One thing that has become very clear to me over the last year is that my way of collecting cards -- the way that was the established primary way of collecting for as long as I've been alive -- is being phased out.
There are a variety of reasons -- and forces at work -- for this. I am reminded of one of them every time I attend the monthly card show.
In the past year, the show has moved from primarily sports cards to primarily RPG cards. I have less than zero interest in these. When I paid my entrance fee at the table, the guy there asked if I wanted to enter the raffle and gestured toward a gift basket filled with RPG stuff -- don't ask me what it was, I couldn't tell you. I gave the guy a flat "no" that sounded like "of course not."
But I'd say more than half of the tables was Pokemon, Magic and whatever else there is in that fantasy realm. Just about the rest was graded football and basketball of mostly modern cards. But I've written about all of this before. A couple times.
My point this time is that we vintage guys need to stick together. Because apparently we're slowly dying out.
I found the one vintage guy in the place -- the guy I've been going to since before the show went over to the dark side. He's about the last vintage dealer left here, the last dealer that used to be 100% of every show I went to, the last "my kind of dealer".
At many of these monthly shows, he was book-ended by a couple of other dealers who had mostly vintage cards but also other stuff. I'd buy a few things from them once in awhile. But on Saturday, neither of those guys were there.
"Where's your buddies?" I asked. He shrugged his shoulders and said they didn't want to come anymore. He said they had a couple of slow shows over the summer. He shrugged again and said that he was doing fine at the show. "Thank goodness," I thought. "Because you're the only reason I'm still coming to this thing."
Actually I had hoped that the family of my former co-worker who passed away was going to be there, as I was ready to buy up some of their stuff. But they weren't there. Oh well, I guess the vintage guy gets my money again!
With extra cash because my former co-worker's family wasn't there, I looked at all of the cards under this dealer's case, but none of the expensive stuff appealed to me (or I already had it). So it was time to dig through the discount bins, which I do all the time.
I'm in a weird place having no real sets to build. There's a freedom there of just grabbing what is interesting to me. And that's what I did yesterday, I would say this 1959 Topps Marv Thronberry card is definitely interesting.
All Curt Flood cards are interesting. I'm apparently working on a career run of his cards, with only the few high numbers left.
OK, this is for a set-pursuit. Another 1969 deckle edge card landed.
The freedom of grabbing whatever cards appeal to me has helped certain sets emerge as favorites. The 1961 Topps set continues to surprise me as one of my instinctive favorites. This never would have been the case during the first five years of this blog.
1965, though, has always been a favorite, and if I ever decide to pursue another 1960s set, it will be this one.
Now, 1968 has never been a favorite (hey, where did we see that Rusty Staub photo before?). I'm sure if I was collecting in 1968 the fact that the borders from the first series differ from the borders for the rest of the set (see Reggie Smith compared with the Alou and Staub) would have been really annoying.
But '68 contains more familiar names than the early '60s sets and also I did see some of those cards (along with '69) when I was young and first noticing older cards.
I already own this 1956 Topps Don Newcombe as well as the 1963 Jim Gilliam at the top of the post. But they're both extras worth adding. The '56 Newcombe in my Dodgers binders had a huge crease through it (the nicer one is with my complete '56 set). This one has some writing on the back but that's fine.
I found some vintage football cards in the bins and started picking out some 1976 Topps, which I love but refuse to try to complete. These are the first football cards that I purchased. I must have bought a pack or two but don't remember the instance. However, as soon as I saw that Chris Hanburger card I knew that I owned it -- how's that for a call-back? I hadn't thought about that card for almost 50 years!
Meanwhile Ed "Too Tall" Jones was a hot topic on the school yard as a kid, and I had to have the Ron Jaworski rookie card just because I never knew he started with the Rams and also he doesn't look like Ron Jaworski at all!
Almost out of interesting cards from the bins I looked up at the shelf display in front of me and spotted a card I needed -- a set-filler, in fact.
Not my idea of vintage, even if the set is over 40 years old, but this is the final key card for my 1983 Donruss set! The handful of remaining wants are easily obtained commons.
A year ago at this time I landed from the same dealer at the same show the 1969 Topps Reggie Jackson card. The Boggs card is not exactly a rookie Reggie, but I like the idea of landing a key card every year before Christmas as a new tradition.
Just before handing off my cards for totaling I noticed a couple of rows of modern cards. I glanced through those quickly and spotted one Dodger.
My problem with the current monthly show situation is not only that there are almost no vintage dealers anymore but also nobody even wants to put out a box of discounted baseball. If I really searched I could probably find one or two examples of dollar boxes, but they're buried in all the shiny, slabbed, Panini-fest NBA/NFL cards. It's pretty discouraging.
Still, thanks to one table you wouldn't have been able to tell whether there was just the one table of vintage or several different tables if you weren't there. So kudos to that dealer for still sticking it out.
In these changing collecting times, we gotta stick together.
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