How many collections lay dormant?

[DanP]

A couple of years ago my friends father asked me to help him sell his cards. They were in his basement for years. As first I thought it was a waste of time, but in the middle of some 1970's cards I found a 1914 Mathewson CJ. I spent a week looking through over 100,000 cards. I found some other nice cards like a Connie Mack OJ (I sold some of his cards on N54).

More than 20 years ago (before I got back into collecting) a electrician friend of mine said he opened an old chest in an attic of a house he was working at (yes, he shouldn't have) in Waterbury, CT. The lady was in her 90's. The chest was full of baseball cards. I asked him what kind of cards, he said "I don't think any of them were worth anything they were not standard size and mostly black and white). I always wondered what the cards were and what happened to them!! They weren't cards from the 50's or later because they would have recognized them.

There has to be plenty more people out there like these two!!!

Dan

[B O'Brien]

A fellow I know rebuilds houses in New Orleans and I was walking through one of places last summer. I told him to give me a call if he ever found any cards, and said that he had just tossed out a few hundred Coupons found in one his places in the Irish Channel. That one was pretty much a fluke, because that is one of the few elevated places in the city. A family member passed down two beater houses after a death and the new owner just sold them both as is. My buddy just wanted to do quick rebuilds on the places, so never even thinks about taking the time to part out the houses and see what is inside, dumpster crews can wreck a house in a matter of hours without ever taking the time to see what is there.

I sure made me sad, but I did get a nice desk out of his last place!

I would think this happens a lot around the country. I know movie poster hunters check old houses because they were used as insulation from time to time!

Hope all is well,
Bob

[triwak]

I asked him what kind of cards, he said "I don't think any of them were worth anything they were not standard size and mostly black and white).

OMG, that is SO frustrating! People have been so conditioned by Topps and other modern card companies, as to what a "baseball card" is supposed to look like. It's a constant vigil trying to educate folks about all the cool stuff that came before 1948! Keep the faith...

[barrysloate]

Maybe he had a trunkful of E107. They're black and white.

[DanP]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Maybe he had a trunkful of E107. They're black and white.

Ahhh... When he told me the story I didn't even know what an E107 was. I did show him some of my cards a few years ago, but he couldn't remember what the cards in the trunk looked like since it was over 15 years ago! Believe me I still think about it!

[bcbgcbrcb]

My guess on the black and white cards: American Caramel/M101-4 & 5's

[DanP]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

My guess on the black and white cards: American Caramel/M101-4 & 5's

Phil, keep in mind there was a trunk full of cards! Not 100's but probably more than 10,000 all just thrown in a trunk (not stacked neatly). There were many different sizes (according to Tom). If only ......

Yes, they could have been M101-4,5's. I think he said he saw a mint Babe Ruth RC in there! Just kidding ...

I'm going to bring it up again tomorrow at lunch, maybe he remembers the house!

Dan

[rp12367]

In the late 80's I was helping my Father clean up my Grandmothers basement and under the stairs in a box long forgotten by my Dad, was his mini hoard of 1958 Topps Baseball. He had somewhere in the neighborhood of 300+ cards, some rubber banded together, a lot just lose in the box with his high school yearbook and a bunch of paper's and stuff, that he had no idea was even there, he just assumed it made it out to the curb decades ago. There were 6 Mantle All-Stars and 2 regular issue Mantles, Williams, Mays, Cepeda etc... Not exactly a collection but stuff like this does exist... By the way, he gave me a Mantle All-Star that I traded for a complete set of 1984 Topps Baseball, I know someone just shoot me....

[Brian Van Horn]

Late arriver on the post (so, what else is new). I guess I qualify as a "dormant" collector because I have never had a card graded. Any card in my collection someone else sent in PSA or SGC.

[ctownboy]

I think the word "dormant" is causing some confusion.

When I think of dormant, I do NOT think of collections without graded cards. I see that as a preference of the collector. I think many collectors are active but have few, if any, graded cards. In short, I don't think a collection with ungraded cards should be considered dormant.

No, when I think of a dormant collection I think of two different things;

1) a collection that a young person put together and who then quit collecting.

For example, last Summer, I saw an ad for a yard sale that listed baseball cards for sale. I went (was five minutes late because I took a wrong turn) but the cards had already sold. The man who owned the cards was in his fifties and he said the cards were probably from around 1965. He said he collected them as a boy, stopped collecting and then just put the shoebox away in the closet.

He was selling the cards (they sold for $25 dollars and he said there was at least one Mantle and one Maris in the box) because he and his Wife were moving and he didn't want to move them again.

2) a collection that a person put together as an adult (they might have started as a child and just kept on going over the years) but stopped because of one reason or another (got married, had children, bought a house, became unemployed, saving money for children's college, saving for retirement, etc).

I think the type of collection we on this board want to find is the kind a child put together many years ago and that was either passed down through the family or left in an old house and forgotten about.

David