Personal Collecting History

[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.