What was the salvation of the Prewar card hobby

[Vintage Vern]

Was it the internet, card shows, shops etc. What has been the driving force? How did the good ol boys of yesteryear collect before all the technology came around, and how did it change the way for you today. It truly is amazing to me how many mynewt, and fragile items still exist, especially from a time of wars, and hardships. Items that had really no value at the time.

[Yoda]

Nostalgia for a world less complicated and one in which deals were personal social interactions instead of just mouse pushing.

[homerunhitter]

Im one of those old farts that collected before technology took over and I’ll tell you, it was amazing! We collected for the pure love of the hobby, didn’t care about condition of cards or if we traded a Mickey Mantle for a Phi Niekro. We were just happy getting cards of our favorite teams or players. As mentioned above, interaction and having fun was everything. Nowadays the hobby is all about quick flips, getting one over on someone and graded cards. Old school collecting is the way!

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Vintage Vern

Was it the internet, card shows, shops etc. What has been the driving force? How did the good ol boys of yesteryear collect before all the technology came around, and how did it change the way for you today. It truly is amazing to me how many mynewt, and fragile items still exist, especially from a time of wars, and hardships. Items that had really no value at the time.

I don't know about Salvation but the internet made it, like everything else, get much larger.

Here is my newt..

[BobbyStrawberry]

Another Newt

[Vintage Vern]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

Im one of those old farts that collected before technology took over and I’ll tell you, it was amazing! We collected for the pure love of the hobby, didn’t care about condition of cards or if we traded a Mickey Mantle for a Phi Niekro. We were just happy getting cards of our favorite trans or players. As mentioned above, interaction and having fun was everything. Nowadays the hobby is all about quick flips, getting one over on someone and graded cards. Old school collecting is the way!

But how? I'd imagine it was more in the larger populated cities. My family all grew up farming, and living in very modest ways. My Dad was born in 1937, and they had 8 people living in a 4 room house with no running water. He passed away in 1996, and I did ask him questions, and in no way was a baseball card something he would have been able to have had. He told me sticks, and rocks are what they used to play baseball. I'm just trying to imagine the amount of cards that still exist, and it's amazing to me.

[jingram058]

Having been in and out of the hobby 4 times, I have never understood my 3rd return in the late 1980s, and now. Even in the late 80s, you could still buy a 33 Goudey Ruth for $250. I know, because I bought one. I thought it was a lot of money. Maybe I'm just and old fogey, but the thousands of dollars for that same Ruth seems unbelievable. I have never understood the Mickey Mantle phenomenon. But I guess his meteoric rise in value is similar to Lawrence Welk in the big bands. Out of Glenn Miller (who unfortunately disappeared over the English Channel), Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, who would believe that Lawrence Welk would wind up so insanely popular when all the others faded away?

[brunswickreeves]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Having been in and out of the hobby 4 times, I have never understood my 3rd return in the late 1980s, and now. Even in the late 80s, you could still buy a 33 Goudey Ruth for $250. I know, because I bought one. I thought it was a lot of money. Maybe I'm just and old fogey, but the thousands of dollars for that same Ruth seems unbelievable. I have never understood the Mickey Mantle phenomenon. But I guess his meteoric rise in value is similar to Lawrence Welk in the big bands. Out of Glenn Miller (who unfortunately disappeared over the English Channel), Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, who would believe that Lawrence Welk would wind up so insanely popular when all the others faded away?

When I was about 10 years old a friend of mine casually opened a safety box at his grandfather’s house where we were visiting and showed me several 33 Goudey Ruths. Said they were worth about a thousand bucks. That was the first time I had ever seen a vintage baseball card in person and was totally captivated. I also remember a friend telling us his Dad had a 52 Topps Mantle and my brother and I would play in the woods imagining what if we found an abandoned box of 52 Topps cards and THE Mickey Mantle? Funny how these childhood memories are so cemented in memory and a place we collectors go back to for pure unbridled joy.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

We were just happy getting cards of our favorite trans or players.

Trans though? I don't think there was any rule banning them from MLB, but I don't think many were good enough to make it to the majors.

[homerunhitter]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

Trans though? I don't think there was any rule banning them from MLB, but I don't think many were good enough to make it to the majors.

Darn autocorrect! It’s suppose to be teams. Will correct it now! Thanks for the catch!

[packs]

In the early 90s when I started collecting pre-war aside from card shows I would always be on the look out for ads in the classified sections of newspapers. There would always be a handful of ads for garage sales that said they had baseball cards and for sale ads of people trying to unload their collections.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by jingram058

But I guess his meteoric rise in value is similar to Lawrence Welk in the big bands. Out of Glenn Miller (who unfortunately disappeared over the English Channel), Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, who would believe that Lawrence Welk would wind up so insanely popular when all the others faded away?

I don't think any big band aficionado would compare Lawrence Welk to any of the greats on your list. That would be insulting to the other artists. (And you're obviously saying pretty much the same thing!) Welk was more like Guy Lombardo; extremely popular, but not influential in any sort of progressive sense. All the others you mentioned made huge contributions to music, while Welk and Lombardo were just pablum that some people could dance to. You could say that Welk was to big bands what Pat Boone was to rock & roll, except it dragged on for decades thanks to television.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

I don't think any big band aficionado would compare Lawrence Welk to any of the greats on your list. That would be insulting to the other artists. (And you're obviously saying pretty much the same thing!) Welk was more like Guy Lombardo; extremely popular, but not influential in any sort of progressive sense. All the others you mentioned made huge contributions to music, while Welk and Lombardo were just pablum that some people could dance to. You could say that Welk was to big bands what Pat Boone was to rock & roll, except it dragged on for decades thanks to television.

Pat Boone's version of Tutti Frutti outsold Little Richard's. Times have changed.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

I don't think any big band aficionado would compare Lawrence Welk to any of the greats on your list. That would be insulting to the other artists. (And you're obviously saying pretty much the same thing!) Welk was more like Guy Lombardo; extremely popular, but not influential in any sort of progressive sense. All the others you mentioned made huge contributions to music, while Welk and Lombardo were just pablum that some people could dance to. You could say that Welk was to big bands what Pat Boone was to rock & roll, except it dragged on for decades thanks to television.

I agree with you. What I'm saying is who would have believed that Welk would be the one out of the hundreds of big bands to get the popular (to a huge number of viewers, not me) TV show that was on TV seemingly forever after all the others, Lombardo included, faded away?

[bmattioli]

Originally Posted by Vintage Vern

Was it the internet, card shows, shops etc. What has been the driving force?

Without the help of the Internet and making contacts I would not possess quite a few things I love..

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by jingram058

I agree with you. What I'm saying is who would have believed that Welk would be the one out of the hundreds of big bands to get the popular (to a huge number of viewers, not me) TV show that was on TV seemingly forever after all the others, Lombardo included, faded away?

I understood!

At the same time, Mickey Mantle contributed far more to his profession than Welk did to his. If I could actually think of the baseball equivalent to Lawrence Welk, I might laugh for a week straight! Just the thought of this premise was enough for a great chuckle.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

(Lawrence) Welk was more like Guy Lombardo; extremely popular, but not influential in any sort of progressive sense.... Welk and Lombardo were just pablum that some people could dance to.

An outrageous lie! Lawrence Welk was just plain schmaltzy. Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians were not. They were a standard big band for their day. (Not that I'm any kind of a big band fan.)

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

An outrageous lie! Lawrence Welk was just plain schmaltzy. Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians were not. They were a standard big band for their day. (Not that I'm any kind of a big band fan.)

Music being subjective to personal interpretation, I always found Lombardo just as schmaltzy. I hate to say that about our hometown's boy, but...

[HercDriver]

I would say the internet opened up the vastness of what's out there, that you just never knew about. I have been collecting since 1974, moving towards pre-war in the early eighties, where I would trade Sandberg rookies for T205s, which Chicago shops were happy to do. Everyone wanted a Sandberg, nobody knew who Joe Tinker was. All my trading was by writing letters, from the classifieds in Trader Speaks and SCD, or whatever other periodical I could get my hands on. I used to come home from school and go straight for the mailbox, to see what might be in there. It's crazy to think how we would send paper versions of our wantlists, xeroxed at the library, hoping somebody had something...waiting a couple weeks for a response. Those were the days when you had to wait until after dinner to call your grandpa, because the rates were lower...remember that? Jeez...I'm 57 and I feel ancient. Anyway, the internet changed it for me in two ways. First, I found OBC, and later N54. Traders...in real time!!! Sure, you could trade in real time in grade school, because we all had cards. But by the time you got to college, what better way to spook your girlie action than a pile of baseball cards. The second was opening up the vista of what is out there. Sure, we had the Beckett price guides, but nothing like the monthly pickup thread on N54. I see cards on that thread every month, that I never knew existed. And for a T205/T206 guy like me, I never knew anything about back populations until the internet came along, and that eventually pointed me down the road I am on now, to get complete Sovereign back sets. Before the internet...the knowledge and data just wasn't available. I guess I'll add one more thing the internet did...friendships that were not possible before. Mine are primarily from OBC, which I joined around 1995. Guys have come and gone, but I still meet up with them and talk cards over beers. Guys I would never have met in the days of my mailbox in Illinois. It's so cool to meet up with somebody totally new, and feel like you've known them forever. I guess that was possible in the old days, but the relationships would have taken a lot longer to foster than it does in a forum like this. So say what you will about the scammers, the graders, the pack busters...the reality is 99% of our interactions are positive since the internet brought us all together. At least that's my experience...

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

At the same time, Mickey Mantle contributed far more to his profession than Welk did to his.

Well I dunno....

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

If I could actually think of the baseball equivalent to Lawrence Welk, I might laugh for a week straight!

I like jingram058's Mickey Mantle pick.

Originally Posted by jingram058

I have never understood the Mickey Mantle phenomenon. But I guess his meteoric rise in value is similar to Lawrence Welk in the big bands.

I'm going to get not just weeks but years of laughs at the expense of Yankee fans with the "Mickey Mantle is the Lawrence Welk of baseball" analogy!

[Peter_Spaeth]

IMO one of the internet's biggest impacts was giving collectors a way to sell somewhat efficiently for retail prices, rather than having to sell to a dealer at an unconscionable discount. This was, again IMO, vitally important to grow collections.

[brianp-beme]

Moms that did not throw out vintage cards laid out the foundation for our current hobby.


Brian

[Tony Gordon]

My dad was born in 1937 as well but on the near North Side of Chicago where he could obtain just about anything he wanted. He collected cards. I suspect he had Bowmans, Exhibits and Leafs from the late 1940's. When I got into collecting in the mid-1970's, we went to my grandmother's house to look for his cards. Her basement was stacked with junk from her entire life, except for my dad's cards. She threw those out.

[Hankphenom]

I have a theory that the publication in 1966 of Larry Ritter's "The Glory of Their Times" and its continued massive popularity thereafter was a major catalyst for a renewed interest in both baseball history and prewar card collecting. Bob Davids started SABR in 1971, adult biographies and histories of the game started being published around that time, and the first well-organized shows and well-produced collecting publications began appearing. If the names Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Satchel Paige, and the rest had meant little to card collectors of the boomer generation, or if there was no historical context to put them in, I think most would have been satisfied to put the collecting habits of their youth to rest or be satisfied with recreating the card sets and collections that so many mothers famously tossed while they were away at college, the army, etc.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Tony Gordon

My dad was born in 1937 as well but on the near North Side of Chicago where he could obtain just about anything he wanted. He collected cards. I suspect he had Bowmans, Exhibits and Leafs from the late 1940's. When I got into collecting in the mid-1970's, we went to my grandmother's house to look for his cards. Her basement was stacked with junk from her entire life, except for my dad's cards. She threw those out.

Ouch! When my dad passed away in 1979, my Mom redecorated the house I grew up in. I don't remember her calling me to say "please come get your boxes of cards, scorecards, etc." although it's entirely possible she did, perhaps more than once. At some point, I went looking in my old room and elsewhere for my stuff, and it was all gone. I'm not sure I even asked her about it because I knew the answer already and didn't want to make her feel bad.

[DeanH3]

I think Beckett helped a ton pre-internet. I think the visuals of iconic cards allowed many of us young collectors to be exposed to and dream about cards we may not have known about otherwise.

Beckett also helped usher in the focus on the monetary end of it as well. But that probably went hand in hand.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by Tony Gordon

When I got into collecting in the mid-1970's, we went to my grandmother's house to look for his cards. Her basement was stacked with junk from her entire life, except for my dad's cards. She threw those out.

Did you ask her what she'd been using for a brain? "Oh, I'll keep all my own junk but I'll just throw out the stuff my son treasured."

[whitehse]

Originally Posted by Vintage Vern

But how? I'd imagine it was more in the larger populated cities. My family all grew up farming, and living in very modest ways. My Dad was born in 1937, and they had 8 people living in a 4 room house with no running water. He passed away in 1996, and I did ask him questions, and in no way was a baseball card something he would have been able to have had. He told me sticks, and rocks are what they used to play baseball. I'm just trying to imagine the amount of cards that still exist, and it's amazing to me.

The cards were stored in bags and put away in attics, Garages, and even barns. I started collecting at a 9 year old in 1973 and by the end of the decade my dad and I were putting ads in local papers offering to pay cash for cards. At that time people were shocked we would pay for the very things they were likely to throw out and eagerly allowed us to come to their home with cash for their cardboard. This was before the Beckett guides and you struck a deal with the seller based on nothing more than common sense. We bought unbelievable collections with unbelievable cards. We had nearly a complete run of Topps sets, both football and baseball from 1954 going forward just from these purchases. When we had doubles we would do the old fashioned thing and take them to the monthly collectors shows held at Holiday Inns, VFW halls and even school cafeterias and trade others for the cards were needed for our sets. Looking back, we didnt spend a great deal of money but back then the cards were only worth what someone was willing to pay for them. To be honest, those were some pretty awesome times to be a collector as you got to know so many other people and what they collected and we would help each other out with want lists.

I remember spending 50 dollars each on two 1933 Ruths. I spent the same on a '34 Gehrig and thinking I over paid. I have a vivid memory of a older gentleman who still had his collection from his childhood which was mainly a large cigar box filled with '33 and '34 Goudey's. As we were goin g through the cards I saw several beautiful hall of famers and even a pristine Lajoie that he remembered getting through the mail. The gentleman decided to put the cards in a safe deposit box and pass them on to his grandkids.

The cards were out there and they survived. They are still out there and are waiting to be found. Sadly, its all about the money and the grade the cards will fetch and not about the people depicted on the cards and it certainly isnt about the relationships that so many of us formed in the days before the internet and price guides.

[icurnmedic]

Originally Posted by DeanH3

I think Beckett helped a ton pre-internet. I think the visuals of iconic cards allowed many of us young collectors to be exposed to and dream about cards we may not have known about otherwise.

Beckett also helped usher in the focus on the monetary end of it as well. But that probably went hand in hand.

This was my exact thought!
Man alive, I loved looking through those as a youngster.

[BioCRN]

The cross-country buying sprees by dealers in the 1970s (that we still see today) helped a lot.

Media ads from buyers announcing when/where they're rolling into town had people rooting around for possible treasure in storage.

Then you have hobby resurgences (such as the junk wax era) that had others digging around in their storage for cardboard gold.

[Brent G.]

Originally Posted by whitehse

The cards were stored in bags and put away in attics, Garages, and even barns. I started collecting at a 9 year old in 1973 and by the end of the decade my dad and I were putting ads in local papers offering to pay cash for cards. At that time people were shocked we would pay for the very things they were likely to throw out and eagerly allowed us to come to their home with cash for their cardboard. This was before the Beckett guides and you struck a deal with the seller based on nothing more than common sense. We bought unbelievable collections with unbelievable cards. We had nearly a complete run of Topps sets, both football and baseball from 1954 going forward just from these purchases. When we had doubles we would do the old fashioned thing and take them to the monthly collectors shows held at Holiday Inns, VFW halls and even school cafeterias and trade others for the cards were needed for our sets. Looking back, we didnt spend a great deal of money but back then the cards were only worth what someone was willing to pay for them. To be honest, those were some pretty awesome times to be a collector as you got to know so many other people and what they collected and we would help each other out with want lists.

I remember spending 50 dollars each on two 1933 Ruths. I spent the same on a '34 Gehrig and thinking I over paid. I have a vivid memory of a older gentleman who still had his collection from his childhood which was mainly a large cigar box filled with '33 and '34 Goudey's. As we were goin g through the cards I saw several beautiful hall of famers and even a pristine Lajoie that he remembered getting through the mail. The gentleman decided to put the cards in a safe deposit box and pass them on to his grandkids.

The cards were out there and they survived. They are still out there and are waiting to be found. Sadly, its all about the money and the grade the cards will fetch and not about the people depicted on the cards and it certainly isnt about the relationships that so many of us formed in the days before the internet and price guides.

I don't think this is universally true. I got into collecting vintage last year, and I've enjoyed reading about every player whose card I purchase. My main takeaway from Year 1: There sure were a lot of guys who died of TB in the 1890s-1920s.

I gotta think there are more people like myself who love the history behind the cardboard.

[Vintage Vern]

Is there any data of production run numbers of many of the older sets? Example the 1922 American Caramel E120 set of 240 cards. Did they keep track of how many sets they produced.

Does any information show a break down of what parts of the US were supplied more. Say New York, California, vs Kansas or Iowa. It had to be more regional I would imagine.

[akleinb611]

It's not as though vintage cards were considered worthless junk right up to the creation of the internet. The "worthless junk" perception era ended by the late Sixties, and cards of all sorts were barreling up in price by the late Seventies, The end of the Topps monopoly in 1981 supercharged everyone's awareness of the hobby, and that's where the prices began to rise. If you're asking about the mechanisms of collecting before the internet, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Sports Collectors Digest, which absolutely dominated the hobby from the late Seventies to the mid-Nineties. Every week saw a huge publication, hundreds of pages long, featuring auctions and sales of all sorts of material, much of it vintage. Smaller collectors could place ads in the classified section for very little cost. SCD was absolutely the center of the hobby for about 20 years, even more so than ebay is today.

[Vintage Vern]

Originally Posted by akleinb611

It's not as though vintage cards were considered worthless junk right up to the creation of the internet. The "worthless junk" perception era ended by the late Sixties, and cards of all sorts were barreling up in price by the late Seventies, The end of the Topps monopoly in 1981 supercharged everyone's awareness of the hobby, and that's where the prices began to rise. If you're asking about the mechanisms of collecting before the internet, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Sports Collectors Digest, which absolutely dominated the hobby from the late Seventies to the mid-Nineties. Every week saw a huge publication, hundreds of pages long, featuring auctions and sales of all sorts of material, much of it vintage. Smaller collectors could place ads in the classified section for very little cost. SCD was absolutely the center of the hobby for about 20 years, even more so than ebay is today.

I'm actually more curious about the late 1800s to 1950s on how so many where saved before they had value or means to trade. How did people amass so many, and keep them in such good condition. Was there even a thing like collecting or a hobby in those time periods? I just think about USA history, and what took place in those time periods, and how people lived. I just find it amazing so many made it. I know 1939 is the cut off for prewar, but just wanted to expand to the 50s to include WWII, and many that held those prewar cards.

[akleinb611]

Sorry if I misunderstood your question. My guess is that most surviving T cards were pasted into scrapbooks, with a simple flour and water paste. Scrapbooking used to be much more of a thing than it is today. These have been soaked out of the scrapbooks, with such a simple glue leaving little or no residue.

What's important to understand is that the major T card sets, T201 through T207, were produced in astounding quantities, comparable perhaps to the overproduced Topps baseball sets of the late 1980's. Even to this day, T206 cards in a general sense are not rare, considering the fact that they're over a century old. It's possible less than 1% have survived. That should give you an idea of how great the number of cards was originally. It's pointless to try to get to specifics, because even if you could pinpoint the precise numbers of T cards, Goudeys and PlayBalls originally issued, the survival percentages are pure guesswork. Given the huge numbers originally produced, the difference between a 1% survival rate and a 2% survival rate would be gigantic.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by Vintage Vern

Was it the internet, card shows, shops etc. What has been the driving force? How did the good ol boys of yesteryear collect before all the technology came around, and how did it change the way for you today. It truly is amazing to me how many mynewt, and fragile items still exist, especially from a time of wars, and hardships. Items that had really no value at the time.

The story behind and the ensuing chase of any and all T206 Wagners.


.

[Hankphenom]

I think it boils down to the fact that baseball, and cards of the players, has always had appeal to a very broad swath of American boys and men, along with some girls and women. So let's imagine a smoker in 1890 or 1911 opening his pack of cigarettes and finding a baseball card inside. Even if he is not a fan of the game, is he going to just throw it away? I think he's probably going to stick it in his pocket and find a kid to give it to, or throw it into a cigar box. Same with cards that came with candy and other things in the teens and 20s. By the 1930s and onward, collecting baseball cards was a well-known hobby in its own right, so of course people spending their precious money on packs of Goudeys, Topps, etc., are going to take care of them at least to the extent of making sure they don't get severely damaged or even thrown away, although of course because they had no real monetary value until the 70s, say, there was plenty of that, as with the fabled moms who got tired of looking at the boxes on the closet shelf in sonny's old room. At that point, when it became widely known that dealers and collectors would actually pony up serious cash for old cards, the survival rate surely shot up by a lot. With the possible exception of the WWII paper drives, I'm going to speculate that there was never a substantial period in which there were a lot of situations in which these pretty little treasures would have been regarded as something to toss away like old newspapers or magazines, for example. Factor in the aforementioned enormous production runs of the big sets, and voila, you've got a heck of a lot of them still around today.

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by Vintage Vern

I'm actually more curious about the late 1800s to 1950s on how so many where saved before they had value or means to trade. How did people amass so many, and keep them in such good condition. Was there even a thing like collecting or a hobby in those time periods? I just think about USA history, and what took place in those time periods, and how people lived. I just find it amazing so many made it. I know 1939 is the cut off for prewar, but just wanted to expand to the 50s to include WWII, and many that held those prewar cards.

I think people can’t really comprehend true collecting with the haze of money they see cards through today. Burdick didn’t care for value he cared about collecting. This has always been the case with human nature with American Indians trading for colored beads and the prevalence of scrapbooks. People collect to collect, I have so many near worthless collections I just love for memories and the hunt. It is the recollection of me and childhood. There are so many stories of barkeeps sweeping the floors of cigarette cards discarded and just as many of children coming in the pick them off the floor. As they aged they were just as wistful as us in wanting to remember childhood. They were buying memories, not value. And they kept them

[bigfanNY]

I think you need to give PSA some credit for "salvaging" the hobby. Buying cards in some ways became
"safer"with PSA many who would not buy cards before became interested after grading took hold. And the end result was increased demand for cards. Would there have always been collectors of cards Baseball, Other Sports, non sports...Yes! But not at current levels.
JMHO

Jonathan

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by JustinD

I think people can’t really comprehend true collecting with the haze of money they see cards through today. Burdick didn’t care for value he cared about collecting.... People collect to collect, I have so many near worthless collections I just love for memories and the hunt. It is the recollection of me and childhood.... As they aged they were just as wistful as us in wanting to remember childhood. They were buying memories, not value. And they kept them.

Well said. I agree.

[whitehse]

Originally Posted by Brent G.

I don't think this is universally true. I got into collecting vintage last year, and I've enjoyed reading about every player whose card I purchase. My main takeaway from Year 1: There sure were a lot of guys who died of TB in the 1890s-1920s.

I gotta think there are more people like myself who love the history behind the cardboard.

You are probably right as my take was a raw generalization and a yearning for the days when this was a true hobby for nearly everyone involved and trading was more common than a cash transaction.

[ALBB]

Originally Posted by akleinb611

It's not as though vintage cards were considered worthless junk right up to the creation of the internet. The "worthless junk" perception era ended by the late Sixties, and cards of all sorts were barreling up in price by the late Seventies, The end of the Topps monopoly in 1981 supercharged everyone's awareness of the hobby, and that's where the prices began to rise. If you're asking about the mechanisms of collecting before the internet, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Sports Collectors Digest, which absolutely dominated the hobby from the late Seventies to the mid-Nineties. Every week saw a huge publication, hundreds of pages long, featuring auctions and sales of all sorts of material, much of it vintage. Smaller collectors could place ads in the classified section for very little cost. SCD was absolutely the center of the hobby for about 20 years, even more so than ebay is today.

Oh wow yes... that SCD..loved it..from the " big guys" full page ads, the show calendar..which we used to " plan our weekend "...and tons of classified ads .made loads of buys/ connections thru that also

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by Vintage Vern

How did the good ol boys of yesteryear collect before all the technology came around....

Originally Posted by whitehse

The cards were stored in bags and put away in attics, Garages, and even barns. I started collecting at a 9 year old in 1973....

Vinyl nine pocket sheets and dedicated cardboard boxes for cards were already around in 1979 when as an adult I started recollecting the cards of my formative years. Does anyone know when these accoutrements to card collecting were first introduced?

[Snapolit1]

American Indians traded beads as essentially a form of currency.

Originally Posted by JustinD

I think people can’t really comprehend true collecting with the haze of money they see cards through today. Burdick didn’t care for value he cared about collecting. This has always been the case with human nature with American Indians trading for colored beads and the prevalence of scrapbooks. People collect to collect, I have so many near worthless collections I just love for memories and the hunt. It is the recollection of me and childhood. There are so many stories of barkeeps sweeping the floors of cigarette cards discarded and just as many of children coming in the pick them off the floor. As they aged they were just as wistful as us in wanting to remember childhood. They were buying memories, not value. And they kept them

[Snapolit1]

The pull of nostalgia is always, to me, amusing. Long ago and far away . . . everything was great . . . .and people did things for all the right reasons . . . . everyone was kind and benevolent . . . and nobody did the sort of stuff they do today . . . all the players loved the game . . .hell they would have been happy to play for free ....

There are stories in the Bible of people selling what could considered "collectibles" to other people. Go to your local history museum and learn about ancient Egypt and Greece . . . people made stuff and people collected stuff. . . . and people paid "big sheckles" for people to make them cool stuff.

And some guy in 1300 BC was saying "you are going to pay WHAT for that gold vase?? Are you nuts????"

[Yoda]

We should remember the early pioneers, eg. Lew Lipset, for keeping the flame alive until we were drawn to it.

[Exhibitman]

Why? My $0.02:

https://open.substack.com/pub/adamst...meOnShare=true

How? My $0.02:

I've been collecting for over 50 years with a brief detour for girls and cars (hint: cards are way easier to acquire and store) from about 1981-1987. The hobby was a backwater of hardcore devotees who did most stuff by mail or in local card clubs until the 1970s. The wave of nostalgia unleashed in the 1970s for the 1950s led to the expansion of awareness, with The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book by Brendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris starting the wave in 1973. My uncle loved the book and gave me a copy, which unleashed my interest in vintage cards. That book is a must-have for anyone who loves cards but it is really about the time and the sport as expressed in cards, not about the hobby. If you want a picture-perfect encapsulation of the hobby mid-1970s, get a copy of The Complete Book of Baseball Cards: For the Collector, Flipper and Fan [1975; Steve Clark]. There is no better encapsulation of things.

Starting in the late 1970s, the local clubs expanded into larger conventions with major shows. Here is a PC from the first show I attended:



Similar shows started up regionally, including a semi-annual (Memorial Day and Labor Day) show in Anaheim CA that Mike Berkus organized and that morphed into the National in 1980.

I also think that Alan Rosen aka Mr. Mint had a lot to do with hyping the hobby in the 1980s. My $0.02 on Rosen:

https://open.substack.com/pub/adamst...eOnShare=false

Then came Upper Deck...Read Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child's Hobby Into a High-Stakes Billion-Dollar Business by Pete Williams. Since then it has been an arms race between manufacturers and this thing of ours, vintage, has benefitted and been driven by a continual influx of collectors who are tired of a tint spot of wear making or breaking a card and the roller coaster price swings.

Then, of course, we had the COVID wave that jacked both prices and awareness through the roof.

What I find most interesting is that dedicated collectors are taking joy now in mid-grade and lower-grade cards that they would have scoffed at a decade ago. A collector is a collector whether the card is worth a fortune or a fortune cookie. Yay FUGLY cards

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

The pull of nostalgia is always, to me, amusing. Long ago and far away . . . everything was great . . . .and people did things for all the right reasons . . . . everyone was kind and benevolent . . . and nobody did the sort of stuff they do today . . . all the players loved the game . . .hell they would have been happy to play for free ....

It's all about recapturing the pleasant memories from our childhood. There was much about our formative years that was nasty, even brutish, and that we'd now like to forget. But our cards and ancillary toys were a refuge from those things. And that's why we now want to hold on to those fond memories in the form of the cards and other now collectible items from those years.

Originally Posted by Amalog Days - Adam Warshaw

That is the collector mentality in a nutshell: memory through objects. History in hand.

That's precisely it! I agree.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

You'll always be a good fit around here if you bust out an "ancillary" or two with enough frequency!

[bigfanNY]

1973 saw the release of the" Great American Baseball Card Flipping and Trading Bubblegum book" By Boyd and Harris. It captured the Hearts and Minds of Generations of Grown men who collected as kids but who hadn't given baseball cards a second thought in decades. My Dad was one. At 12 I was a very active collector having scoured my neighborhood for the past 4 years trading buying begging for any Baseball card That I didn't have. I was mostly complete from 1964 to 1972. My Dad enjoyed sorting cards with me and helped me store my prizes wrapped in rubber bands in old salvo Detergent boxes. He bought a poker chip carousel for me to store my Topps coins from 1964 and 1971. He had saved his cards from his youth. A single Goudey 34 Cochrane, 35 Sports kings Cobb, then small stacks of 39 and 40 Playballs, complete set of 41 Playballs, complete set of 48 Bowman about half of 49 and Complete set of 50 bowmans. He would have been 19 in 1950 working full time so the pennies and nickels that were so scarce in the 40's came easier then.
He read in NY times that Baseball dealers were setting up at an antique show in MSG and asked if I wanted to go. Then that summer he found a large collection for sale at a church flea market. Guy wanted $35 we split it. Thousands of cards from 53 to 59. We were hooked.
1
1974 and the Topps Hank Aaron special cards showing him from 1954 to 1973 also gave a real shot in the arm to Card Collecting.