Baseball Cards

On impulse, I checked the card section at the local Target and spotted 2007 Topps. I snagged a box and opened them. I guess I'm nostalgic for those long-ago days when I'd drop $10 on three separate trips to the store so that I could build a set.

I sold my collection several years ago so I could make a car payment during a brief period of unemployment. I got shafted by my friend, and it still hurts to think about it. But I've slowly rebuilt my collection, primarily with older rookie cards. I tried to do a Sweet Shot collection and fell a few autographed cards short. I'm hoping for better luck with the 2007 Topps baseball, but there are tons of parallels, etc.

Any other collectors/former collectors out there with stories to tell or memories to share?

 

I used to collect in the mid to late 80s when I was in middle and high school. I stopped when one of my friends ... not sure which one it was ... stole my book containing my best ones ...

What's sad is I think of those cards now and realize they wouldn't have near the value they did then ... Mattingly, Boggs, Gwynn rookies ... can't remember the others

I still have some of the 82, 83 and 84 sets ...

 

I remember taking my collection out almost every weekend as a kid, reorganizing them in plastic sheets, often just looking at them. In one particularly memorable incident, I took them all out to sort, and my brother kicked them into a pile and started dancing on them. He bent my Ken Griffey Jr. rookie, which I tried to make him pay for physically...but he was and still is much, much bigger. I still have the bent card, too.

 

All 5,000 or so of the cards I have hold little or no value today. I tried to sell a bunch of them a few months ago in Lexington and the dealer I went to said they were pretty much worthless.

 

I sold my entire collection for $6,000 two summers ago.

The majority of the money, though, came from the countless autographs I had gotten over the years when I was a kid and used to stake out the stadiums and such.

The baseball cards were largely a throw-in by myself to make the deal work, I'm sad to say. Because it was a blast collecting them.

 

My dad used to buy us wax packs every so often, just because. It was great to get them.

I've got a specific player that I collect, and if I see a card show in the mall or pass by one of the few card stores remaining, I can't help but stop and see if they've got any I don't have.

 

Does Gretzky (I think) still own the infamous Honus Wagner card?

 

I was really, really into it. My dad would walk to 7-11 for a pack of smokes every day and bring me with him, and I'd get a pack of Topps baseball cards. I have an enormous collection that's still housed at my mom and dad's place, including a 1980 Topps complete set (though not in mint condition, not by a long shot) that was assembled simply through the daily stroll to 7-11 plus purchasing a few cards (like 14 or 15 of them) from a card dealer a few years later for a dime apiece or so.

One of the things I most look forward to having a child - if it's a boy - is getting him hooked on the hobby, as well. I actually had a dream the other night about having a young son and participating in his card collection with him and I woke up wanting to have a baby more than I ever have before.

 

Silvio, you don't have to wait for a boy. Girls like collecting baseball cards, too. I was more into it than my brother was.

 

Hope so. I just don't want to seem like I'm trying to turn a daughter into the son I never had, you know? Hope she comes by it naturally.

 

There a couple of boxes in my old room at my parents' house. I'm not sure how much stuff I have is worth anything - I know I have a Mark McGwire rookie card and some unopened packs of Upper Deck cards from the first year they were printed -- but written all over the boxes is "Do Not Throw Away."

Next time I'm home, though that might be until July, I might go through them to see what's worth saving.