Being a Card Collector in 1952!

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Hawaiian BamBam

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Found this old photo on the internet of what it looked like in 1952.(i think the picture was at a woolworths store) And yes, those are all unopened boxes of 1952 Topps! How cool would it have been to be a baseball card collector back then?

1952.jpg
 
i would love to go back in time and buy all of those unopened boxes of 1952 topps (at the price back then in 1952!) i wish stores still had card displays like this.
 
Great find. When cards were about gum and to a lesser extent the cards - not how they can be flipped for.
 
The reason that they are valuable now is because of the mistreatment of the cards, the fact that Topps dumped a boatload of the 3rd series in the ocean (because they weren't selling) and our parents tossed them out as trash when we moved out. I do remember picking up packs at the nearby 7-11 type store - eating the gum and putting the cards on my bicycle spokes.... it did sound pretty cool.

Duane
 
The reality is that, besides nobody needing that many cards, the average buyer in 1952 didn't have the money to put a dent in that display. The same would probably be true today if a display of similar quantity 2015 Topps boxes and packs were laid out like this and photographed for the future and the 2075 version us would be talking about how cool it would be to go back to 2015 and buy all of those cards!

Of course, fantasizing about being able to go back with 2015 dollars, afford them all and bring them back to 2015 is what we are doing here.

If would be cool to know exactly how much money (1952 dollars) are shown in that display. We could probably make a pretty good educated guess, but who is to say that many of those were not empty display boxes either.
 
Great picture and having those cards at this point would be nice. But in all honesty, if I get to go back in time, the first place I am going is Vegas. No reason not to wager on everything that I know will happen.
 
Even just the thought of a baseball card shop locally is a far fetch concept these days. When I was in high school, I could damn near drive 10 miles in any direction and hit a card shop and on the weekends, there was a card show at a mall, VFW, high school, ect. I worked at a shop for 6 years and knew everyone in the business in the Portland, Oregon metro area. Those were the days I miss. The internet has killed the local market, but opened up the world to us also.

Not sure why I wrote all of that? Nice picture, lol....

Billy
 
I like the lady's mannequin arm sticking out of the middle of the boxes and the little boy mannequin knee deep in cards.
 
That is a cool picture. I have always wanted to buy one of the holiday card packs from the 50s as well.

The closest I have ever seen to the "going back" theme is when my grandfather died. My grandmother, dad, and uncle were cleaning out the attic to get rid of a bunch of his stuff and found a Christmas present from 1968 for my dad that was hidden in the wall space. It was a bunch of Topps packs from that year!!!! I was just a kid and am not sure what happened to them all but remember dad opening one pack and getting a Tom Seaver and Ed Kranepool (both Mets).
 
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