Almost every baseball card collector I’ve met takes the hobby very seriously. At home, our tax files, titles, the marriage license, passports etc. are in some box on the floor of the basement. However, the box of baseball cards is on the highest shelf in the basement, “in case we have a flood.”
The value of a card depends on its scarcity, popularity and condition. I’ve noticed the art of trading cards is primarily focused on:
1. Obtaining one-off spectacular cards like this 1933 Goudey #53 Babe Ruth of the Yankees worth $5,000.
Side note: my great grandpa Spence Adams played for the Yankees. I never met him. But I loved my grandma’s stories. She said Babe Ruth was a mean fart that would pick up kids, smile sweetly for the camera, then drop them.
And once, when on the road, one of the girlfriends of a player showed her how to put silk stockings on so they wouldn’t run and so the seam at the back of the leg was straight.
2. Another reason to trade cards is to assemble a perfect set.
Tonia is right, we are baseball cards. We are always evaluating, categorizing, and commoditizing ourselves. We try to keep ourselves fit, and in prime condition, we work hard to maintain good stats, and we’re always surrounding ourselves with friends and family because, together, we make a perfect set.
BUT, I’m sorry my friend. I choose to read through the lines on your post. I see a company that knows they have a one-off, spectacular card that they will never trade away because you have stellar stats and it so happens trading you to another department completes a perfect set.
You’re nothing less than a Cal Ripken Jr. my friend.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
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2 comments:
Amie, you make my day. Thank you for being one of my biggest fans!
Right family, wrong brother, Billy Ripken. Somewhere in a box, I have both the black marker and white out "corrections" for which I opened up numerous packs that year in my failed attempts at finding the "error" card.
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