Very rarely do I check out Craiglist, and very rarely do I find anything worth dealing with when I do. I don’t know what it was, but maybe I was just in the mood. I came across a deal (to me anyway) and I scooped it up. Luckily I was dealing with a seller who wanted to get rid of things. And now as I go through the boxes, it makes me wonder exactly what kind of collector this guy was.
This is the third box in a group of three that I was able to get. This is the second of the three boxes that was chock full of cards. And just like box #2, after I went through the box, I couldn’t fit everything back into this box. This box however wasn’t filled with the oddities that the first two boxes had. Overall, it was consistent with the years and types of cards that were in the previous boxes. In a way it was a mix of the two.
If you can’t tell, when I went through the box I resorted it newest to oldest. That’s why the oldest stuff was left out of the box in stacks.
A Touch of ’70s
As I said earlier, this box was a bit of a mix between the first and the second box. That said, it was a bit more like the set/year ordered portion of the second box than anything else. Yes, there were a few older ’70s cards but it was VERY heave on the ’78s and ’79s especially. Here’s the breakdown:
- ’72s – 4
- ’73s – 1
- ’74s – 1
- ’75 minis – 1
- ’76s – 7
- ’77s – 2
- ’78s – 4.5 inches
- ’79s – 7.75 inches
You can see how heavy the end of that decade is. That’s one of our clues as to where this guy started collecting. The other thing I think is interesting is that there were those small amounts of cards that were in larger groups in our the second box. Did he miss them? But it’s the same with the 78s and there were a ton of them. I’m just not sure why he kind of kept the three boxes so separate. The first box I can understand a bit better because they seemed to be more team sets. But essentially each box has its own organization.
Into the 80’s
The ’80s portion of the box took up three plus sections (although the ’70s were kicked out with the order I sorted them in). But this is where we get those clues as to when he stopped collecting. Its always easy to find the end. It seems to be pretty abrupt and I think in this guys case it was ’89 if we look at all the cases together. This box though was through ’88.
- ’80 Topps – 2 inches
- ’81 Fleer – 1 inch
- ’81 Topps – 1.5 inches
- ’82 Fleer – 1 inch
- ’82 Topps – 5 inches
- ’83 Topps – 1.25 inches
- ’84 Donruss – 1.25 inches
- ’84 Topps – 2.75 inches
- ’85 Topps – 3.25 inches
- ’85 Donruss – .5 inches
- ’86 Fleer – .25 inches
- ’86 Sportflics – 1.25 inches
- ’86 Topps – 3 inches
- ’87 Topps – 7.75 inches
- ’88 Score – 2.5 inches
There are a few with just a couple cards and that didn’t have dividers: ’82 Donruss (1), ’83 Donruss (1), ’84 Fleer (6), ’85 Donruss (1), ’85 Fleer (9), ’85 Topps Traded (2), ’86 Topps Traded (1), ’87 Donruss (1).
Runnin’ Outta Steam
I’m definitely running outta steam on these three boxes. It was a lot to go through. I don’t know how some of these guys I see on Twitter tackle the amounts of cards I see them working on.
While there was really nothing groundbreaking in this (no major rookies, not too much of my favorite team) it sure does fill a lot of holes. I’m a whole lot closer to completing sets for 1978 and 1979 for instance. But also, there were good amounts of sets that I don’t have a whole lot of so I got to see a little more of it. 1984 Donruss is always a favorite look for me so seeing 50-100 cards of that is nice. But also things like ’84 and ’85 Fleer was nice. I definitely have a gap in Fleer and Donruss from maybe ’83/’84 through ’86/’87 where I just don’t have a lot of cards for those sets. Those were the cards that I noticed that I stopped a little longer on.
There was also a good chunk of doubles with plenty of names that I can try some TTMs out on. I’ve been trying to send out some of my older card out to be signed so this definitely adds to what I’m doing there. Overall it was a great deal. I think anytime you are getting pre-junk wax is good. Plus if you sway a good chunk of that into the 70’s it’s even better. Then add a few oddballs in too for some icing on the cake.
So Who Was This Collector
OK, so to recap who this guy was….
I think we can nail down that the height of his collecting was from ’78 through ’87. Unless for some reason he’s gotten rid of another portion of his collection at another time, but we can really only go by what I got. The original ad just said he was getting rid of his collection and this was at least what was left. We also have the fact that I met the guy and he wasn’t much older than me. So if you shift my years of collecting back then before I stopped, it’s kind of the same window +3-4 years. I would bet anything pre-’78 was either a little +/- on the start, collected from relatives, or collected later on. The end date is a bit more abrupt as there was barely any ’89 or ’90, but there was evidence that he could have collected then.
We can also say that he was pretty serious about collecting for a kid. He kept things in some pretty nice boxes. He was organized and he new how to take care of his cards. How many times do you see a lot of cards like this and they are just thrown in a cardboard box like they are packing peanuts? I also loved the little homemade dividers he had. Everything from the miscuts to the handwriting on those were great.
It was a good find and a good journey to go on. I’ve been going through these for a few weeks now and enjoying it while a game is on, definitely good times.