What was the culture of this forum a decade ago?

[drcy]

Roughly the same. Similar topics. We don't have many fight anymore. A few, it's just they're highlighted. And Leon doesn't allow political fight anymore-- which I think is good.

Didn't have the autograph, memorabilia, other cards sections back then.

I think there's a bigger crowd now, and larger number of very knowledgeable people post now and on a larger variety of topics-- just because of the overall volume of members. Before it was a smaller number of hardcore Pre-War guys only. I regularly see brand new people I'd never heard of before adding smart information to the threads.

2005's not that long ago. I'm thinking 2000.

P.s. I dislike board fights and high volume controversy. I can live without that stuff. As they say in sports, 'It's just a kid's game.' If you want to argue about what is or isn't a rookie card and whether or not a post card counts as a baseball card, that of course is fine. I'll probably voice my opinions on those baseball card topics ("Hell no" for the first and "You're kidding, right?" for the second.)

The previous paragraph was my personal commentary. Disregard if you wish.

[barrysloate]

Echoing what David said, 6-7 years ago we had far more personal attacks, and they often got really nasty. And even nastier were the political debates, which we seemed to engage in pretty regularly. One poster might make a comment about some newsworthy topic, and it would go on for days and hundreds of posts. That is no longer allowed.

There were always discussions about fraud, about the same as it is today. Fraud is as old as this hobby, so it was always something to expose.

One way the board has changed is how T206-centric it has become. Back then T206's were discussed among many other baseball card topics. Today, every bit of minutia is dragged out in a new thread, to the dismay of many. If you're a t206 fanatic I guess that's a good thing, but collectors who don't like them find it off-putting.

But at the end of the day it's always been about baseball cards and memorabilia. That doesn't change.

[drcy]

It was the same cards back then as now, but I bet viewpoints and ideas about the cards have change somewhat. To start, far viewer buying graded cards in 1998. I bet most people bought raw. More information about specific issues in the hobby too. Some card dates and makers have been corrected or identified.