Personal Pre-War Set and Collector Survey

[BobC]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Well, I'll be that guy.

I don't collect prewar cards.

It's not that I don't like them or find them interesting, it's just that there are other things I would rather do with with the vintage hobby in terms of my postwar interests given a limited budget, and limited time here on the ol' merry-go-round to do it.

I'm 44. I started collecting with Topps packs at the grocery store and 7-11 at age 9 in 1986. Within 2 years or so, I had quickly come to know what "vintage" (then just called old) cards were, but anything prewar was a rare sight indeed. At the shops back then it was mainly current wax, and then overpriced 50's and 60's cards in lower grade. It was more common to see T206's and other tobacco cards at shows - but for me as a kid those were few and far between - and way out of my price range anyway. So I didn't get the bug as a kid with prewar in the same way I did with 50's - 70's Topps cards. I had other opportunities, but it never clicked. I passed up a PSA 1 Goudey Ruth at a show maybe 20 years ago for $800? I think I bought a Mantle or Aaron instead.

I have dabbled in the past. I've owned T206 portraits of Walter Johnson, Cy Young, and Nap Lajoie. But I was always miffed at the tradeoffs I had to make with selling a lot of other cards in order to be able to afford just a few prewar cards like that - and in much worse condition to boot.

Please don't misunderstand - I'm not knocking the prewar side of the hobby at all - it's just a choice I've made for myself given where I am with my collection right now. I have a decent sized 50's and 60's single HOF'ers collection, and I'm working on a couple of 60's and 70's sets. I do own one token T206 - Danny Hoffman? and somewhere an absolutely destroyed '34 Goudey Hugh Critz. But they aren't cornerstones of my collection or anything. I'm not ruling out a limited type set or anything prewar in the future - it could happen - but the last serious evaluation I made in this department - and there is still far more postwar stuff I'm interested in collecting first for the foreseeable future.

No problem John, all collectors are welcome. Like you, I first started collecting what I initially thought of as "vintage" beginning with the '56 Topps set, for the year I was born. That was about 30 years ago. All the cards, comic books, and other things I had aquired back mostly in the 60's were set aside and forgotten about as I got older, discovered girls, and eventually went to colllege. Then in the late 70's my parents moved, and my Mom lived up to the old cliche' and threw my collections out. Today, in addition to my pre-war collection, I also have quite a few 50's, 60's, and 70's sets, and many near complete partial sets from then as well. Both main sets and many of the oddballs like stand-ups, rub-offs, stamps, coins, and.....well, you get the picture.

I even have some newer, what I call specialty sets I've collected and work on, like the '97 Donruss Signature Series autographed red base set. Got them all except for a short printed Edgar Martinez auto card, which I've been looking for since the set came out in '97. Or a throwback to vintage with my 2002 Topps 206 collection of just all the autographed and game used cards. Have every single one of those as well, except for one short printed Honus Wagner bat relic card. Been looking for it since 2002, and have only seen one for sale in all these years. The guy wanted about what a really nice condition (PSA 6 or 7) T206 red Cobb would sell for today. I said "No thanks!", and am still looking.

So I am also into a lot of the post-war cards just as are you. And my mention of the 2002 Topps 206 set was to also bring up how even with modern card issues there are still references and throw-backs to pre-war. In fact, I think that 2002 Topps set was the first time anyone had ever done buybacks and inserted and distributed real T206 cards in a modern card issue. The way Topps inserted the cards into a modern size card or card holder, whatever you want to call it, I thought was ingenious and turned out very well. (Often wondered why no one ever came out with such a holder anyone could use to store their tobacco cards in so they'd display nicely in the standard 9 pocket pages.) So question for T206 (and T205) collectors, do you like collecting these Topps issued T206 buybacks, and do you leave them in the Topps issued card holders or break them out raw? And never seen one done, but would a TPG allow you to have a T206 buyback card graded and encapsulated by them while remaining in the Topps issued card holder? I've seen where SGC has graded some of the game used relic cards from the Topps 206 set with and without the standard sized holders being encapsulated along with the T206 sized relic cards.

I was also wondering if there were any niche collectors that specifically go after these prewar Topps buyback cards. Seems like any time I've seen one go up for auction on Ebay, it ends up selling for a lot more than what I would have thought the actual T206/205 card would have sold for raw.

And just for the record, I also am against having card companies cut up old jerseys and bats to just put little pieces of them in modern cards, especially for players like Ruth, Cobb, and Wagner. So please don't start admonishing me for collecting something like that. The card companies figured they can promote their products and make a lot of money by doing it, which they have been doing since the first game used cards started coming out back in the 90's. That horse left the barn a long time ago and has long since died, so no reason to keep beating it now. And like was said in the recent thread about the member who destroyed a Hal Chase T206 card after finding out what a not so nice person Chase was, he paid for it and can do what he wants with it. And if the card companies pay and own these bats and jerseys, they can unfortunately do what the want with those items as well.