Baseball Card Society Circa 1988

Barfvader

Was going thru my mess and while re-packing a box I pulled out a few mailers to do with the Baseball Card Society. Don't know if anyone on here has ever heard of it and trying to find info on them isn't providing much in results (did find this: somelifeblog.com/2008/06/card-collecting-and-investing-baseball.html but as it's an interesting part of the collecting history I thought I would share what I have.

First would be how I obtained any of this stuff. My parental units had bought and sold a wide range of stuff throughout the years and this would be sometime in 1988 with yet another failed new/used item business that was being run by them. We had a source for various items that the people selling to us sold a wide range of things rather cheap. The Baseball Card Society items in my possession came from them and I think cost around $5 which included a special RARE stack of 1986 Topps Traded cards and a custom binder. I'm sure I still have these cards somewhere (should have kept them together with this stuff).

The binder was worth the $5.

The rest is a welcome mailer and a few other bits of mailings from them, As you can see they had an investor advisory board with the following

Yogi Berra
Bob Gibson
Whitey Ford
George Sisler, Jr

Assistant director
Joseph A. Gallo

A nice mini offer that of course doesn't really tell you anything that you would have received. Seeing as there are pictures of 1987 and 88 Topps cards, probably a bunch of those but I really don't know.

What was supposed to be sent in the second shipment.

A note on booklets to be sent as soon as they managed to make them. I seem to think I might have one of these kicking around but not sure where it would be. If I find it, I'll add it.

And a word about their strategy for collecting.

To the best of my recollection (being 34 years ago), that was the initial stuff bought. There may have been some plastic pages for the binder but not certain on that.

The rest is mailings and offers.

Envelope 1

Envelope 2

And the full court press to sell you on the super dee duper, massively RARE St. Vincent Ivan Lendl stamp error.

Does anyone else hear Don West while reading over this stuff or is it just me?

Would love to know just how long this company lasted and what other offers they tried selling folks.

GroceryRackPack

Pretty Cool...

Gansetttime

Wow, this brings back memories!
I actually looked into the club, and received the first shipment of rookies, they were the 1986 Topps Traded cards mentioned above. However, I returned them, and cancelled future deliveries from them. I noted in the return that I could purchase complete traded sets at that time for way less than what they wanted to charge club members for their rookie selection.
I have a ton of hobby magazines from the 80s, I'll have to look through them and check for this company's ads when I get a chance.

junkwaxgems

This is really great! Id love to see whatever the final mail out package was from these guys.

Estil

@Gansetttime said:
Wow, this brings back memories!
I actually looked into the club, and received the first shipment of rookies, they were the 1986 Topps Traded cards mentioned above. However, I returned them, and cancelled future deliveries from them. I noted in the return that I could purchase complete traded sets at that time for way less than what they wanted to charge club members for their rookie selection.
I have a ton of hobby magazines from the 80s, I'll have to look through them and check for this company's ads when I get a chance.

Well you can always try this club! (start at 12:00)

https://youtu.be/GnIcNH07tws?t=720

jimq

Back in 1993 or so I bought a collection and one of those binders was in it. I'm sure there was a page inside signed by Yogi, Bob Gibson, and someone else ( Whitey?) Thanks for the memories!

GilR

Fun to see Barry Bonds not listed among the top rookies of the 1986 set, but rather as an also-ran.

Barfvader

@jimq said:
Back in 1993 or so I bought a collection and one of those binders was in it. I'm sure there was a page inside signed by Yogi, Bob Gibson, and someone else ( Whitey?) Thanks for the memories!

Yup, you have the names correct. Couple listings on eBay with this being an example
Charter Membership Application

Wish there was more info out there. You'd think with the names involved with this there would be more but I've done searches here and there for some time and never see much of anything.

80sOPC

Interesting that this whole approach to collecting - hoarding star cards, in this case graded base cards- made a big return the past few years. And it looks like it will end the same way, with millions of cards in slabs having little value. What goes around comes around I guess.