How did you get into pre-war card collecting?

[darwinbulldog]

When I was a kid in the junk wax era I was always proud of whatever my oldest card was, but in those days I never really ran across anything pre-war or considered that I might be able to afford such a thing. In 2002 I finally got on eBay and, for old times' sake, started looking through the baseball card listings. When I realized I could not only afford a real 1933 Goudey or a real T206, but I could easily find hundreds of them all of a sudden, that was it.

I didn't really know anything about rare pre-war cards then, but I think I came to the original Net54 page by way of Google in trying to figure out what the deal was with PRO compared to PSA/SGC/GAI, and that's how I learned about trimming. Then I stuck around and read through old posts and realized how little I knew about old baseball cards compared to some of these people. Twenty years later, and maybe now I am one of those people.

[19cbb]

Opening wax packs in 1983 as a 9-year old.
Thanks to Donruss, Dick Perez and Ty Cobb.
Got in love with that puzzle portraying an ancient baseball icon I knew little about at the time.
Took a bus every week to pick up the SCD periodical at the only news shop in town that carried it and started annoying old dealers the age of my grandfather with phone calls and buying tobacco cards through the mail.
Never looked back.

[jbsports33]

I really miss those days finding great stuff, my first year with prewar was when I first started making good money after college. There was a good amount of stamp shops and coin shops in my area back them in the late 1990s. There was always a selection of T206 and Goudeys to pickup, so I got really hooked. When I got married, read the entire Halper's Auction catalog. Start looking just everywhere and then I started hleping one of my best friends sell and the rest is history. Lots of fun over the years!

Happy collecting!

Jimmy