Collecting in the 80's

[Bill Menard]

The McGwire, Canseco, and Bonds were probably the only cards ever worth anything from that pile of kindling.

Nonsense! Bo was big, Wally Joyner, surhoff and don't forget Pete incavilia! You could sell all of those to the local shops back then.

 

[Brewer Andy]

And Will Clark! But lets remember the Brewers selected Surhoff ahead of Clark in the draft

 

[BBCgalaxee]

All 1987 sets were mega loaded with talent which seemed to emerge every year.

Here are the names I remember as being hot at some point in the hobby, each having a rc in a 1987 set.

Clark, surhoff, incaviglia, Devon white, Maddux, Joey meyer, glenallen hill, Joyner, Larkin, swindell, Robby thompson, Tracey Jones, darryl Clark, Kevin Mitchell, magadan, bo, bonds, palmeiro, steinbach, seitzer, etc etc.

And then there were guys who had second year cards which were hot like canseco, Santiago, Cory Snyder, kal Daniels and Cecil fielder.

And just when everyone thought there could never ever be another hot rc come out of an 87 set, along came Billy beane and his 1987 topps rc......IN 2011!

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[notjomommasclint]

Gregg Jeffries and Todd Ziele would bring mad coin at the shops!

 

[Bill Menard]

Gregg Jeffries and Todd Ziele would bring mad coin at the shops!

I was a big Jerome Walton fan.

 

[notjomommasclint]

I was a big Jerome Walton fan.

His topps rookie was a gorgeous card!

He and Dwight smith set the collecting world on fire!

 

[sabrgeek]

Billy Beane's RC is in 1986 Donruss

 

[nosterbor]

What I miss most about this era, were the great shows, SCD, & BCN. I periodically had an ad in SCD looking for Henderson stuff and made great contacts through the years, some of who I still deal with. I miss getting peoples player pricelists in the mail and the phone coversations with many of these people. I miss going to the Ft. Washington PA shows, the great shows in Westchester NY, and all the ones in and around New Jersey. It was just a fun time in the hobby that will never come back.

I hear ya. Sad to see mall show's die.

 

[nosterbor]

I still have all the rack's and cello's with stars and rookies on top. About 40 cases total. The 88 Donruss Rated Rookies were a very good looking card. The Grace and Jeffries to me were something to behold card wise. like a lot of guys do today with hotwheels i did with rack packs. Just searching for the stars on top. Man did spend some $ back in the day. It was a blast.

 

[byronscott4ever]

Every store seemed to sell cards and every chain had its own 33 or 44 card boxed set. After being hard to find in the years before, 1989 and especially 1990 Fleer and Donruss were easy to find. Beckett prices actually mattered back then as well. Mail order was key to getting cards along with shows.

 

[cbrandtw]

I think I can relate to just about everyone's stories. Has anyone said anything about "broder" cards? Those were popular at shows. Can someone share an image?

Mail order story: Back in '87 I mail ordered a '86 Donruss Mattingly from SD Sports Collectibles (I live in AL) for $3. Companies actually listed cheap singles for sale in magazines. Months later I received the attached image as an explanation they were out of the Donruss Mattingly. I figured I had a Mickey Mantle so I would just keep it. I've carried it in my wallet since then.

 

[bobthewondercat77]

Great stories everyone. That short burst of widespread interest spawned the entire card culture we know today.

My favorite thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is Baseball Cards Magazine. It had great writers, voluminous articles, and tons of fun ads to go through. Editor Kit Keifer (also wrote under the pseudonym The Constant Rater) wrote with an engaging humor, mixing in lessons about history and culture (even his pseudonym is a literary reference, though I didn't learn that until later).

I credit him with educating me through my love of cards -- Beckett always felt like it was written for kids. BTW, I give Bill James the same credit, I learned so many of my first lessons about math and rational thought from his mid 80's books.

FWIW though I will add that, as an adult, I much prefer today's collecting environment. More product to choose from, many niches to collect, easy access to cards on the Internet. The only thing I really miss is shows, they are just TOO rare now in almost every metropolitan area...

 

[Bill Menard]

The only thing I really miss is shows, they are just TOO rare now in almost every metropolitan area...

This varies greatly across the country. Here in Rhode Island, they are pretty easy to come by. Can have your pick of shows some weekends. White Plains is even feasible if you are up for a drive. Though I rarely drive more than 1 hour to get to a show, some shows that are larger in size are worth it. The Shriner's show that takes place twice yearly in Wilmington, MA is an example of that. There seems to be at least 1 show every weekend in Massachussets.

Of course, shows that frequent often mean running into the same people every week, who don't necessarily have new stuff every week, so I typically space it out a bit and attend a show once every 1-2 months, again, unless it's a bigger show!

 

[olerud363]

I was late to collecting as I didn't start until 1989 when I was 14. Back then in Eastern Canada the stores were all closed on Sundays but the malls would have flea markets. We moved to a new house in the spring of 1989 and to get rid of some stuff me, my dad, and my sister rented a table at the flea market for a couple of Sundays. I would wander around the tables and it was there that I bought my very first cards... a 1989 O-Pee-Chee Blue Jays team set.

I spent the rest of that summer buying OPC packs for 35 cents per 10-card pack, while my buddy Patrick was buying 1989 Donruss. He eventually convinced me to switch to Donruss late in the summer because there was a super hot rookie card in '89 Donruss and if you found one you could sell it for major bucks. And so he had me chasing Tom "Flash" Gordon RC's!


- Rodrick

 

[bobthewondercat77]

Yes, I think of New England as one of the few exceptions... NYC area is not too bad, and Chicagoland seems to have some choices. But I really think these markets are the exception rather than the rule...

This varies greatly across the country. Here in Rhode Island, they are pretty easy to come by. Can have your pick of shows some weekends. White Plains is even feasible if you are up for a drive. Though I rarely drive more than 1 hour to get to a show, some shows that are larger in size are worth it. The Shriner's show that takes place twice yearly in Wilmington, MA is an example of that. There seems to be at least 1 show every weekend in Massachussets.

Of course, shows that frequent often mean running into the same people every week, who don't necessarily have new stuff every week, so I typically space it out a bit and attend a show once every 1-2 months, again, unless it's a bigger show!

 

[Kmccall93]

I have enjoyed this thread too. I started collecting in 81, was constantly pushing some kind of chore opportunity to bank some change for packs. My dad lucked up with a co-worker who remembered he collected cards as a kid and thought he still had some. A couple of weeks later, dad shows up with a shoebox with a few cards in it...56 Jackie Robinson, 54 Ted Williams and a stack of 66 topps...mantle, mays, koufax, drysdale, banks, rose, ......hooked from there.....two weeks later he comes home from a road trip with a t-206 Cy young from a flea market next to his hotel. Paid a whole $15 bucks for it because he thought it was cool looking. Yep, those were the days.....still have them all.


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[ThoseBackPages]

NICE!

 

[rsmath]

Here are some of my thoughts/memories from being a collector since 1981 to my hiatus in 1992'ish before a return in 2001.

I disagree about Donruss/Fleer cards from the early to mid 1980's being hard to find. Very easy to mail-order boxes (or sets where applicable) or find at the local card shop. I will grant you that 1984D was expensive fairly quickly because of the hobby rumors of perceived scarcity and it wasn't until the 2000's that I picked up a
1984D set for my PC.

I loved Topps Vending boxes to build sets from. I guess it's not good there wasn't much to be had other than hot rookies because they were easily searchable but I don't think any that I bought were ever searched because I trusted my local card shop dealer.

One of my favorite 80's releases were the traded or Donruss The Rookies sets - until about 1987, they were an automatic item on my christmas wish list and always fulfilled so it is a great memory to open it up on christmas day and go through them and see the ballplayers who were traded or changed teams in their new uniforms. Around 1987 or later, I just couldn't wait for christmas day -- and combined with the fact I was able to do jobs for neighbors for cash plus allowance -- I was able to more afford to buy the traded/rookies sets on my own near release date rather than wait to get them on Christmas.

It was fun in 1982 and 1983 to pay mom or dad cash and they would write me a check that I could send off to a mail order dealer for boxes or factory sets. I believe SCD was the mag I used the most to make my orders from. In a recent nostalgia bug, I subscribed to SCD at a great new subscriber rate but cancelled the remainer of my subscription because it's disappointing to see what SCD has turned into -- auto index cards, auto pics, auto memorabilia with trading card ads few and far between.

Since about 1984/1985, most releases were purchased with my own cash at the local card shop, usually on a preorder basis for a good price with pickup at the shop in late summer or early fall.

I did build 1987 Topps set from was boxes. It was fun to find out the local wholesale club had them and when my mom or dad went there for some items, buying a box of 1987T for me was on the list and after a few trips with box purchases, I had my 1987 Topps hand-collated set.

I enjoyed the All-Star Glossy sets - doing whatever was required back them (I think it was wrappers) plus some money to Topps and send that off in the mail to receive the All-Star Glossy set in the mail. About the last all-star glossys I actively collected came from rack packs so they had changed from mail order to special inserts in rack or cello packs.

I remember thinking in 1989/1990 that the Upper Deck cards were not worth a few bucks a pack. I did go back in the 2000's after my hiatus and buy the UD sets to fill a hole in my sets PC and worked out great that it was more reasonable prices to get those than if I had purchased them at the time I was about become disinterested in the hobby.