A question for the REAL old-timers!

[Exhibitman]

I've only been collecting since the early 1970s. Back in that time info on errors was word of mouth. It was hobby lore you'd acquire from "talking" with people at "card shows"; alien concepts, I know. And once you knew of a variation you'd hunt them down relentlessly and see how many you could grab up. My first list of variations and errors was in The Complete Book of Baseball Cards vy Steve Clark (1975).

[tachyonbb]

Born in the 40's started collecting in 1955. I used to use any Yankees card as a target for my bb gun and eventually my .22 Must of shot a bunch of mantle cards during my time . Other Yankee cards went between the spokes of my bicycle until i learned how to cut sheet metal which made a much more satisfying sound.
The cards were and education. Living in fly over country and not owning a tv set our only knowledge of the players in the majors came from the cards and the daily paper. I made a notebook with the starting lineup of the Cardinals and their history from the cards. (Omaha was their class "A" western league club until 55 then their "AAA" club in the American Association).
The first set I completed was the 1960 Topps. like many of you, mom threw my collection of 1000's of cards away when i was in college. (She did keep my sophomore English notes from high school in case i would need them in the future.

[insidethewrapper]

As a kid I collected from 1958-1962 and never remember a word being mentioned of errors or variations. Checking off the checklists was the main thing and trying to complete a set.

[insidethewrapper]

Frank: You must have been one of the first in the country to have a Color TV in 1955. Only 3% had a Color TV in 1964 ! That's why The Beatles were in b/w on the Ed Sullivan Show that year.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by tachyonbb

Born in the 40's started collecting in 1955. I used to use any Yankees card as a target for my bb gun and eventually my .22 Must of shot a bunch of mantle cards during my time . Other Yankee cards went between the spokes of my bicycle until i learned how to cut sheet metal which made a much more satisfying sound.
The cards were and education. Living in fly over country and not owning a tv set our only knowledge of the players in the majors came from the cards and the daily paper. I made a notebook with the starting lineup of the Cardinals and their history from the cards. (Omaha was their class "A" western league club until 55 then their "AAA" club in the American Association).
The first set I completed was the 1960 Topps. like many of you, mom threw my collection of 1000's of cards away when i was in college. (She did keep my sophomore English notes from high school in case i would need them in the future.

Many in today's climate could use those notes!

My earliest collecting experiences were in around 1966/7 or so. As previously stated, I don't remember looking for errors but I do remember listening to the Astros on the radio, in the front yard of our sw Houston house, eating sunflower seeds and spitting out the kernels on said front yard. .

.

[50sBaseball]

I am 73 and bought wax packs from 1953-1961. In my younger years, I was guided by older brothers, with whom i traded. As a few others have already said, we were mostly interested in who was on the front of the card, and were most interested in players on our favorite teams.
I noticed that card backs were different colors, but so what? I never thought one might be more valuable. I never got a 1958 Topps Frank Herrer error card, but had I done so, I would have felt ripped off...like this card is defective. I remember getting a 6-card pack 1957 Topps pack and all the cards were badly out of focus...I felt cheated by Topps!
Though I did read the backs of cards, and found it interesting who were World War II veterans and the jobs that ballplayers had in the offseason, it was all secondary to who was on the front. Occasionally, we might find an "error" of some sort on the back of the card, but it was no big deal. And we could not easily Google to find out if a birthdate or HR total was wrong. The cards were what they were and we enjoyed them for what they were. Great times!

[50sBaseball]

Make that Pancho Herrera, not Frank, in the 1958 Topps set.

[ocjack]

Cover page and two sample pages of the Nozaki book. As stated above, it used to take research and conversations with others to determine error/variation cards. I remember roaming many card shows looking in the 1957 commons bin for Frank Bakep. Fwiw, in probably 7-10 years of searching, I was only able to find 2.

[jsanz]

Great thread. So much fun to read about cards when it was just a hobby. I collected in the 80's so it was a very different experience. We did have a lot of fun with cards. I still think back to some great memories.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by ocjack

Cover page and two sample pages of the Nozaki book. As stated above, it used to take research and conversations with others to determine error/variation cards. I remember roaming many card shows looking in the 1957 commons bin for Frank Bakep. Fwiw, in probably 7-10 years of searching, I was only able to find 2.

So there were some error collectors, just not the abundance of them today. Thanks for posting those pages...