How many of you still have your cards from long ago and managed to keep them high grade?
dude
Posts: 1,454 ✭✭
How many of you bought cards in the '50's, 60's and '70's and still have them today and managed to keep them in NM, NM-Mint or Mint condition?
I'll start. I collected from '67-72. My cards did survive all those spring cleanings and I was re-united with them in 1989 when I visited my parents. Only my '72s were either NM (65%) and NM-Mint (10%) and the rest from that year and the other years were EX or worse.
If you don't have any from long ago, I'd like to know that too. I'm curious to know where everyone got their registry cards. The vast majority of mine were purchased raw in the '90's and then graded the last 3 years.
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I started collecting in 1971 and my cards from the late 70's survived in great shape. BTW - I will trade my 1967 set on the registry for yours. (The standings are comical) Nice set!
Regards,
Alan
That's great that you still have so many that are still nice. I'll pass on your trade offer, but thanks for asking.
I'm around 98 to 99% complete on the '67 set. The big question is whether I'll be 2nd or 3rd when I finally enter in all of my numbers. I should have them all in by this weekend.
I started building my 1969 set around 1986 and stored them in card savers since the day I bought them. Therefore, they are still in the same condition.
Oh well, I've traveled far enough down my own memory lane to sufficiently bore everyone.
I started collecting in 1974 when I was 9 and sold every card I owned in 1984 for $225. I had 5 complete sets of 75's plus several of the 74's and 76's. I wish I still had them but I wanted to get married and the $225 was huge money. As far as where I buy most of my cards, I try to get most of them from you.
wayne
I can't understand how almost a full point in terms of quality doesn't translate into a few % in terms of completion. Will you show the cards in your set once you're done?
Regards,
Alan
My last year was 1969. I discovered golf & girls that year, so the cards got put away. I had 494 cards from that set when I rediscovered them in 1990. Paul Blair #506 was the highest number. I had three Reggie Rookies, but no Mantle or Ryan. I traded two of the Reggies for those two big ones in my effort to complete the set.
My big year was 1968. We moved to a small town the summer before, so my cards got very little time outside the box I stored them in. I had the Ryan RC (NM++ but o/c), two Bench RC's, six Seaver 2nd year, four Mays and three Carew 2nd year, all NM-MT except for some centering problems on some. That's the first set I completed after taking it up again. It's also the first set I ever sold on ebay. I had carried it around to many, many shows. In '98 or '99, a dealer from Denver named Kyle eyeballed every card and offered $1,400. I told him what I thought of him, too. That same set sold on ebay for over $3,600 soon thereafter. Thanks, Kyle.
I have pretty much upgraded all my sets, but some still include the original cards. My theory is that the last year a kid collects contains the best condition cards (less trading, fewer dings, etc.). However, as I continue to find NM-MT and even MINT cards, I'm becoming more convinced that vending, cello and wax cards are surfacing in this latest grading frenzy. There may be many more cards out there than most of us think. I know a couple of collectors with NM-MT sets from the 50's and 60's that have no intention of ever grading them.
I looked through them and put em away in shoe boxes. I did go through the 56 set about every summer so they got a bit more wear. In the 70's I decided to keep them and got plastic sheets. Placing them into the pages with my expertise brought the set down to no better than ex to ex-mt at best, as no longer were any cards having four sharp corners. I pretty much left the 57 set alone and in the late 70's put them into cardsavers more carefully and still have about a nm set.
In the eary 80's I bought rack-pack cases yearly of 1977 thru 1981 topps BB ( bought after 2 years old ) and took almost proper care of all of them. The ones I did not sell are in very nice shape nm or better about 90 percent except I still mauled many of the star cards.
Like 69topps8, I started collecting in 1975 (mainly minis in my local). I was big on boxes with newspaper to keep the cards safe and organized. I have hung on to a 1974 set I purchased in NM/MT as well as 1977 to 1984 that I purchased in NM/MT. I sold and broke up a 1975 mini set and I never completed the 1976 set. To answer your question, all of the original cards I collected dropped at least one grade, if not two. Obviously, I wish I did a better job in retrospect, but that is part of the learning curve! I also purchased a mint 1975 SSPC set when they first came out. I would grade that set EX+ to NM today.
Ron
and a few graded also. i will at sometime build a 74 and 76 set also!!!
Sold them all off in 79 when a young boys thoughts turn to cars... $220 for 22,000 cards including full sets from 68 to 75 - all probably in NM to NM/MT since I always bought my "keeper" from the ads Sport Magazine. Looking back - the sets bother me - but it was the EX condition 51 Bowman's (Mays, Williams) along with the EX 52 Topps (Pafko, Wilhelm, etc.) and the 39 Playballs that really get to me...
Sets - 1970, 1971 and 1972
Always looking for 1972 O-PEE-CHEE Baseball in PSA 9 or 10!
lynnfrank@earthlink.net
outerbankyank on eBay!
I'm just lucky that it was my decision to sell the cards and not "Supermom" on one of herclean out the house binges. I'd be in for some serious therapy if that were the case.
And David - I know that I didn't have the Williams in 39 - but I do remember Hubbell and a couple other HOF'ers along with a bunch of commons...
Sets - 1970, 1971 and 1972
Always looking for 1972 O-PEE-CHEE Baseball in PSA 9 or 10!
lynnfrank@earthlink.net
outerbankyank on eBay!
reply.
When I moved in 1993, I rediscovered the boxes of cards from my youth. I had been disconnected from the hobby for 20 years, but I fell back in love quickly.
I started collecting cards in 1966 when I was 7 years old. I still have the first card I got from my first pack, #197 Sonny Seibert. The card has creases and rounded corners, but it is still a PSA 10 in my heart.
I collected from '66 to '73. It is very interesting to see the progression of condition on my cards. My '66s-'68s are mostly creased with rounded corners. Beginning in 1969, the cards get progressively better, until '72 and '73, which are mostly NM/MT throughout. By this time I was much more careful with my cards and kept good care of them. I have had a few cards graded from '72 and '73 which all came back PSA 8. All of these cards came from wax packs opened by me.
The other interesting thing about these old cards is the distribution of numbers. From '66, I have about 200 cards, but almost no first series (apparently I started collecting after the 2nd series came out-note card #197 from my first pack) and about 10 high numbers. From 1967 I have about 350 cards, but NONE from the last series! I have pretty even distribution of numbers from '68-69, as could be predicted. From 1970 and 1971 I have a lot of high numbers, and from '73 I had over 3000 cards (many sold within the last few years) including many duplicates from the high series. However, from 1972, even though I had probably 2000 cards, I had no duplicates from the high series.
I also had a small selection of earlier cards including a '62 Musial, '64 Mantle, '65 Morgan RC and others. These cards were all in NM/Mt condition, and I honestly can't remember- I have no idea- where they came from.
Finally, my sad story. When I was a kid, I had separated all my cards by teams and kept them in several shoeboxes. Special cards like checklists, League Leaders, etc., were kept together in another group. When I was about 16, I decided I was too old for this childish hobby, and I needed room in my closet. SO....I took the boxes of cards in the closet and threw them all out! Fortunately, I did not realize I had two separate stashes, so many of the cards survived. The teams that got thrown out included Giants (all my Mays cards), Cubs (Banks), Pirates (Clemente), Mets (Ryan RC, Seaver), Phillies (Schmidt RC), Braves (Aaron), and Dodgers, and the special league leader/checklist, etc. cards! I probably threw out many of the most valuable cards! However, I did keep the Yankees, and I still have several Mantles, along with all the other teams. Oh well!
For the past 9 years I have been replacing the thrown-out cards, along with upgrading many of the other cards from my youth. I have a particular interest in the 1971 set. That is, in my opinion, the best looking Topps set from my youth, as well as the fact that it was a time in my life when baseball was my whole life! I received a huge boost on this set when I purchased a vending box of '71s from Mark Murphy about 5 years ago.
Anyway, that's the story of my long-ago baseball cards, which I hope you all find interesting.
Thanks for all the great reading on these message boards!
Rob
1971 Topps baseball in PSA 8 or better.
1966 Topps baseball in PSA 8 or better
1929 Kashin R316 in any grade
1966 Batmans -all varieties- PSA 8 or better
Anyway, I started collecting at the age of 6, in the summer of 1976 when my dad and I and brother were going to Fenway park on the way to a Red Sox game. I remember pulling a Babe Ruth ATG and asking my dad about it. He said "why that's the greatest player to ever play the game!". That's all it took, I've been hooked for the last 26 years, with about an 8 year hiatus from age 19-27. I still have that very same Ruth card and it would be a PSA 1, but I would never grade or sell it for any amount - the sentimental value looms large. That card and the Kurt Bevacqua bubble gum blowing champ card were my two favorites and I still have that one too. Both poor from handling.
I remember putting my cards together by team, and all that mattered was how many RedSox you had. I would trade anything for a lot of RedSox cards. I used to use the 1977 cards with the name at the top of the card to divide the teams. I still love all the 1977's I have that have the huge crease in the spot where it would indicate that card was used to divide the teams.
Around 1981 I started collecting Raines and Valenzuela, and then in 1982, we got the picture and hoarded all the rookies. I remember dropping an 82 donruss Hrbek on my bike, and then upon realizing I dropped it, biking 4 miles backwards to find it - AND I FOUND IT!!
In 1985 my friends and I all had about 50 of everyone, and the Mcgwires were all outstanding as we did not handle them, because we did not know he was any good until a few years later. They were beautiful, but I decided in 1989 to sell them for $12 each to a dealer - he chose my best 40. Now I have 10 McGwire rookies and they are all centered 90/10 - haha!
I picked up a collection in 1989 for $1000. 5000 of the sweetest 1960's cards with all the stars and rookies mostly at least NM. I was so scared about spending that kind of dough that I took all the good baseball cards and was talked into selling them for $1200. My fear of big bucks overcame my sense of reason so I did it, and those cards today are easily worth $10,000 - but at least I still have all the commons and a ton of great 60's football remaining.
I could go on and on, but that may put you to sleep. Please keep your stories coming! Thanks!
Once new cards were released, last years were stored in shoeboxes like everyone else's. In the fifties, kids were fiercely loyal to their favorite teams. I hated the Yankees. Their cards becames the "motors" on my bike. I have a few regrets about wrecking some Yogi's and some Mick's, but now it only takes money to replace them. The satisfaction of hearing Bill Skowron or Whitey Ford powering my wheels can never be replaced. Baseball cards were part of my youth and they served me well. Different baseball cards are now serving me well in my retirement.
Great thread.
If I'm buying it's PRICELESS. If I'm selling, it's WORTHLESS.
Looking for 1984 Donruss -
#238 Keith Hernandez PSA 10
-----------------and
#637 Omar Moreno PSA 9 or 10.
*****
This thread, after all, is entirely what motivates us all to continue to collect and build sets as we did when we were young. I'll get to my story in a second.
The set registry board is great just for this reason. If you ever find your enthusiasm drifting, 5 or 10 minutes reading some of these really great posts will give you all the juice you'll need to get primed all over again.
I started collecting in 1968: I was 9 years old. My next door neighbor and I would make the 4 block trek to the candy store to spend our quarter allowance on 5 nickel packs of baseball cards. Two things specifically I recall about these adventures. One was how much my jaw hurt after wadding up 5 pieces of gum at one time after opening those packs. The other was how many duplicates there were from pack to pack. As kids we were obviously anxious about getting the new cards at the beginning of the season and I am sure we had gobs of 1st and 2nd Series cards.
The 68's sadly went as an oversized shoe box to my cousin when I was about 14 years old and it was "too cool" to collect cards any more. I remember Ryan rookies specifically and cant even imagine how many were in that box.
My 69's, however were a slightly different story.
My folks had bought me in the off season for Christmas something called the Baseball Card Locker. It was army green and had seperators for all the teams. When the 69's came out I collated my cards into the team slots in these lockers and handled them far less to keep them organized. In the late 80's I rediscovered card collecting with my daughter and went through those lockers which were still intact at my parents house. I found 11 Jackson roookies! As timing would have it the Jacksons were peaking. Over a 2 year period I sold them all but 2 for anywhere from $50 to 250.00 Each. No Ryan or Mantle. I pick those up at shows at that time and proceeded to complete the 69 set over the coming years finally finishing around 1997. Those 69's survived in approximately ExMt+ condition.
In 1998 I discovered PSA. I signed on for my gold membership; the only way to go in those days. I sent my Jackson and some of the other main stars that seemed in the best condition and still have some of them in my graded set today. My Jackson graded PSA 7 but it is really nice. It still hold a place in my graded set today.
As I got the graded bug I continued to add PSA cards to my set mostly as 8's using it as an opportunity to upgrade my raw cards. As time went by however, I found myself inserting the graded cards in my set and rotating the raw cards to the construction of a second set; my childhood set collection.
With my duplicates and the rotation from graded I now have about 500 card in the restored childhood set which fostered these memories in the first place.
My plan is to complete a 1969 Master Set including variations in PSA 8 or better. Some of the other 1969 card threads cover the issue of how difficult this will be.
Thanks Dude for the thread; you have a great 69' set going. Special thanks also to the rest of the 69' gang who have been supportive and helpful in not only supplying some of the cards for my set but providing valuable advise and support.
Special mention should go out to Gaspipe. My set is better for his help and his awesome set should be revered because what he accomplished with it is something truly special. I know because I have worked specifically this set all my life.
RayB69Topps
Funny (or maybe sad) postscript.
At the end of the 69 baseball season my neighbor and I bought gobs of 69/70 Basketball cards- the Tall Boys. Over that winter we proceeded to draw mustaches and beards on every card and had loads of fun doing it. Alcindor RC, Chamberlain, West, Havlichek the whole gang. Who knew :-)
Bob
Thanks for the wonderful stories. Here's mine in more detail.
As I mentioned earlier, I started in '67. I was on a 25 cents a week allowance, so I never had a huge collection of cards. There was a small corner store near my school and I bought several packs a week until school was out in early June. I do remember visiting my grandfather in another town late in the summer and he gave me a dollar to buy whatever I wanted at a local store. I remember seeing larger packs of cards in clear cellophane (cello packs) and I ended up buying 3 or 4 packs (I seem to recall they were 10 cents each). They were all from the next to last series. I was thrilled to get a Maz and Pirates Team card. I never did get a chance to buy cards from the last series. But about 4 years later after I had moved from the country to the suburbs of Pittsburgh, and I befriended a kid that had a large shoebox full of older baseball cards. There were at least 500 cards in the box. I wanted to buy them from him and he wanted a Three Dog Night album that I had, so we made the trade. To my surprise, just about the entire last series of last 67 was in the box. They weren't in great shape but I was very happy to get them anyway. That box also had a cards that went back as far as 1960. It had a near mint '65 Aaron and a near mint '69 Mantle.
In 1989/1990 when I started to collect again, I pretty much knew that all of my childhood sets needed to be completely upgraded except for maybe my 1972 set. I was going to local shows in Houston trying to sell those '67-71s plus the cards from that shoebox and I saw an ad in a local sports collectors "green sheet" that was being given out at shows. There was an ad by someone who was looking for '67 cards. I decided that I was willing to part with my old set and start over. So as it turns out, I met this guy in a McDonalds and we traded and talked about cards for about 3 hours. This guy turned out to be the legendary "toppsgun" and we've been friends ever since. We've gone to 3 Nationals together since then. He had some nice NM-Mint '69s and they were all nicer than my '69s so I took those in exchange for a portion of my '67 Hi Numbers (they were pretty much VG/Ex). There were a lot of single prints that he didn't have so the trade worked out great for both of us.
As for the rest of my childhood cards, I took them to a shop north of Houston called BJ's. He was just starting and needed cards for his shop. The vast majority of my childhood cards were EX, so I asked him how much he'd give me for them. He told me "half of book" (book meaning Becket high), which surprised me that he'd give me that much since other dealers had low balled the heck out of me on them. So we added the value of my cards in his shop and figured out the total book price and it ended up being over $4,100 and he wrote me a check for $2,000 and I remember walking away with mixed feelings. On one hand, that was a lot of money for some cards, but on the other hand, I just gave up something that I had cherished while I was a child. As it turns out, I made the right choice. That dealer clearly overpaid for those cards and went out of business about a year later. I took that $2,000 and spent it at the next big show and started from scratch and bought a lot of '67 through '71 commons - all were pretty much NM-Mint. In fact even though the show was in Houston, I spent just about all of my money buying cards from two dealers from Georgia. One was Georgia Music and the other was a weekend dealer whose name I forgot. The cards were nice and I still have a lot of them to this day. Some of them eventually graded PSA 9. As they say, "The rest is history".
WHO KNEW....
I am going to start a new thread as well, asking how many of you guys are actually collecting sets from before you were born and why. That should also be a fun topic....
That's interesting that you grew up near the Topps plant. One of these days you'll have to tell us what it was like and how you managed to get all of those boxes stored away in your garage.
Your story about throwing cards in the air reminds me of something else that happened while I was a kid. I collected records when I was kid: 45's and albums of all the major groups - Beatles, Stones, the Who, etc. We used to go to a pretty cool record shop and buy them. One day a guy from a radio station brought in about 300 albums and about 2,000 - 45's in several boxes and tried to sell them to the Store. All of the records said "for promotion only - not for sale". We didn't recognize any of the artists. The store owner didn't want them and we asked if how much he wanted for them. He wanted a lot of money and we said that we only have about $15 between the three of us. The guy said, "Fine! For $15 they are yours". So we carried these boxes home and that in itself was major task. As it turns out, all of that music sucked. After about 3 days of listening to these fly-by-night musicians and groups, we took those records outside and ran through the neighborhood one evening and we were throwing them everywhere like frisbees. We were throwing them at each other and basically having battles with them. The next day I was delivering the newpapers and I saw several old people outside standing in the street talking to each other. They were obviously irrate that there were albums and '45s all over the place including the rooftops on their houses. I remember one of the guys holding some of the records and he saw that radio's stations name on one of them and he was walking away telling the others that he was going to call up that radio station and give them a piece of his mind. I did all I could to keep from laughing as I walked by.
I believe the year was 1986. I spent a lot of time hanging out at a local shop with my best friend. So much time in fact, the owner decided to put us to work. He offered us a deal. For each Saturday we spent in the shop working (mostly sorting cards to build sets), he would give us an un-opened wax box of our choice. Big deal, 1986 right, but Fleer did come out with a little basketball set that year. My friend and I LOVED those cards so all of our Staurdays were spent sorting in exchange for basketball boxes. I believe at one time I had assembled close to 50 sets (no kidding), all of which contained MINT cards handled only once (the owner would even buy the sets back from us for about $10). Around 1990, I went to college and needed beer money (didn't we all). I still actually have the invoice from the shop I sold my collection to. At the top is printed: 27 - 1986 Fleer Basketball Sets, $7.00 each, total $189.00.
"I have sold at least 40 Mantles in the late 80's & early 90's not to mention all the others. IF I HAD ONLY HELD ON. "
As the old saying goes, "Misery Loves Stupidity"
www.pacifier.com/~junkman/article1.jpg
www.pacifier.com/~junkman/article2.jpg
The first link is a picture…yes, for those of you who have met me, I did have hair at one point! The second link is that the text of the article. Keep in mind that I was 14 at the time and some of the comments were taken out of context. In any case, I figured that you guys would get a chuckle. Check out the 1962 Mantle and Gaylord Perry, the 1958 Eddie Mathews, the 1974 set that came straight from six wax boxes I opened, and, for all you plastic collectors, the run of Kellogg’s cards that I had.
I will follow up with the post later.
Frank Smith
(fesmith68@yahoo.com)
______________________________________
The best presents in life are the ones you give yourself!
I didn't think it was a jab at all. what I ment to say is "Misery and Stupidity like Company" Makes sense now.
That's awesome! You were definitely ahead of your time. Did you ever stop collecting at any point? What's your collection like now? I'd love to hear any more stories.
BTW, I love the quote about the '52 Topps in that article.
I don't follow the new stuff anymore so maybe they've done this already. If not, I think it would be a hot product.
Wayne
Since I was born in the 70's and didn't start collecting until 1980, I don't have any great stories of flipping, throwing, or playing simulated games, so my little tidbit is this....
I started collecting in 1980, and that year was kind of a warm-up for 1981 when I went nuts buying cards. I used money from lawn mowing, cleaning local garages, or working as a "runner" for auctioneers (taking the hammer price from the auctioneer to the secretary for processing). I bought the regular cards, and also the stickers that fit into those books that were a page per team. I built up a very sizeable collection, and my parents became wary that I may be a little crazy. Well, I confirmed their suspicions, when in 1981 the baseball strike occurred, and in protest I immediately threw all my boxes of cards onto the burnpile in the back woods, and at weeks end my father set them ablaze. My mother affectionately called me "intense".
I didn't get back into collecting until about the mid to late 80's when my father took me to my first show at Fort Washington. I took a good size of money with me. More money than brains, and got waxed by a few dealers. I bought a vg Carlton RC for $150 in 1986! Duh. It wasn't until early 2000 that I discovered PSA, and have been hooked on graded cards ever since.
I think I'm becoming "intense" again.
Bernie
Currently collecting.....your guess is as good as mine.
Got back into collecting briefly in '86 during The WS choke of ALLTIME, and again for good in '97/'98 when I discovered graded cards/PSA. That's when I submitted the 67's I had from Dad and some of the 62's that survived my grandmother's assault on his collection. Going to shows since then with Dad has been like transporting him back in time and he showers the stories when I show him another graded card (esp. a Red Sox!).
Dude--Thanks for starting the thread that has allowed many of us to share who we are and we got here.
Used to working on HOF SS Baseballs--Now just '67 Sox Stickers and anything Boston related.