ted... tell the truth.... did you ever trade away a bunch of Satchell rookie cards as a kid??

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Posted By: David Vargha

Hal -- Do you know something I don't? Do they actually release me for a short period of time in 1949 as your scenario seems to indicate?

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Yes, I break you and a few other loonies out of the nuthouse under the guise of going to a Yankees game.

I learned the trick in our future life by watching that Michael Keaton movie... but the name escapes me.

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Posted By: David Vargha

Sadly enough, I've seen that movie -- "The Dream Team". I didn't know that it was based upon my life. Any chance of retaining you as counsel in pursuit of the royalties owed to me?

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

No, because you are incompetent and therefore cannot enter into a legally binding contract or testify in court.

I will, however, offer you the option of chosing which of the 3 crazy guys in the movie was based on your life.

I already took the Michael Keaton role...

but you still have three very good choices:

1) The Dad from "Everybody Loves Raymond" (Peter Boyle)

2) The Mad Professor from "Back to the Future" (Christopher Lloyd)

3) Flounder from "Animal House" (Stephen Furst)


Which character in that movie was you?

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Posted By: David Vargha

Geez, I kinda wanted to be Keaton. I'll settle for Christopher Lloyd so I can make the DeLorean time machine that gets me back to 1948 in the first place. Now I'm beginning to see how all of the pieces fall into place.

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: jay behrens

I'm surprised no one has opted for 1903 so they load up on Breisch-Williams cards. I'd also be snatching up any books, guides and programs along with any game used equipment I could get my hands on.

Jay

Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams.
If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, "It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."-- Babe Ruth

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Posted By: barrysloate

Everyone is also forgetting that you must bring period money with you in order to make purchases. From 1878 on, you could bring back circulated Morgan dollars which would cost you today under $10, and I imagine a single Morgan dollar could get you quite a few Old Judges, Kalamazoo Bats, maybe even a few Four Base Hits if you could find them. For my trip back to 1869, best thing to do is bring a double eagle from the 1860's which you could purchase today for about $500. I would say that a $20 gold piece could buy an awful lot from Peck & Snyder's, which might include uniforms, bats, and a thick handful of Brooklyn Atlantic and Cincinnati Reds trade cards. That would be a solid $500 purchase.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Here's an even more complicated dilemma. Let's say I went back to 1869 just to get a single Peck & Snyder Cincinnati Red Stockings card. And let's also imagine that by some amazing coincidence it was the one that is currently owned by Julie (since that is one we are familiar with). Since I purchased it before it ever made it to the present, would it suddenly disappear from Julie's collection? That could be an episode of the Twilight Zone. Rod Serling might have called it "The Tale of the Missing Peck & Snyder."

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Posted By: Darren J. Duet

1917

That way I may be able to obtain everything I care to produced up to that year. In particular, cracker jacks, T's, E's, and M's.

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Posted By: will watson

I'd travel back and forth through time to solve all the hobby mysteries - Wagner, Plank, etc.

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Posted By: identify7

Barry: you'd rather bring $20 gold at a cost of $500, over 20 silver dollars @ $200. Wow, you value travelling light.

Im going to need a time machine with a big trunk.

And I think that Julie's Peck & Snyder disappears from your possession the minute she buys it (unless you are fast).

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Posted By: barrysloate

If you go back before 1878, the first year of Morgan dollars, you have to buy Seated Dollars and they are quite expensive. Twenty of them would cost far more than a double eagle. After 1878, go with the Morgans all the way.
Re: bringing back cards- most cards that were issued 100 or so years ago have been destroyed, so if you bring one of those back to the present you are saving it from destruction. But, to use another example, if you go back to 1888 and find a Four Base Hit of Kelly and bring it back to the present, and that example happens to be the one that ended up in Leon's collection, it can't be in two different places at the same time. So you would now own it and Leon's would disappear. He would go to his vault one day, find it gone, and would never know to his dying day what happened to it. Very spooky stuff.

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Posted By: Wesley

1933 is tough to beat.

So many great sets that year...Goudeys, Diamond Star, US Caramels, Delongs, Tattoo Orbits, George C Millers....

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Posted By: Marc S.

I would go back and purchase an actual baseball team or two. Let's say Phillies and Red Sox. And then I would force my players to sign agreements that they could only have their portraits used on cards that were published by me. And then I'd have my very own proprietary set of baseball cards - one for every year that I'm owner. I would distribute just enough of them to the public so people knew that they existed, but thought that they were extremely scarce. And then I would travel back to today - with my hoarde of Marc 101 cards - and I would trade them for a bunch of 1/1 game-used refractor cards.

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Posted By: Marc S.

<<But, to use another example, if you go back to 1888 and find a Four Base Hit of Kelly and bring it back to the present, and that example happens to be the one that ended up in Leon's collection, it can't be in two different places at the same time. So you would now own it and Leon's would disppear. He would go to his vault one day, find it gone, and would never know to his dying day what happened to it. Very spooky stuff.>>

Well, Barry, that's not really true. Because he would not have had the card in the first place. He had the card in the "past past", but in the "present past", he never had the card. So it would essentially just disappear - and all knowledge of that "past past" would have disappeared with it. Right?

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Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

If you went back and time to grab Leon's 4 base hit Kelly then wouldn't it cause a ripple effect where he never would have purchased it in the first place? Kind of like he had a dream that he owned the 4 base hit Kelly.

If anyone does go back in time make sure you DON'T get into a fight and kill one of my relatives so that I was never born just b/c of some card.

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Posted By: Marc S.

I would go back to 1909. Find EVERY SINGLE T-206 Honus Wagner card that was made or scrapped - and I would carefully go to desk/drawer/furniture manufacturers, and make sure that I slyly affix the Wagner card somewhere in that furniture.

Just to confuse people in the 21st century, so that when they go onto Ebay and see "Found at an estate sale, selling 'as is' ", the Wagner may very well be authentic.

Boo-haa-haa-haa

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Posted By: barrysloate

O.K., so how about if I went back in time and purchased the Four Base Hit and at precisely that moment your were on the phone with Leon and asked him what the best card in his collection is? Would he or wouldn't he respond "my Four Base Hit of Kelly." At what point does it disappear from his consciousness?

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Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

If you purchased it at the exact moment that I was trying to purchase it then imo the conversation would have never taken place. Since you bought it then Leon never would have purchased it and I never would have known that he owned it.

Kinda like Back To The Future 2 and Biff getting the book with all the sports scores. Since he place the bets it changed everything that happend after that.

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Posted By: barrysloate

You see, Leon owns the card today. But if I take the time machine back tomorrow, and purchase his card before he ever did, does it slip out of his consciousness that he ever owned it? It's an existential conundrum, or to put it another way- I have no idea what I'm talking about.

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

Barry is onto something here. In our answers above most of us have been guilty of breaking the cardinal rule of time travel - do not change anything!

If we took all the cards back then that are valuable today, we would seriously negatively warp the underlying fabric of the fragile time/space continuum to the point that John Dreker would be the richest man on earth (since he has cornered the market on N172 Larry Corcoran cards) followed closely by Tom Boblitt (still having several cases of 1987 Topps in his garage).

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Posted By: barrysloate

Charlie- so you are saying Leon would have no knowledge that he ever owned the card, because in fact he never did? Quite possibly correct. You see, this is why nobody ever invented a time machine- it's just too complicated. And Leon, sorry to drag your Kelly through this whole sordid affair.

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Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

You are correct...

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hey Leon- the Kelly magically appeared on one of my posts- probably originating from some vortex or some other dimension- this is just getting too spooky for me.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

What if I went back in time to 1832 and married Knig Kelly's mom... so that our child would NOT be married "King Kelly" but would instead be named "King Lewis"??

Then not only would Leon's King Kelly CARD have never existed...

but King Kelly HIMSELF would have never existed.

At least this way, once Leon's card disappears from his vault... he hasn't lost anything of value.

PS - Yes, his mother was definitely a MILF. I've seen pictures...errr, dags....errr, paintings of her.

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Posted By: Matt Goebel

Does anybody's answer change if you are not allowed to sell any of the cards you bring back?