Introduction/Hello From a Newb

[david_l]

Greetings All!

I *think* this is where one posts introductions. If not, well, I’ve already made my first faux pas..

That said, I thought I’d write an introduction just in case anybody ever wonders where this newbie came from.

I’ve been following this board for a while now but just now finally signed up for an account.

I started collecting baseball cards in the mid 1980s. I have always loved baseball and was fascinated at a very young age by the history of the sport. I used to go into my public library and check out every book I could find on the subject. The older and thicker the book, the happier I was. By the time I was ten or eleven, I had worked out a system where first I would try to buy (at a deal) or trade for that era’s modern valuable cards (those Clemens, Mattingly, and Gooden rookies). I often got these at yard sales or on the school yard. I would then take those cards to my local card shows and trade them for pre-war cards. I especially loved tobacco cards. One of my favorite things to do was get a tobacco card and then research that individual in those big baseball almanacs (ah, the days before bbref.com).

Anyway, thanks to my absolute tenacity combined with my parents’ time and support, I ended up building a pretty nice collection of older cards. Most of them where in pretty rough shape but that’s all I could afford. By the time I hit my teenage years, my time and energy was devoted to music and girls and I gave up collecting.

A few years ago I got back into collecting but quickly realized that although it was easier to find baseball tobacco cards (thanks eBay) I needed to be looking for the best “bang for my buck” due to financial limitations.

I have fallen in love with T218s and I’m getting close to completing that set (I may post a WTB/WTTF ad if anyone has any advice). Like my early collecting days, when I get a new T218, I love to do research on the person. It's a blast. I’ve also gotten into the Ogdens Pugilists and T220 cards. After I complete my T218s, I'm going to (hopefully) spend more time building those sets.

To flash back a bit, I had put my original collection in my parent’s safety deposit box ages ago. Being an archivist now, I was concerned about some of the plastic cases that I was using at the time. Last week, during a visit with my parents, a grabbed my old collection from their bank and brought them home. I posted a pic of some of my favorites.

Anyway, I’m always amazed at some of the collections of members here. Such history wrapped up in ephemera. I certainly have nothing that will drop the jaw, but still, it is a pretty nice collection amassed by somebody not even in their teenage years at the time.

At some point I’m going to send some of them in to get them authenticated.

Anyway, thanks for the resources! It’s been great lurking around. Maybe we'll have a chance to chat or trade.

David