Reminiscing On Collecting Baseball Cards
Golden greetings and silver salutations! Spring training has begun! That must mean spring is here...nope, there is snow all over. Ugggh! So it is a Sunday afternoon, and I am just hanging at my parent's place. I ran across my box of my old cards. This box used to be so valuable! I think of how many ounces of silver I could have bought, but instead, I spent big bucks on these cardboard treasures. I couldn't tell you any more what I paid for each...but I am certainly down on each. Let's walk down memory lane.
1962 Mickey Mantle
I was so excited to acquire a Mickey Mantle card. It is probably still the most valuable of this bunch and I really need to have this graded. It is no rookie, but I am still excited to own it.
I looked this one up on E-Bay and now I see something troubling. Much like in the coin industry, I looked on E-Bay and there are lot of "reprints" selling for a couple of bucks. I have had all of these many years, so I do not think there is any chance of them being a cheap fake. But it looks like fakes are just as prevalent.
1961 Billy Williams Rookie
A star for the Cubs in the 60s and 70s. I would rather have bought an Ernie Banks rookie, but sometimes you have to settle. Why not settle for the rookie of a Hall of Famer?!? I am a White Sox fan, but I have respect for the greats on both sides of town.
1968 Johnny Bench Rookie
One of the greatest catchers ever to live. I was always a fan of catchers. They have to wear lots of gear in the heat, and their body takes a beating. So you have to respect a guy who plays the game behind the place for a long time.
1972 Carlton Fisk Rookie
And finally, my favorite baseball player ever, Carlton Fisk! This guy was a true iron man! He caught for at least parts of 24 different players. He used to have the record for most home runs by a catcher, but his fellow "Pudge", Pudge Rodriguez surpassed him.
What are some of your best cards? Why did the market have to crash and dry up? Why wasn't I into coins back in my childhood?
Ok, you can't answer that last one, but neither can I. Enjoy the rest of your weekend! Until next time, keep stacking and supporting #SteemSilverGold, #SteemUSA, and #TheAlliance!
I use to love trading baseball cards with my friends and the best is the smell of the gum that came in the packs. Nice post
Getting together with friends and trading cards was great! Sadly the card manufacturers destroyed the market for kids. Packs today are like $3-$4 and have like 5 cards in them. Yet I can go on E-Bay and buy a Topps team set for the price of a pack. I usually buy a Sox team set every year.
Hey, at least the cardboard ones did turn into treasure....I mean I also used to collect the sticker albums as well....oh the silver that could have been bought for sure! But it does bring back some great memories. I think some of my best baseball cards are Tom Seaver, Reggie Jackson and I got me some Charlie Hustle cards as well. Certainly not their rookie cards, my best cards are all hockey cards for sure. I would have to imagine the market crashed due to the cards being printed into oblivion and 5,000 different companies having to make them! I used to play catcher as well, mostly because we had guys that threw so hard and wild that nobody wanted to be behind the plate! It was so much closer than center field and really it was the only contact position in the sport, had a great time back there, so rough on the knees though! Great Sunday afternoon post! I have to wait so much longer for spring though, living in the Great White North! I can't wait until May :/
Tom Seaver, Reggie Jackson, and Pete Rose are such great names. Damn the card companies for making it so you need a second job if you want to collect cards via packs. It Is really cheap to buy some of those cards that were too expensive when we were young though, so that's a silver lining.
I certainly do enjoy being able to go into a hobby shop to buy an entire box now! I remember collecting bottles just to have enough to buy 2 packs of cards!
Great post @mikeshuh and cool cards! I wish more people posted about sports cards and collecting here on steemit. I collected a lot as a kid, got rid of everything along the way, and then over the past few years regained interest again, I'm a dad now and want to start collecting with my son. We buy boxes of cards at target. I pull anything with potential value and sleeve it and give him the rest to play around with. I also have bought a few good cards on ebay - i have 5 montana rookies, an elway rookie, a marino rookie, a dave winfield rookie, and a few others. The Montana RCs are my favorite though. 3 or 4 of them would probably grade 7 or 8, and I have 1 that I think could get a 9 or 10, most likely a 9 though.
I wish more people did too. I would love reading about the "old days". To your 5 Montana rookies...wow! One of the things I bought back then, which I could still make a profit on...I saw an ad in Sports Cards magazine for Topps football team sets. Football cards didn't take off in price right away. For about $15, I bought an 84 Topps set. As you know, that had Marino and Elway's rookies. It also had Dickerson and Roger Craig rookies!
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Thank you for sharing !
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