Are your cards ===mint=== ???

hammer · #1 01-18-2014, 09:01 AM

Thats a great Ruth.

jb217676 · #2 01-18-2014, 09:19 AM

That's why I collect pre-war baseball postcards. Some are so darn rare you can't be picky when it comes to condition so I never ask. Sweet Ruth Leon!

MattyC · #3 01-18-2014, 09:35 AM

I am naturally wary of any old card that is too mint. Additionally, some wear on much older cards looks appropriate, adds charm and character, and thus-- for me-- enhances eye appeal.

Time and again we have seen cards in higher numerical grade (closer to MINT) look worse to the eye than lower grade examples.

I tend to really appreciate a collection that manages to find hugely appealing pieces that are not obvious mint blazers. Sure, if the money is in hand, it's easy to throw big dollars around and obtain a Mint 9 Mantle or Clemente RC. But try finding one that looks great for under 4k. The latter is some challenge.

Conversely, I don't see anything to celebrate when a card labeled MINT 9 or GEM MT 10 is purchased-- but it actually looks overgraded, as many are. I get a sinking feeling when I see a 10 being brandished, that say has obvious tilt or a touched corner.

I love cards with total pops in the 100-range or less, because you are just thrilled to have an example in your collection-- and one with any eye appeal is just gravy! Hence why most of my favorite cards are lowly 1s to 3s LOL.

DeanH3 · #4 01-18-2014, 05:09 PM

I love cards with total pops in the 100-range or less, because you are just thrilled to have an example in your collection-- and one with any eye appeal is just gravy! Hence why most of my favorite cards are lowly 1s to 3s LOL.[/QUOTE]

This is where I find myself as well. I prefer overall rarity vs condition rarity.

ullmandds · #5 01-18-2014, 05:12 PM

great cards, Dean...I totally agree. But there can't be more than a few dozen max on those!!!!

tschock · #6 01-18-2014, 05:20 PM

While I appreciate mint cards, like many of you, almost all of mine are more of a "cinnamon" in nature.

DeanH3 · #7 01-18-2014, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ullmandds

great cards, Dean...I totally agree. But there can't be more than a few dozen max on those!!!!

Thanks Pete.

AMBST95 · #8 01-18-2014, 09:41 AM

The craze of the late 80s, early 90s really created a world full of idiots when it comes to card collecting. Most of my friends who I try to talk about collecting with have the similar mint mindset and still hold on to their shoeboxes full of 91 Topps hoping for a big payday one day because the cards are mint. My parents are like, "that's pretty neat" but always come back to "What is it worth?" That's why I don't regularly share my collection with others. People hear baseball cards and think stocks and bonds rather than strikes and balls.

I've learned to collect what I like, disregard the naysayers who can't appreciate a sweet card and only want to know how much money your collection is worth. They ask if the cards are mint because they equate mint to US Mint.

#9 01-18-2014, 09:34 AM

As long as my cards have good eye appeal who cares, grading is subjective.

Paul S · #10 01-18-2014, 09:50 AM

Arnie, your collection sounds a lot like my own -- pre-and-post-war vintage collection...and I'm a lifelong Yankee fan as well. I don't even bother to mention the subject to "outsiders". My dear friends know about it and are supportive even if they don't quite get my enthusiasm, and I hang out on the board with those who "understand".
Here's a couple Minty

Ruths:

brian1961 · #11 01-18-2014, 10:05 AM

Arnie----Hate to say it, but a lot of people aren't intelligent enough to appreciate the merits of vintage lesser grade cards. Don't give up. If you haven't already done so, arm yourself with a bit of quick history of the facts of cardboard life to convey:

-- the paper drives of two world wars
-- the millions of mothers throwing away their children's card collections--- unless the kid himself threw them away during adolescence
-- as millions of people moved to the suburbs in the 40s-50s, and really anytime, objects seen as junk were left behind or pitched. I lost half my childhood collection when my family moved to a different Chicago suburb in 1964.
-- that card preservation holders were not even invented until the 1980s
-- baseball cards were not perceived as valuable until the adult hobby began to organize in about 1969. Collecting Consciousness, whereby everyone started to save everything, began in the mid-1970s
-- long ago, when baseball cards were simply thought of as cheap boys' toys, boys handled them a lot as they loved them, looking over the pictures and the write-ups again and again--improving their reading, math and organizational skills. They played games with their cards--flipping and other thought-up games. They used them to enhance the sound of their bicycles. I remember reading a story in the magazine, Reminisce. Kids would take their collection of Goudey cards and, with a hole-puncher, punch a hole in a bottom corner area, then attach their stack of cards to a sturdy detachable ring. They'd wear their ring of cards around a belt or belt loop. Before and after a neighborhood game, they'd show off their cards, and perhaps work a trade. Yup, cards were loads of innocent fun.

This might help, emphasis on might. If not, throw it back at them with something they might relate to. Is the Barbie you played with as a girl pristine? Why not? Is the car you drive still pristine? And why not, bub?

You collect rare survivors from a time when cards were loved, but often, dis-carded. It is what it was.

--Brian Powell

GoldenAge50s · #12 01-18-2014, 10:33 AM

I have known Arnie for a few yrs now (from another Board) & believe me when I say he has the most extensive Yankee card collection of anyone I know--ANYONE would be proud to have put together what Arnie has-REGARDLESS of condition!

From the very old to some of the newest, I've seen ALOT of it and would be PROUD to own ANY or ALL of them!

dabigyankeeman · #13 01-18-2014, 10:47 AM

Thank you Fred, and thanks to all here who have said similar things to what i said. This is one subject that drives me nuts!

But hey, as much as i say this, its also nice to see a bunch of high graded cards, and Fred has them all!!!!! LOL. Seriously, Fred has an incredible bunch of great high graded old cards, but Fred, since yours are mainly not graded 10's i guess my friends would look down on your stuff too.

GoldenAge50s · #14 01-18-2014, 11:02 AM

I don't really have much of anyone to share my cards w/ either. My family & relatives know I have a basement full of stuff but don't really ever ask to see anything. My wife is very understanding but would rather have the basement cleaned out to neaten the place up!

She gets the most excited when I tell her I sold something!

MattyC · #15 01-18-2014, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dabigyankeeman

Thank you Fred, and thanks to all here who have said similar things to what i said. This is one subject that drives me nuts!

But hey, as much as i say this, its also nice to see a bunch of high graded cards, and Fred has them all!!!!! LOL. Seriously, Fred has an incredible bunch of great high graded old cards, but Fred, since yours are mainly not graded 10's i guess my friends would look down on your stuff too.

Arnie,

I'm with you all the way on low graded cards-- ESPECIALLY YANKEES!

From one Yankee fan to another, here are my Yankee greats whose collective grades don't even add up to two MINT 9s, let alone their collective cost is probably not even remotely near what one of them would cost in MINT 9...

RTK · #16 01-18-2014, 01:28 PM

Hardly mint...

The majority of my cards were obtained after riding my Schwinn Sting Ray through a field to the local Convenient store, standing at the counter trying to decide how much candy versus how many packs of baseball cards I would buy. I opened the cards in great anticipation, hoping to get Cubs and White Sox players. I kept my cards separated by team and held together with a rubber band. Myself and the neighborhood kids traded cards after our trips to the store. I have no idea how many Mantles, Mays or Aarons I traded. The value of my cards for me is how they relate to my childhood, my childhood friends and endless games of sandlot baseball we played. I've bought a few cards over my adult years; Ted Williams, Mays, Duke Snider, Ernie Banks, all '57's. I particularly like '57 cards despite them being from a time before I was born in 1960. I buy them regardless of the condition, more based on players I like and price. I'll probably buy more over time but I'm not an investor or an accumulator of cards, I just like the old cards and what they meant at the time they were printed. The '90's era of card collecting; rookie cards and special cards is lost on me. I never got caught up in that. I'll take a '67 Don Kessinger with rubber band marks any day.

dabigyankeeman · #17 01-18-2014, 01:37 PM

Matt, great stuff, and no need for higher grades, those cards have super eye appeal. 5 on the true Mantle rookie is really great! Mine is a 1, but again, with great eye appeal. I find that if you look hard enough you can get really good eye appeal in lower grades. Your 52 Mantle with a 3 grade is really nice, again mine is a 1. Love your Sporting News card, thats one i need, even if Babe is in a Boston uniform! I have a part of my collection that i call "Yankee players when they were on other teams" and that card would go in there.

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