Fun with Cardboard

Growing up nothing was better than taking a dollar down to the local card shop or convenient store and walking away with two packs of Topps Baseball cards.  I miss those days of $0.50 packs.  I miss those days when picking a baseball card was as easy as Topps, Fleer, Donruss, or Upper Deck and that was it.  I know most of you remember those 1987 Topps cards with the wood background and huge base set of almost 800 ball players.  There were some good cards to be found among the Joes who came up for a cup of coffee in 1986.  There is the Barry Bonds RC, which according to Beckett Magazine clocks in at $10 in mint condition.  There was the Mark McGwire card, his first in an A's uniform after making his Topps debut in 1985 with his Team USA card.  That McGwire card still clocks in around $4 despite all the issues surrounding McGwire these days.  There is also the Bo Jackson rookie card which still manages to book for $3.  Throw in rookie cards of Jamie Moyer  (he is the only player from this set still on an active roster), a Rafael Palmeiro, Ruben Sierra, Will Clark, Barry Larkin, and John Kruk and you have a fun and collectible set, even if you are doing a tribute to the steroids era.  There are Hall of Famers abound in this set as well.  There is the Wade Boggs', Tony Gwynn's, Cal Ripken, Jr.'s, George Brett, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Schmidt, Nolan Ryan, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Jim Rice, Rickey Henderson, and on and on.  This set is also relatively inexpensive to build and there is still a lot of unopened product out there.  A quick look on eBay or Beckettmarketplace.com will produce a lot of results.  You can still get a box of 36 packs (if I remember correctly there were 12 cards in a pack) for less than $20.  Or, you can go the vending box route which will give you 500 cards in a small box straight from Topps.  I snagged one off of Beckett.com for less than $10 a few months ago.  It was a good buy but there wasn't the satisfaction of ripping open packs and finding 20 year old gum!

These days, I can't even keep up with al the product out there.  It is freakin' intimidating.  Last year I managed to put together Upper Deck Series 1 and 2 through blaster packs at Wal-Mart.  That was a lot of fun, searching for that last card to put in the sleeve to complete the set.  It turned out I found that card in my doubles pile which I am now using to send through the mail for autographs.  I hate when I lose a card I need in the double pile.  Of course it only happened once since last year's set is the only set I consciously set out to complete.  I chose Upper Deck last year because the card focused on the picture and not the flashy border as is popular these days.  Plus, there weren't many inserts and subsets which are the bane of many a collector.  I don't know how people can keep up with all this stuff.  There are parallel sets, sub sets, refractors, chrome inserts, and everything else.  Sure, there were Upper Deck subsets in there but I chose to ignore them.  Although, the Yankee Stadium Legacy Set was fun but I had no hopes of completing that set without bankrupting me.  There was one card for EVERY game played at Yankee Stadium.  Upper Deck actually offered a trip to the new Yankee Stadium and meeting Derek Jeter to the first one who completed the set.  Last I heard some guy did it and won.  That is an awesome set though, even if it is the largest set of cards ever produced at over 4,000 cards.

Collecting baseball cards is something that I have done off and on since 1985.  Now, I mostly collect autographs ttm and through other means like at Scranton Yankee games.  It is amazing how much fun a hobby centered around small pieces of cardboard with pictures on them and stats and info on the back is.  My new thing is collecting the 2008 Topps update set of game used jerseys from the 2008 All-Star game at Yankee Stadium.  Right now there are plenty of those for less than $5 around.  

No matter how old I get I still can't get over the addiction that started years and years ago with a couple of quarters.  Today, I own a vast collection, mostly of autographs now since I committed sacrilege in 2003 by throwing out a vast majority of my old collection of baseball and football and basketball cards.  I regret that day everyday.  Oh well.  

Feel free to hit the comment button and let your thoughts and feelings be known on baseball cards.  No matter how big your collection is you are welcome here.  At the very least I am sure you have some cards left in an attic somewhere, probably those 1987 Topps cards.