I just completed the 1964 Topps baseball set.
I was born in August 1957, so I was just turning seven in
1964. I did not collect baseball cards
at that age. I started the set about 30
years ago when I traded a 1965 (duplicate) Steve Carlton Rookie Card for a
bunch of commons from 1959, 62, 63, and 64.
So I had about 75 cards from 1964 to start with. Completing the set took about a year. I don’t look for mint. Excellent condition (rating 5 out of 10 at
PSA) cards are fine with me. I don’t
like creases, but slightly weak corners don’t bother me. It’s truly a nice looking set; I have trouble
picking a favorite 60’s set between 1964 and 1967.
As a boy, watching the older boys on my street collect cards
inspired me to get into it. In 1960, when
I was three, we moved into a new development in North Jersey. There were scores of children in the
neighborhood, but a couple of kids stick out on my memory. There was a family up the street that had
moved from Virginia. They had two boys,
Mark and Paul, who were around three to five years older than me. Their father had built them a tree fort. Wanting to play in that fort, I used to
wander up the street looking for them and occasionally, I would find them. They liked to play “Civil War” which somehow made
the whole thing very interesting to me because of their accents. They had toy guns
and confederate hats and they seemed like the coolest kids I had ever met. Mark had a collection of 1962 Topps Civil War
News cards that he would bring out from time to time. I was fascinated by the color and the
explicit pictures on the cards. As we looked at the cards, we would talk about
them – and then try to depict them while playing civil war.
We used to march around their yard with guns on our
shoulders. They taught me what an “about
face” was. I was no more than 5 or 6
years old at the time so I was learning things I had never heard about
before. I was enthralled by everything
they told me. I was young enough to be
having trouble telling my right from my left.
Paul, the older boy, placed a half-sized comb in the right seat pocket
of my dungarees (does anyone still call them that these days?). He said, “when we say right face, remember
the comb in your pocket.” After that, I
never had trouble with left and right again, even without the comb.
There was another boy, Peter, who lived in the house behind
me. He was about three years older than
me. He had a Marx Civil War toy
set. I would always pester him to bring
it outside so we could play war. And
when he did, it was a kid-magnet. Kids would
see us playing and come running to find out what was so interesting. If we didn’t know them, we got to know
them. If they got bored, they left. We would heave “dirt bombs” at each other’s
soldiers to determine which ones were dead.
Of course, we made our own sound effects – and played until we were
exhausted. Peter always wanted to be
“the South.”
The basement of Peter’s house was a treasure trove. To enter the basement, you had to go through
storm door like this:
His father had built a match-box sized town complete with a working
railroad. We weren’t allowed to play
with it too much because it was fragile.
The street lights and house lights actually worked. There were depots, silos, and gas
stations. There were also American,
Japanese, and Nazi WWII airplane models hanging from the ceiling. There were models of Frankenstein, Dracula,
and the Mummy – assembled and painted.
Peter also had a Marx WWII American v. Nazi army-man set that we played with
often (again, complete with dirt bombs and sound effects). Half the basement was finished – and in the
finished side, there was a drum set.
Peter could play “Wipeout” on his drums and we all thought that was awesome. The basement was a menagerie of interesting
things to see; it was a treat just to stand and look at it all.
I soon had an extensive collection of Leslie Match Box cars. The cars were all numbered, and I remember
going to the pharmacy (Stan Beck’s in Florham Park, NJ) to look at the display
case and pick a new one for my collection.
Stan Beck himself would come and open a locked cabinet to retrieve my
selection. I always thanked him when he
handed me the little box. I wanted him to know how much I appreciated him
keeping them all there for me. Although
tempted, I do not intend to collect Match Box cars or Marx Civil War pieces.
When my father was young, he used to spend the summer at the
Jersey shore with his cousin, George.
They stayed in a house in Manasquan, NJ on the Shark River and swam in
the river on hot summer days. George
earned a PhD in Physics and taught at Princeton. My dad was a Research Scientist for Thiokol
Engineering, Becton Dickinson, and later with Johnson & Johnson. I remember one time when I was around the age
of seven or eight we went to visit George and his family. As I recall they had
two children, a boy and a girl. The girl
(high school age – forget her name) had a pet snake which completely freaked me
out. And they had a son, Dickie, who was
about four years older than me. We
played with Dickie’s Civil War Army men – the one inch (Airfix) soldiers.
Over the past 10 years I have established a collection of
Airfix Civil War figures – over 2,500 pieces.
I look forward to one day sharing them with grandchildren.
These older boys had an undeniable influence on me. Peter wasn’t very much into sports – or sports
cards. But he did collect non-sports
cards. Like Mark, he had his own
collection of Topps’ Civil War News along with a variety of other cards. To name a few: James Bond cards, Batman cards, Addams Family
cards, (WWII) War Bulletin cards, Green Beret cards, Rat Patrol cards, JFK
cards, Beatles cards, and Man From U.N.C.L.E. cards. Occasionally, as a diversion from baseball
cards, I collect non-sports cards. I
have a few Beatles cards from different issues.
I have some Batman cards and complete sets of McHale’s Navy and Gomer
Pyle. Cost wise, these cards are on a
par with sports cards. One nice
attribute is you don’t have to worry about paying large sums for “Hall of
Famers.” There is an occasional
“pricey” rare card, but nothing rivaling a Mantle card. For example, an Addams Family 66 card set in
decent shape (Excellent +) goes for about $350-$400 or about $5-$6 per card. That’s on par with most baseball card
sets. Other sets (McHale’s Navy) are
much cheaper.
Recently I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I was up in Minnesota and my wife and I had
some time to kill before heading to the airport and so we stopped in St. Paul
to look at a few antique stores. (At the corner of Selby and Fairview.) I
spotted a stack of cards sitting on a desk.
The stack was about two inches high.
It was a mix of 1965 Philadelphia Gum James Bond cards (62 of 66 cards),
1966 Philadelphia Gum James Bond “Thunderball” cards (about 30), and Man From
U.N.C.L.E. cards (about 40). Even if you
value them at an extremely conservative $2.00 each, you’ve got $264 value. I asked the guy how much for the cards…..he
says, “how about $6.00?” That’s SIX American
dollars. SIX DOLLARS! I dream about these kinds of things
happening, but the never do….or rarely do….or maybe it’s just once in a
lifetime.
Reflecting back on all of this makes me think about why all
this brought such joy to me as a child…and why it still does. Like most collectors, the chase is exciting
for me. It always has been. More than
that, I liked the numbering of the cards, putting them in order and trying to
complete a set. I never completed a set
as a kid, and to do so now provides a sense of satisfaction and closure. I also enjoyed categorizing – by team or alphabetically
for sports. For the Beatles I would sort
by Paul, John, Ringo and George; then by combinations, then all four
together. I did the same with the Match
Box cars. They were numbered, they had
boxes, and they could be sorted and organized. The cards were a nickel-a-pack
back then. I would enjoy doing the math to
determine how many packs I could afford.
Then I would go to the store and decide which kind of cards I would purchase. For the most part, baseball won out. When NJ added a sales tax it became a little
more complex to make sure I accounted for added expense. In college I majored in Accounting. I became a CPA – and am now the CFO for a
company in North Carolina. I have always
enjoyed sorting out numbers, categorizing numbers, and presenting the numbers
in a way that tells the story of the business. Did I collect cards because I’m an
organization freak? Or am I an
organization freak because I collected cards? Either way, the penchant for
organizing details has facilitated a career and a hobby for me.
