My Top 10 Reason I like '50s BB Cards.... Care to add?

[mortimer brewster]

Nothing excites me more than the moldy smell of a finely aged baseball card, especially from my favorite year 1957.

[John1941]

Originally Posted by mortimer brewster

Nothing excites me more than the moldy smell of a finely aged baseball card, especially from my favorite year 1957.

I like that. "Finely aged" captures it well.

The designs are great, the players are interesting, the cards are usually affordable - what's not to love?

[skooter]

I can't explain it, but at 79 years old, I can still look at a 1954 Bowman and taste the gum!

[cannonballsun]

I liked the gum. Am I the only one ?

[G1911]

I like art over photos. Topps through 1956, Bowman most years, Red Man, Red Heart, it was a golden era of artwork-centric cards. Also, they are much cheaper than the 1933-1934 or 1909-1912 periods of great artwork-centric cards. The 50's are kind of a sweetheart spot. I'm running out of 50's Topps and Bowman cards I don't have, and am kind of bummed I'm hitting the end of the line in collecting them. I pull my 53 Topps set out probably more often than any other baseball issue.

[Harliduck]

I agree with everything already brought up. To me pre-57 cards are just art. I love the size, the look, the players...I also like that I don't mind lower grade cards pre-57...doesn't bother me a bit. Just having an example matters...

[Volod]

Originally Posted by cannonballsun

I liked the gum. Am I the only one ?

As long as you're recalling opening a '50's waxpack in the 50's, Wayne, and not sometime recently. But, I guess I also enjoyed card gum at the age of eight or nine, myself. The one really bad memory I have of confections in card wrappers from that era is the god-awful caramel candy that Topps put in its first year cards. That evil stuff was so stale and hard by the time it hit store shelves, it could break a kid's baby teeth before it had time to rot them.

[jchcollins]

In general, I think 50's cards just speak to a simpler time, and their images and feel and smell are highly evocative of nostalgia.

For me, a child of the 1980's - the 1950's were when my parents were kids. I can flip through a group of 50's cards and wonder if my Dad might have had any of them. I didn't experience the 1950's in person, but if that must be the case - I think the cards today are at least a decent substitute. I can do that with cards and be in any era I want - and to that end, I feel like it's the right hobby for me because I can get rid of what Jefferson Burdick called "work a day cares" and ride off on a magic carpet with my cards. I'm instantly 12 again, or 10 - and for those few small moments where i can be totally focused - nothing else in the world matters.

[profholt82]

I also grew up in the 80s, and was fascinated by the 50s as a whole. Perhaps it was seeing Back to the Future, I don't know. But the music, movies, tv shows, fashions, they all appealed to me. When I got into card collecting with the wood grain bordered 87T set, my dad got me a binder for them shortly thereafter, and it featured many 50s cards on the cover, and I just thought they looked amazing. It was this one:


As a fan of the sport, I knew many of the names, but not all. That Richie Ashburn card in particular really called out to me. I ended up getting his biography from the library and became fascinated by him. But while I liked the Topps sets of my era, and later the great photography of sets by Upper Deck and Score, I knew that they paled in comparison to those beautiful cards of the 50s. Later in life, since I got back into card collecting, I've focused almost exclusively on the 50s, and it's no coincidence.