Vintage Cards

I rekindled my interest in baseball cards in 1990 after a 29-year hiatus. For my birthday that year, friend, Barbara Foster, gave me the poster promoting the Jefferson Burdick exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I set about collecting the cards on that poster. The Honus Wagner is a plastic phone card replica, awarded to each of the 5,000 finalists in the 1996/02/24 (Honus’ 122nd birthday) Wal-Mart giveaway of the famous McNall-Gretzky card on the Larry King show.

When I went to the museum to see the exhibit in person, I discovered there was a second poster.

In 2015, after much thought, I decided to focus on quality over quantity. In addition to the cards on the two Burdick posters, I decided to liquidate my collection in favor of the long-overlooked 1949-52 Bowman sets.
Somewhat reluctantly, I also decided to collect only professionally graded cards. I store the cards graded by PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) in the black boxes they sell to hold them. The 1949, 1950 and 1952 sets fit in four boxes, but the 1951 set requires five. Notwithstanding, you can stack them if you do so carefully. I put photographs of cards on the ends of the boxes to help identify the contents. I got immense enjoyment out of choosing these 17 cards, six of which happen to be Burdick cards.

Recorded by Harbor Media, Hingham, Massachusetts, 2021/03/03
Given the enormous role my Dad plays in the above video, it was a huge oversight not to include a photo of him in the video. This photo is from the early 1940s.
My Mom is obviously worthy as well. After all, she was one of those rare Mothers who did not dispose of her son’s baseball cards over the decades. This photo is from my parents’ wedding day, June 25, 1946, at Mineral Palace Park in Pueblo, Colorado.
Near the end of the video, I show my PSA Registry Ranks and Ratings for the 1949-52 Bowman sets. Here are updated Ranks and Ratings.