The reason was a much bigger storm was brewing, and those cards were just the first wave. Rather than get into that storm during the post option number two, and hitting it full force now was the logical choice.
After getting back into cards, and I don't mean the ten or so years ago that I claimed was a return. That time frame was only setting up for the day this blog started, and I seriously got back into collecting. Since full on returning I have had numerous people mention that building an older set was an even more thrilling hunt than the cards I currently collect.
The problem is while the cards design is important to me, I'm not into the classic design most are. Don't get me wrong as I have the 1957 American Airlines magazine I bought awhile back, and a 1973 Dodgers scorecard that has a very classic look to it. Just in The Cat's world those 1957 cards don't get me all excited like some people. For some reason I like the ticket, credit card, drivers license, mascot, stadium style cards that have been done since the early 90's. You would think building these sets, and subsets would have no challenge, but in a world where I don't buy any off of ebay, or have a COMC account it has been a challenge.
All this was fun, and good though until recently. Going through cards I started to think about those people saying I should build something older, and that would represent more of a challenge than the current stuff on the wants. That I have been told is why most start the older sets as to some it goes back to acquiring the cards they had as children, and destroyed during those years.
For me we didn't do baseball cards, and run them into tire spokes. In our corner of the world we only collected football, and Star Wars cards for many a year. While I enjoy Star Wars the passion to attempt the sets from my childhood has zero appeal. For us though football was king, and it all came down to the game we played.
I mentioned this once last year in a post that around the age of ten. It could have been earlier, but we will say ten as I can't recall what the real age was. We dreamed up the idea of a football game using our cards. We played this game for the next four to six years. Initially the game was brutal on the cards as many fell victim to the accordion effect. This was when making a tackle our cards would end up head on instead of the side to side method. We used our hands to move the cards, and the action would be so fast we reacted more than thought about what was happening.
This all gave way to another idea that my friend dreamed up one day. To save the cards from the brutality we were inflicting on them. We would set the cards up, and flip a die on them as a form of a pass. This was the day our little game changed from a running league to a passing league. If it landed on the offense it was a catch. Landing on the defense was an interception, and the new offense took over from that point. The card damage was now being minimized as sometimes cards would get bent in the scrum to lay them out favorable to our play. More than anything the quarterback was the card who was really taking the hit. Flipping a die with a card 20-50 inches, and hoping it lands on your card can mess up a card. Much like the real game we were evolving in our thinking.
Still wanting more the die came into play, and we would run full plays using the die to determine movement f each card. If a receiver became open the flip was still used, but had become more challenging than before. Instead of a four to six cards to land on you had the one card. Two problems with this started to arise that couldn't really be cured. The first was that plays started to take way longer than previous games. The second is we were getting older, and playing football games with our cards was becoming something we did when there wasn't a better option.
Luckily around that time our local gas, and goodies market got in some Fleer Action Football cards. This would be another game-changer that kept the game going if only for a very short time. Now instead of just the Broncos versus Raiders we could do full seasons as we would each run half the league's teams. All we needed was the offense card, and defense card from a team, and we were set. The die came back into play as we had what each number represented. Games became much faster than ever imagined, and could be played on very little space unlike laying out full on teams.
With age we started getting into baseball cards, and doing other things. Instead of playing with cards we preferred the method of actually playing a game of football. The snow had always stopped us before, but now it just made the real life game even better. Basketball came into play, but collecting the cards just never caught on with any of us.
Having only 88 cards in these sets I had gotten into building the set, and had actually built them from two years. Sadly I was young, and had laminated them to keep them in perfect shape. The good news though is I do have some that were never laminated, and will be pulling those out to see if it is a full set, or in need of completion.
That leads me to why all these cards you see here were bought at the recent card show. Once I can motivate myself again I am going to try, and build these sets. While to some the 1950's sets are cool. I like the memories these cards represent, and so I want to see if I can build the entire series. A wantlist will be appearing once the motivation has happened.
The hardest part will be doing the research on all the stickers. Luckily I can say other than the cards sent to me by Mark Hoyle in our trade. All the other cards above, and the stickers were bought for a mere five cents, or one shiny nickel. Not a bad way to get back into trying to build some sets that I've thought about every so often, but just never pulled the trigger on recollecting. I do have a head start on a couple as for some odd reason they have traveled all these years with me. The stickers though are another story as they were used when we got them. I mean what kid doesn't love a sticker??
Goodluck with this quest
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