your favorite baseball card memory from your youth
galaxy27
Posts: 7,380 ✭✭✭✭✭
how about some wistful cardboard posts? we'd all sever a limb to go back to that time, but the next best thing is sharing those recollections.
every summer i'd go visit my grandparents for two weeks; they lived 7 1/2 hours away. i will never, ever forget my grandmother going to the store in the summer of 1980 and returning with the best of surprises -- bricks of beautiful blue packs. enough to keep me busy and out of her hair for at least a couple of hours. i can literally close my eyes, transport myself back to that moment and see that scene of destruction playing out. i guess eotd that's what this hobby is truly all about.
i refuse to look up prices now, but suffice to say i eviscerated thousands of dollars worth of 1980 Topps packs that day. it marked my introduction to baseball cards, thus i've had a love affair with that set ever since. the blue wrappers, the card design, the color combinations on the cards themselves........i couldn't -- and still can't -- get enough of them. to this very day it's my favorite baseball card set of all time. interestingly, the one guy i kept looking over and over for that day was the tough looking dude wearing red with the super cool black & yellow (all-star) banner at the top of the card................George Foster.
and i also vividly recall yanking at least 20 Jerry Garvins from packs that day, which eventually agitated me to a considerable degree.
GOOD times
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@galaxy27
Your story reminded me of a 1980 memory of my own. Toward the fall of 1980 (when I was 13) I noticed that my local A&P still had a crapload of 1980 wax racks. I had already had some success buying up leftover wax packs and boxes toward the end of the season at a deep discount, so I spoke to the manager and ended up buying almost 70 wax racks at three for a dollar.
Needless to say, I don’t have any of them left and haven’t for decades.
Two local toy stores within biking distance of my home were the destination for me and a copper-colored Schwinn Stingray with a ballcard taped to the spokes of both wheels. Hanging out at either store with other kids just buying packs for a nickel and pulling their contents out at the counter while the store owner praised anyone who scored an L.A. Dodger card was about as late 60's as we could be. But.....by the early 70's most of my energy and spending money went to stuff like Wacky Packs and all kinds of stickers and posters which I could use to plaster my bedroom walls and windows. My parents hated me.
Come on people now. Smile on your brothers.
Buying 1973 rack packs in August at the Penny Candy store at the north end of the Ocean City, NJ boardwalk. Included high numbers. I still have those cards, which included the Schmidt.
Also getting full wax boxes of hockey and football for Christmas from 1973 through 1976.
Frankly, I'm glad I missed the era, i guess starting some time in the 1980's, when kids turned into Skinner Pigeons, pecking away at packs, trying to find a high dollar card. In the 1960's we opened packs for the pure joy of the cards. IE if we got a Mantle, fine, but no big deal if we didn't. I personally enjoyed every single card, including the inserts. Believe it or not, I actually liked reading the backs of the cards with the stats, the little cartoons, etc.
We played baseball and flipped baseball cards all summer long and I enjoyed every single minute of it.
If I had to pick a favorite memory, there were lots of them. But I'll pick one for the forum here that's probably a bit unique. My friend, a nearby neighbor, his father worked for Topps. Perhaps around 4 or 5 times a season, his father would bring home to his son an uncut sheet. The son enjoyed sharing it with his friends.
Now the son of course got first dibs on the sheet which was fine with us. He would take the little silver blunt scissors and cut out the star players. Then he'd hand the sheet over to us and we would take turns cutting out the rest of the cards. Living in Connecticut at the time, the Yankees and Mets players came first, then the rest.
Dam that was fun, free baseball cards. Although to say the cards were "rough cuts" would be putting it mildly. 😊
That is a cool memory, and one that is somewhat familiar to me. It is interesting to hear you say that you lived in Conn. and your friends dad worked for topps and would bring home uncut sheets. I had an uncle who also lived in Connecticut and worked at a factory that he said produced topps cards. He came up to visit every year or two and he would bring me uncut sheets as well. I remember one year he brought me about 10 sheets of 82 topps football, which I promptly cut up using my little kids blunt edged scissors.
a question. I had always assumed the topps factory was in new york or new jersey. But my uncle said he worked for a factory that produced their cards in Connecticut. can you shore up that memory for me? I think I can remember him saying they also produced cereal boxes.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Back around 89-90ish I had a couple friends that I collected with and some times we'd play the card game War using some of our best rookie cards as chips. The big bets would be one of us throwing in one of our better Canseco or Griffey Jr rookies and there were times that someone would get so heated after losing one of those big bets that we came close to throwing punches lol. To this day I still get a laugh thinking back on that time and how losing a few $5 cards would almost turn into a literal battle. 🤣
I also remember the first (and only) time that I set up to sell at a card show was not long after I graduated from HS in 92 and the whole purpose of attempting to make some extra money was to pay for a (new) used driveshaft for my car. I even tried selling my last Jordan 86 Fleer rookie at the time but no one was willing to pay my asking price in the ballpark of $500 (years later I'm grateful that no one take me up on that price.)
By the end of the night I ended up spending way more than I should have from my profits but I did get lucky busting a few jumbo packs of 93-94 Fleer basketball that one seller had a big display stand setup literally days after their release. The best card from that release at the time was the 2nd year Shaq Fleer Rookie Sensations insert and after all of the packs were sold, I was the only person at the show that pulled one. Shaq cards were selling for decent money for that time and I tried asking for $100 but had no takers. I also remember buying my younger cousin Donald, who was a huge Rickey Henderson fan, a nice copy of his Topps rookie for $40 for helping me out that day.
i eventually got that driveshaft that I needed but I learned a good lesson that day to not spend to much time at a card show when I have a pocket full of money. 😉
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
"worked at a factory that he said produced topps cards"
That may be correct as to where his father worked. I hardly ever said two words to his father other than hi and bye. I think we kids just presumed that he worked for Topps, because the father would bring home the Topps sheets.
That's about all I know. We were getting free cards. Didn't want to ask too many questions. 😎
My town was Fairfield. Was that somewhat close to that factory?
Buying Nolan Ryan's Topps 2nd year at a show when I was about 14 years old.
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Not sure where the factory was located. I know my uncle lived in Plainfield. He may have traveled a ways to work though. It will forever be a mystery I think.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Other than buying packs of cards at the grocery/drug stores as a kid, starting around 86-87, by first "real" foray into the hobby was at a small specialty office supply/locksmith store in my hometown called Keys N' Things. the owner was a coin collector/dealer who had started selling single sports cards in the late 80's. My mother had gone in one day to get a key made and for the first time in my young life, I saw display cases with cards from LONG ago. like 1979 topps!!! I couldn't believe it. he even had magazines about sports cards. that day I bought my first single, a carlton fisk rack pack "all star" insert and I believe my first Beckett.
that is how it all began. I sure miss those days!
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
There was a shop I hit in Marietta GA, forget the name but it was by the Big Chicken KFC. I'd make my folks or brothers drive me there until I had a license. Buy some boxes/packs/racks, sell some singles, trade, etc.
Years later I get to college and start delivering pizzas and moved to a different store after a year or so. First day I walk in who do I see, the guy who owned the shop. He sold it and we worked at that Dominoes for a couple years. Said the rent went up too much and ate his profit, made more money delivering and assistant managing then he did there. Chip, good guy.
Prob went there to his shop a good 6-7 years or so from 80-87 maybe....mint 52 mantles, $100 tops, always had at least 1. 86/7 Fleer BKB, like $10/box, couldn't give those away then.
Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams were my favorite players when I growing up in the late 40s and early 50's as I grew up. I had hundreds of their cards along with thousands of other cards. I went into the Marines in 1957 and my parents downsized their house. When I got out in 1960 the cards had disappeared to God knows where probably the dump as my mother said.