Looking back...

[ATP]

Being born in the late 1970's and a child of the 80's collecting culture, I couldn't wait to get each months Beckett. I have always been a numbers person, and I would pour over that thing each month seeing what went up and what went down (I think they used to use plus and minus symbols, and then arrows if I am remembering correctly). And then wow, if a card you had ever went into bold type then you really new you had the key card. I think part of the mystique for me back then was that I really had very little access to vintage cards from my local store. I knew what the sets looked like, and could recognize the key cards, but I had no idea what a 1959 Clemente looked like unless I saw a photo in a mail order catlog, Beckett article, or happened across one in person. Money was different back then or course as well, so seeing a card worth $50 seemed out of this world at the time.

[DHogan]

I remember being in 3rd grade at St. John's Catholic school in Worcester Mass. in the late 60's and trying to trade cards at recess time. Or, if the nun's minding the school yard at recess saw anyone with cards in their hands worse yet playing flipping card games against the school building. They would come over and take everyone's cards away and never give them back. I guess they considered it gambling !


A strange thing was, that no one wanted anything to do with rookie cards. Kids would give them away or even throw them away !

[cockrellcollection]

I remember at some point in the early 90s when I was 10 or 11 years old my mother would help me bid in Ron Wilson's (if I remember the name correctly) mail auctions. He was out of Ohio and we would get a typed list in the mail (no pictures that I recall) and I would pick out the lots I was interested in. I really wish I remember how I went about picking out those lots. I do remember winning my first three T206s, all sovereign backs: Shaw 350 (which I don't have anymore), Phelan 350 and Pfeffer 460. I also remember winning a Yuenglings Dugan and a whole lot of 50s commons through a year or so of doing these auctions. I learned some great lessons in collecting and got to spend some fun times with my mother going through those lists. I guess I caught the auction bug early and still love the excitement of it. Did anyone else participate in these auctions?

[ValKehl]

My 3 best buddies and I were always doing sports together, and we all collected cards (mostly baseball) in the mid-1950's to the early 1960's. Being very competitive kids, we spent countless hours trying to win each other's cards - we did some card flipping, but we mostly played two games that we called "sail touch" and "knock down," both of which turned NM cards quickly into G cards! We mostly played with our dupes, but one day my ego and that of one of my buddies got the best of us - we agreed to risk our best singles, my Wash. Senators vs. his Brooklyn Dodgers - I happened to have one of my best days ever, and I cleaned my buddy out of his Koufaxes, Sniders, Reeses, etc.! After we learned how to play cards, we spent countless hours playing blackjack and poker for each other's cards. Those were fun times!!
Val

[freakhappy]

Anyone remember the Fun Cards that Beckett had in their monthly magazine?? I always looked forward to reading which cards were hot and cold...along with the Fun Cards, which were always amusing to me Below I have attached seven cards total...two of which were made by me and a buddy a long time ago and five that I kept because I always thought it was cool that they had the same names as other famous people...can't make this stuff up, people!

For the life of me I don't know how Michael Keaton's face got attached to Will Clark's, but when I found it in a random box a few years ago, I had to keep it. A buddy of mine did the Hendrix and I've always loved it...good memories there!

I'm sure most everyone knows the cross referencing of each or most names, but I'll list them anyway:

Jim Morrison - Singer
Buster Rhymes - Rapper
Mike Tyson - Boxer
Willie Beamon - Jamie Foxx's name in "Any Given Sunday"
Razor Shines - no cross reference...but who has a name like this???

[freakhappy]

After going through a few of my old Beckett Monthly's, I noticed that this was the back cover of the August 1991 Issue #77:



Keepin' it real...even in this thread

[steve B]

I got my first pack in 1969. We lived in a rural/suburban sort of area, some new construction mixed among old farms. One or two houses still had the old crank telephones and the local pharmacy was a great store/meeting place for everyone. It was also a sort of special treat to go there and get some penny candy.
For some reason I decided on baseball cards, and bought one pack.
I opened it sitting on the car with dad and he said "Hey this guy is pretty good"
The cards eventually found their way to the bottom of the toybox with a bunch of other small stuff, and Reggie had to wait a whole two years before any other baseball stuff joined him. By then a couple of the cards had probably become lost. The 71s had a coin! so Danny Cater joined Reggie in the toybox. Until early 74 when the Hank Aaron specials got me interested in old cards. And eventually the Reggie Jackson rookie got recovered from it's toybox exile and added to the collection, having survived 6 years in the toybox, several cleanings and a move.

I still have it, and the Cater coin.


But then I've always been a collector. as a younger kid I liked shorts that had lots of pockets so I could carry more "interesting stuff" back from the woods and fields behind the house.
My first try at collecting baseball stuff didn't go as well. 67 or 68 we went to a cookout and the soda had pictures inside the caps! I rounded up a couple big pocketsful before we had to go and mom confiscated them all to throw away. Apparently the rocks, and bits of fungus covered wood I usually kept were ok but a bunch of "dirty old bottlecaps" were just too much.

Steve B