Vintage-for-vintage

 

I've been watching with interest the reader numbers drop with each subsequent edition of the "best on-card element" series.

Part of this is typical, the longer a series lasts, the less interested people get -- at least for those who aren't really into the series.

But also I think this demonstrates how much readers are interested in vintage -- at least my readers anyway -- since the first three editions of the series covered the '50s, '60s and '70s.

But it's difficult to make all of my posts, or even the majority of my posts, about vintage cards. First, my interests go beyond vintage, even though vintage cards have my heart. Second, there are only so many vintage cards to go around -- there are simply fewer vintage cards, at least accessible vintage cards, than the gobs and gobs of cards manufacturers made from the late 1980s until now. Third, vintage cards are usually more expensive, some significantly so. I wish I had the money to show them more. I don't.

 

I think this holds true for almost every collector, and seems to be more the case with each passing year.

 

I don't transact in vintage as often as I once did with fellow bloggers. There simply aren't as many vintage-centric card bloggers around. A number of them don't care about vintage in the least (for the record, I don't get those collectors). But more often I think vintage cards are just off-limits for a lot of budgets, so bloggers move onto other things to talk about and collect.

"Vintage-for-vintage" trades, while never a common thing on the blogs, are pretty infrequent for me now. I'm lucky enough to receive vintage "gifts" sometimes, and then I panic because what if they want something back and I don't have a stockpile of vintage!

Fortunately there are still bloggers like Bo around who I can still count on for a good vintage-for-vintage trade.

Bo regularly shops for vintage lots on ebay -- something I should be doing -- and accumulated a smattering of dupes from 1970 Topps, a set I am trying to complete. I found a few he offered up and then he found some more for me!

Bo does not mind cards in the above kind of condition -- writing, creases and such -- I try to avoid them, so these guys will go into my '70 binder upside down, as I mentioned before a reminder to me to upgrade them. But it's nice to fill empty slots. Cards of any condition are better than empty slots.

 

But I'm not a big stickler -- how many times do you see graded cards on here? -- so these guys will hit the binder right-side-up and I may never upgrade.

All of these cards are wonderful, ideal shape and high numbers to boot! Good stuff. Billy Wynne has just two Topps cards and both of them are high numbers. I need to do a post on players who lived only in the high numbers (*scratches note to self*).

 

The capper. I didn't ask for this card, Bo threw it in! It's always a relief to get a '70s Rose card out of the way for set-builders.

I still need to send my end of vintage cards to Bo -- as usual, I hope there's enough vintage left in the extras box!

My guess is that I could turn up more vintage trades on TCDB, but this is not a big priority. I have my ways of finding vintage cards that I need.