Personal Collecting History

[Mutton Chop Yaz]

Other than returning to my Diamond Stars set, I'm not certain where this leaves me. My collection feels satisfyingly complete. Modern cards don't appeal to me. They seem complicated and expensive, and watching players in real time through the eyes of an adult somehow diminishes the fun of collecting them for me. They're professionals doing something tangible, working hard to find miniscule advantages, not myths who towered over their contemporaries and whose feats can't be replicated. It's just not the same without the patina of history and a child's frame of reference.

I also don't plan to look beyond the titans already in my collection or seek out more or "better" versions of their cards. One nice example is enough. Maybe I'll change my tune. Maybe I won't be able to resist the call of the hunt. Maybe I'll decide I need a Lou Gehrig or a Cy Young or a Cap Anson. Maybe prices will crash and I'll be able to add or replace cards for practically nothing. Maybe my circumstances will change and I'll have to sell them. Maybe they'll become so valuable that it would be silly not to.

I do know this: as long as I have a collection, this card will be in it. I have it because I used to go to the same barbershop as Mr. Colavito. If you were a boy who liked baseball and left a card with the barber, Mr. Colavito would sign it. It has value only to me, and it's one of the only mementos of my youth that has followed me through the decades. Dinged corners, airbrushed hat, and Chief Wahoo aside, I can't imagine letting it go.

Cheers, and happy collecting.

[hcv123]

Great story!

[71buc]

Great post and thanks for sharing. Your comment pasted below sums up my feelings about modern and pre-war cards perfectly.

“ Modern cards don't appeal to me. They seem complicated and expensive, and watching players in real time through the eyes of an adult somehow diminishes the fun of collecting them for me. They're professionals doing something tangible, working hard to find miniscule advantages, not myths who towered over their contemporaries and whose feats can't be replicated. It's just not the same without the patina of history and a child's frame of reference.”

I dabbled in pre-war but lacked the emotional ties and commitment to players of that era. My father collected from 1948-1959 and if his memory is correct it was an epic collection. Unfortunately it was reduced to little small bundles of kindling by his family while he was serving in the military. He always shared stories of his days collecting and watching his heros. He fell in love with baseball during the 1950s and loved the Indians and Pirates of that era. He spoke of seeing, Mays, Musial, DiMaggio, Paige, Robinson, Mantle, Doby, Feller, Kiner, and Williams. Inspired by those stories I started collecting in the early 1970s as a seven year old. I collected cards of the players he lost and the players of the 1960s and 1970 I watched. He bought me boxes of wax packs every year until I graduated High School. Then he started buying me cards he remembered having in his childhood collection. Despite the occasional hiatus I still chase cards and fortunately my collection was spared from the fireplace when I went to college. He is 80 now and still buys me a card for each birthday and Christmas.

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by 71buc

I dabbled in pre-war but lacked the emotional ties and commitment to players of that era.

Likewise, but barely even a dabbling (just a single T206 common and a '33 Goudey Gehringer).

I also feel similar about modern. It's just a little much, while pre-war is not quite enough (as far as card design) to spark my interest either.

So my golden age will always be '48 to '89.

[Harliduck]

Great journey and great cards. Thanks for sharing, I really enjoy seeing just how unique everyone is in their collecting habits, and yet how similar all of our stories are. Enjoyed the read!

[bobsbbcards]

Wonderful (and relatable) tale! Thank you so much for posting.

[Exhibitman]

Interesting OP and subsequent posts. It is fascinating to see the varied routes we took to getting here.

I started collecting when I was a tyke, with Topps baseball and football cards. My first big year for those sports was 1971. In 1972 I started ripping packs of basketball cards. 1975 is the year I started buying hockey cards in earnest. I quickly moved on to the chase for older cards. My uncle gave me The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book (Little Brown, 1973; Brendan C. Boyd & Fred C. Harris) and I read it until it fell apart. Still cannot see a Coot Veal card w/o adding a "?" to it. It was my first real exposure to the art of golden age Topps and Bowman and those cards were now on my radar. I found The Complete Book of Baseball Cards: For the Collector, Flipper and Fan [1975; Steve Clark] and was hooked on T cards. I realize now that many of the cards I coveted were desired because of those books.

My first card show was Thanksgiving 1976 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, sponsored by the ASCCA. I’d become a Willie Mays fan when he returned to New York in 1973, so my first great project was to collect an example of every Mays card. I finished the Topps run at that show with the 1952 and 1953 cards. My mother nearly ripped my father’s head off when she found out that he loaned me $45 to buy them.

We moved to L.A. in 1977 and the only good thing about the move as far as I was concerned was that I fell ass-backwards into perhaps the richest collecting environment around. I quickly became involved with the West Coast Card Club, which held monthly meetings in a church basement and later a social hall in Northridge. I also lucked into several collections that were given to me by family and friends.

My collection at that point was pretty much about the four sports, Topps, Bowman and a smattering of T cards. It was during that time that I focused on a few Western regional issues that have ever since fascinated me: Zeenuts, Bell Brand, 1968 Atlantic Oil.

I put away the cards after the 1980 baseball season and really did not return to them for nearly a decade, when I decided to attend a massive show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco as a welcome diversion from law school. Unfortunately, in a moment of existential panic in 1987 I sold off a big chunk of my collection to raise some cash before law school. I really did not buy much at the Moscone show but I was re-energized to start collecting. I then attended shows throughout the Bay area if I could get to them on BART or other public transit.

When I returned to L.A. after graduating and got a job and started having disposable income, I really got back into collecting, aided by the abundance of shows. It was a rare weekend that I did not have at least a show a day to attend.

My collecting changed immeasurably around that time owing to two meetings at shows. At one, a fellow had 1948 Leaf cards of Barney Ross and Benny Leonard. I sort of knew that boxing cards existed but seeing these, I was instantly smitten. I bought the pair for a few bucks and took them home to show my father. He looked at the Ross card and said the words that changed my collection forever: “I think my cousin Ray fought him.”

You could have knocked me over with a puff of air. “Dad,” I said, “if you have a cousin who was a boxer that means I have cousin who was a boxer.” He then told me about Ray Miller for the first time and I realized that I, klutz of the month, was related to a world-class athlete.

The other collection-changer for me was meeting an old-time collector named John Spalding. Some of you might have known John. He was a collector from the Bay area with a strong background in PCL history and sports. But that isn’t what got me interested. It was his album of prewar Exhibit cards. I knew of and had collected the postwar cards from time to time, but I’d never seen anything like these. Love at first sight. Over the course of several shows I purchased stacks of them from John, while making a general pest of myself picking his brain about the issue.

I have never been a ‘own ten top flight cards and nothing else’ kind of collector, yet I’ve also never fallen into the completist category. In other words, I have a big-ass pile of stuff: i call it "The Festival of Bric-a-Brac." I like such a wide variety of cards and memorabilia from many eras, sports, cultural segments, etc. My collection was is a rambling, varied thing with tons of backwaters and tidal pools of micro-collections. The broad strokes are:

--A world boxing type card collection, represented whenever possible by favorite fighters Benny Leonard, Joe Louis and Jim Jeffries
--Some boxing memorabilia, mostly photo premiums.
--A boxing HOF collection represented by career-contemporary cards whenever possible, which I use as the backbone of the type card collection (e.g., I have a type card from the 1931 Bigott set from Venezuela that happens to be HOFer Pedro Montanez).
--Prewar baseball cards and ephemera
--Exhibit cards
--Postwar mainstream collections of baseball, basketball, football and hockey, especially the 1970s (I am a 1970s kid after all).
--Autographs and cards of Star Trek TOS, musicians and comedians.

Modern mostly leaves me flat. There are a few sets I like and I do collect some modern issues, mostly basketball cards devoted to my Showtime Lakers, but it doesn't hold my interest the way a 1976 Topps Fred Lynn will (i mention it because I just bought a stellar raw one to replace a PSA 9 I am going to sell).

Speaking of selling, this crazy market definitely gives an OG collector like me pause; do I sell into it or not? There are some tremendous profits to be taken but if I still want to collect, I am not going to take them: what am I going to do, sell my Aaron RC and then try to replace it a third time? Yeah, not. A nice problem to be sure, though...

And since we need some pictures to go with all the verbiage: