My dad and I started to invest into sports cards when I was about 12. Two of my younger brothers joined in with us on our monthly trips to local card shops. Back then, my brothers and I had a paper route. We would save our money and enjoy finding cards of players we watched on television.
When we first started, I was not interested in buying vintage sports cards. Generally, these are cards that came out in 1970 or before. For me, I was more intrigued to buy cards of players that were alive and I could emulate on the basketball court or in our backyard. However, about 2 decades later, my preference is buying vintage cards.
One of the reasons I buy vintage is the uniqueness and rarity of the items. If you look at a sports collectors price guide, cards that existed in the 1800’s to about 1985 requires 3-4 pages to look through. From 1985 to present day takes 30-40 pages to account for modern sports cards. This is true for all American sports, Football, Hockey, Basketball, and Baseball. Back in 1955, there was only 1 Harmon Killebrew rookie card you could buy. Most players in the modern era have well over 50 rookie cards to choose from.
While I do prefer the designs of a lot of modern cards compared to vintage, the overproduction reminds me of the times we are in - flashy, shallow, fading over time, and forgettable. One could say that people who played a sport 50-60 years ago are forgettable too. However, I often find folks my age searching for vintage things after the dopamine of modernity wears off.
Maybe it is the circles I walk in, maybe not. I do think it is something innate in the human experience. We want to feel connected. For grandparents, or ancestors that we only recall through stories and pictures that can be tough.
Sports cards have been a way for me and my dad to connect with people he grew up emulating in his backyard. Seeing a card that he or his dad collected triggers stories that it’s unlikely we would have enjoyed without the visual memory of art in our hands. Are all vintage cards valuable? It depends on your definition. Yes, some of the cards we have could sell for thousands of dollars. Others, well, the memories they hold are too precious for a dollar bill.
“Things don’t fall apart. Things hold. Lines connect in thin ways that last and last and lives become generations made out of pictures and words just kept.” -Lucille Clifton