The Cardboard Investment

We Have To Start At The Beginning

  As far back as my memory takes me, sports cards have been a part of my life. The thrill of opening a pack hoping for your favorite player, dreaming of that rare insert or searching for a card you have never seen before. Getting together with friends showing off your collection, trading for the cards you need, and scouring through Tough Stuff or Beckett price guides to see how much these delicate pieces of cardboard were commanding. To many it may seem silly how much these pictures of current and past players means to people, while others have turned their passion for this hobby into a lucrative business. The card industry has changed and evolved over the last 30 years I have been a part of it, but collectors like myself have continued to hold onto this childhood passion. I am going to take you on a journey through the development of this national past time, and open your eyes to what it has become.

  It was the early 90s when my earliest memories of sports cards were created. I remember eagerly waiting for my Dad to come home with packs from the local gas station, or the occasional stop at a store or two dedicated to sports cards that could easily be found all around my rural state. Seeing what my Dad's childhood cards were now worth, I dreamt of what my sports cards would be worth when I was my Dad's age. Little did I know that this was the making's of my introduction to sports cards, a hobby that many would grow out of when they reached their teenage years. It was being formed with a bond between a father and son, an easy connection to make with any boy my age at the time.

  My story can not even be started without anyone else except my father. A baby boomer who grew up in the 50s and 60s and like every other kid of his generation, was a collector of sports cards. A pack of cards could be found for a nickel at every convenient store. Many kids would scrape together any money they could just to ride their bike to get that pack of cards and a stale piece of gum. Ripping open those packs without a care for the condition of them, or their future monetary value,  kids would flip through the pack looking for their favorite players. If they were lucky, they would find a card of the most popular player at the time, Mickey Mantle. The players stats and the small bit of information about them that was on the back, gave these kids a glimpse into the players lives. At the time this was some of the only information available about these players. Unless they were a die hard listener to the radio, or were lucky enough to have a television, these cards were some people's only connection to the professional circuit. After these kids had their fun looking at and reading the cards, they would then proceed to stick them in the spokes of that bike they rode to get there. They were on top of the world as the joyful sound of clicking came off that bike as the corners of a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle were shredded by the bike spokes. This was all that mattered to the majority of 10 year old boys of that time.

  My father also had the benefit of his Dad owning a local gas station, that I am sure carried sports cards, or at least was close enough to a place my Dad could ride his bike around to grab a pack and show off. For as long as I could remember he told stories of cards he once had, or the ones my grandmother must have thrown away when he went to college. More than once we searched my grandparents house, even climbing up into the old rectangular crawl space into the attic. I balanced around on the studs, even sifting through the old yellowed newspapers that had been placed on top of the insulation to try and add another layer. Through all the searches until the final clean out of their house, we never found the fabled lost cards.

  When I was growing up in the early 90s, sports cards were as constant a main stay in a boys life as they had been for the last 30 years. All my friends collected cards and they were available almost everywhere to purchase. Shows were held at my local malls frequently, and there was a number of dedicated hobby shops within an hours drive. One of the local convenient stores, Ruth's, doubled as a small sports card shop in my home town. I remember my father religiously buying me packs of late 1980's and early 1990's cards. Hours were spent sorting them out, putting them in binders, trying to complete sets, and memorizing stats from the players.

  As my obsession for the hobby grew, I was introduced to my father's collection from when he was a kid. I remember the old cardboard boxes he produced with pages after pages of cards glued onto stationary paper. Some cards had the team crossed off and the new one written in with pencil if a player was traded. All the stars from the 1950's and 1960's were there including Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Roger Maris, Willie Mays, and so on. The condition of these cards meant nothing to me being around 8 years old. Looking up the prices of these cards in the latest Tough Stuff, I thought we were going to be rich. Some cards had values in the hundreds of dollars, which to an 8 year old was about as much as a million dollars. This revelation of cards being able to be sold for real money was a game changer for little me. In my mind all I could see was dollar signs with the new cards from the 80's and 90's I was now amassing. If I kept all these for 30 to 40 years like my father, I would be rich from this card collection. Little did I know, almost every other 8 year old boy was having the same delusion.

  Without any knowledge of how condition affected value, my father and I attempted in many different ways to free these valuable cards from his childhood collection from the confines of the paper they were stuck too. We tried a hair dryer and we tried prying them free with a knife, but nothing worked that did not further damage the cards. With the glue now set for almost 40 years, the only options for getting them off the paper were ripping the backs of the cards off, or cutting around the paper on the back. After many attempts and many mangled cards, we were able to get all the valuable ones off from the paper. Almost all of them had rounded corners and creases, some had writing on them, and tons now had more than half of the back ripped off. Regardless, I felt a connection to these roughed up pieces of cardboard that would last a lifetime.

  Like many other kids of my generation, I continued to collect and store thousands of cards from the 80's and 90's. Large totes filled my parents basement, dozens of albums filled up the shelves in my room and card displays dotted the walls of my bedroom. All of my friends were into collecting, and there was even an after school sports card trading group that I joined.

  Through sports and my Dads connections around the state, he further reinforced and encouraged the hobby of collecting trading cards.. I was fortunate enough to go along with my father to celebrity golf tournaments where I was able to meet current and former pro athletes. One golf tournament I was able to meet and play a round with one of the Hanson brothers from the movie Slap Shot. Many were alumni from local colleges, or grew up in Maine, but being able to hold one of these athletes cards and then see them in person made them seem bigger than life. My collection soon grew to include autographed baseballs, pictures and in person signed cards. Autographs from local players such as Bill Swift, Mike Bordick and Eric Weinrich were now some of the prized pieces of my collection. Business acquaintances of my Dad's would also help him light up my world by giving him complete sets of 1980s and 1990s cards to add to my collection. I was very fortunate to have a father who encouraged this passion, and gave us a common point of interest.

  I don't remember how or why it happened, but at some point my passion for the hobby went out. It was probably around the time where I began being more interested in hanging out with girls than looking at pieces of cardboard. The cards continued to be displayed on my walls, the albums on my shelves made their way into more totes and soon began to collect dust. Even though I did not continue actively collecting, the thought of becoming rich from these cards I collected always stuck around in the back of my mind. I made it through high school and into college before card collecting found it's way back into my life.

When I returned to find the transformation of the sports card hobby, I began to ask myself what happened? To answer that we have to start at the beginning.