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

[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.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by profholt82

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:

I wanted that binder so bad as a kid! Never could find it.

Back to the Future also likely had some influence. I was 9 when that came out and remember seeing it in the theatre. The 50's seemed like some mythical world that was hundreds of years ago, not just 30 or so. It's like trying to compare today to the early 1990's. Just not the same.

[whiteymet]

Richie Ashburn was my baseball hero. I got to know him pretty well in his later years and the thing he was most proud of was that he had the most hits of any player in the decade of the 50's! Yep, look it up.

I asked him why?

What he said sort of "fits" in this discussion. Something I had never thought of.

He said it was the the best baseball ever played because it was post integration and pre expansion!

[Volod]

Originally Posted by whiteymet

Richie Ashburn was my baseball hero. I got to know him pretty well in his later years and the thing he was most proud of was that he had the most hits of any player in the decade of the 50's! Yep, look it up.

I asked him why?

What he said sort of "fits" in this discussion. Something I had never thought of.

He said it was the the best baseball ever played because it was post integration and pre expansion!

Richie made some really astute observations. I loved his quote about a new member of his team: "The kid doesn't smoke, chew, drink, curse or chase women...I don't see how he can possibly make it in this league.":

[egri]

Originally Posted by Volod

Richie made some really astute observations. I loved his quote about a new member of his team: "The kid doesn't smoke, chew, drink, curse or chase women...I don't see how he can possibly make it in this league.":

Around the same time he said that, the Red Sox had a rookie pitcher, Paul Hinrichs, who asked Ellis Kinder how to succeed in the majors. Kinder asked him, "Do you drink?" "No." "Smoke?" "No." "Stay out late chasing girls?" "No." "You'll never make it."

Hinrichs' career lasted two games.