A Baseball Card Collection History

Do you remember how your baseball card collection started?  I do.  Well, sort of.  When I was a kid, my father would take my brother and I down to the local candy shop.  We’d both get a dollar to spend on whatever we wanted.  At that time, you could pick up pieces of gum for a penny, a box of “lemonheads,” or “Johnny Appleseeds,” for five or ten cents, or you could get a wax pack of Topps baseball cards for 25 cents. 

Being kids, of course we went for some of the gum and candy.  But we usually wound up with at least one pack of baseball cards, which would get added to the gum and candy in a clear plastic bag used for newspaper delivery, for us to take home and enjoy. 

My brother and I would get home, sit down and, with a mouthful of lemon flavored sugar that if liquefied could melt acid build-up on a car battery, crack open our packs of cards.  We didn’t know who half the baseball players were.  We were just happy to have the cards, and probably, when we were real young, the piece of gum.  As we got older the gum just became a nuisance that left a stain on the back of one of the cards.  Okay, I admit it, I liked the gum.  I still do.

Anyway, as we began to actually watch baseball on a regular basis with our father, we’d recognize some of the players that were in these card packs.  That made it pretty cool.  Especially, if we had the cards of one of our favorite players on the New York Mets, our hometown team. 

Most of the time, we’d have these baseball cards stored in a drawer in our rooms, or in our Mom’s “junk-drawer” in the kitchen.  We eventually started to keep them in piles on our desks in our rooms.  These baseball cards, as you can imagine, had more dents, tears and creases than a dollar bill that’s been in circulation for twenty years.  But we still thought the cards were the coolest.  My dad would tell us the stories of how they used to flip for cards, or play other various games with them, and of course we tried doing that also.  (We also put a few of these cards in our huffy bike spokes to give us that ever-sought after “motorcycle” sound.) 

Once in a while, strolling the local strip mall, we’d see some tables filled with baseball cards.  The cards would be kept in a long box, or sometimes in these sleeves in a three-ring binder (which later on came to be our sacred card-carrying cases.)  Several of the cards were also displayed in hard plastic cases on the table for all to view.  Of course, we quickly found out that these were the “premium” cards due to the astronomical prices attached to them.  ($25 is a lot to at ten-year old.  Heck, it’s a lot right now.) 

Before long, we found a card shop pop up in our local strip mall.  While our Mom was shopping at PathMark, or our Dad was picking up hardware at Rickel’s, we’d run into the card shop and see which New York Mets or New York Yankees players were on display in the card cases.  Of course, we couldn’t really afford any of those cards.  At least not yet. 

Well, before you knew it, my brother and I both had paper routes.  We were rich in our own minds.  Baseball card heaven, here we come.  The money was burning a hole in my pocket.  I had to have some baseball cards.  At this point, I should have realized I was getting addicted. 

The first baseball card set I purchased was the 1984 Topps Traded Set.  Why?  Well, the Dwight Gooden rookie card was in that set of course.  I must have looked through the cards in that set a thousand times.  I bought one of those hard plastic card holders that stood upright so you could fit the card in and display it for all to see.  The card eventually made its way in to school with me so I could show it off.  

I still have that card.  It’s in the same case.  The rest of the cards are in the box the set came in.  Granted the box is a little worse for wear, but they are all there.  And considering how many times the cards were handled, they’re probably not in that bad of a condition. 

From there, I picked up the 1984 Fleer set.  Roger Clemens and Don Mattingly rookie cards.  Sweet.   Then it was the 1985 Topps set.  Roger Clemens again, to go along with the Mark McGwire Olympic rookie card.  Another treasure. 

I bought so many packs of the 1986 and 1987 Topps baseball cards, that I probably put together both sets from wax packs.  Although I never did go through the whole checklist to verify it.  I do remember putting together the cards by team in a shoebox though.  I chewed a lot of sugared gum in the mid-1980s. 

The 1986 set had some nice cards, and of course the 1987 set had the non-traded set Bonds first card, and the McGwire first card in an A’s uniform. 

At this point, my brother and I started to get big into collecting individual players.  I collected primarily Will Clark, because he was a lefty first baseman with a sweet swing.  I also picked up as many Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire cards as I could.  The bash brothers were huge back then.  Of course, I had separate collecting books for both hometown teams, the Mets and the Yankees.   My brother collected primarily Barry Bonds.  He has every card, or nearly every card, of Barry Bonds from the mid 1980′s to early 1990′s. 

This is when we both started to keep our cards in the plastic pages, with the nine card holders, which we put into three ring binders.  At first, we would put the cards in the plastic holders back to back, to use up as much real estate as possible, so our cards didn’t get wrecked.  Little did we know at the time, that we were in effect wrecking the cards by putting them in back to back.  (Plus, we re-arranged, and took the cards out so many times to look at them, that they were going to get dinged anyway.)  Well, we finally learned, and started putting the cards in on only one side of the pages. 

As we got older, we learned more about some of the baseball stars who debuted before our time.  Guys such as George Brett and Pete Rose.  These guys were at the tail ends of their careers, so we knew who they were, but their rookie cards obviously came out well before we started collecting.  As we saw these card shows in the mall, we would look for these “vintage” cards, and if we had enough money saved up from our paper route, maybe even consider buying one to add to our prized collections.

While we were collecting individual players, we also continued to buy wax and cello packs, as well as boxes of cards, when we could afford them.  Most of my old common cards are still stored in old Topps, Fleer and Donruss boxes.  However, as we got older, and our interests turned to playing sports, rather than collecting, the amount of card packs and boxes we bought dwindled. 

I can pretty much trace the decline of my baseball card collecting habit to the time that I started college.  I have hardly any cards from the 1992 season.  I just didn’t have time for baseball card collecting at that point. 

Right after college, I started working in Manhattan, and again, there was no time for baseball card collecting.  I would pick up a pack or two here or there of course, or would receive some cards as a gift, but I wouldn’t really say I was into collecting at that point.

Within the past few years however, I’ve gotten back into card collecting.  I’ve begun to follow the hobby closely again, and have recognized how much it has changed since the days when my brother and I started collecting.  It’s really amazing to see the jersey patch, autograph and parallel cards that abound these days. 

The baseball card collecting hobby has totally changed, and I’ve embraced it.  In the past few years, I’ve begun to add these new breed of cards to my existing collection.  There is so much more variety in today’s cards.  Once you get to learn the new lingo of baseball card collecting (with parallels, refractors, superfractors, box loaders, etc.) it really is an exciting hobby to participate in. 

With the return to prominence of Bowman (the brand started making it’s comeback in the late 1980′s) and it’s Chrome brand, as well as the multitude of card variations put out by each card company, there is a much wider selection to collect from.  This can be a blessing and a curse.  If you really want an entire set, assembled by purchasing packs or boxes, you need to focus on only a few sets each year.  Unless of course, you’re rolling in it, and can afford any cards you so desire. 

With my recent return to collecting, this has been my biggest struggle.  Picking a card set and sticking with it.  I’ll often find myself jumping from Bowman Chrome to Topps Series One to Topps Series Two to Upper Deck Artifacts, etc.  In the future, I’m going to place an emphasis on picking a card set that I really like and collecting that set in particular. 

As a kid, of course, I collected for the pure joy of following the players, and owning a piece of the game.  Now however, I’d say that I collect for two primary reasons.  I collect cards for both my existing passion for the game of baseball and the nostalgia of collecting.  Checking out the stats and commentary on the backs of the cards of my favorite players is still a lot of fun.  I have to admit though, that I also collect as an investor now.  Given the astronomical prices of some sets (the Upper Deck Black set with boxes of two total cards selling for over 200 bucks is an example,) you almost have to collect as an investor.  It’s still fun to collect the cards for the sake of collecting.  But if you’re going to be dropping that kind of hard earned dough on these cards, it’d be nice if you can also eventually make some of it back.  Especially if you have doubles, or cards which you know hold more value to other collectors or investors than they do for yourself. 

The collection my brother and I started as kids, will continue to grow through my renewed interest in the hobby.  I’m looking forward to adding more and more of today’s chromes and parallels to yesterday’s classic cards.  Hopefully, this is a collection that will stand the test of time, and continue to provide enjoyment and value for quite a while. 

Thanks for reading.

Scott