Memories of Baseball Card Trading

Throughout my baseball card collecting days I have conducted many trades. In-person trading was how it was done growing up in a small town pre-Internet. The berth of the world wide web opened doors for card collectors around the country (and world) to make trades.

Memories came flowing back after reading Cody Cutter's blog today.

There were so many baseball card trading partners as a kid, even in small town Annawan, Illinos (population: 800). This was also the late 1980's and early 1990's during the baseball card boom.

The Carpenter brothers were probably my biggest trade partners. Brandon was a huge Detroit Lions fan and had an impressive Barry Sanders collection. His Larry Johnson basketball card collection later trumped that Lions collection.

David was another trading partner. He is pictured above in this classic 90's snapshot from my 3rd grade birthday party circa 1991. Small tube TV (sans remote) with Nintendo controllers in hand playing RBI Baseball, and an appearance of a baseball card binder most likely filled with a large amount of 1990 Topps and Fleer.

My main memory of David is that his dad ran the local IGA grocery store and he was able to order whatever baseball cards he wanted. David was the most patient 9-year old on the planet. He had a box of 1991 Topps that he would open one pack a day. I'm in my mid-30's now and can barely hold myself back from opening a box of cards as soon as I get into my car.

Seth lived right behind me. Only a large field filled with weeds separated our homes. Seth loved hockey. To this day he is probably the only kid in tiny Annawan that has collected hockey cards in the past 30 years. One of his uncles had given Seth a huge collection of 1977, 1978, and 1979 Topps football cards. These were ancient for us in the early 90's because we had not even been born yet. We made several trades and I ended up acquiring many of those old football cards in trades.

Luke was my best friend in grade school and junior high. Our moms would take us to nearby Geneseo often to visit Hart's Sports Cards. Luke always seemed to have a bunch of oddball cards. He was a big fan of the Broder cards, and later the Bo Jackson "Bo Knows" unlicensed cards and many others.

For those my age we lived in a classic age when it comes to baseball card collecting (I feel like I could narrate this blog entry ala Richard Dreyfuss from Stand By Me). We didn't put them in our bike spokes, rather collected them as if we would become millionaires when we were adults.

I mean, if a 1990 Upper Deck Kevin Maas rookie card was worth $4 then, the sky was the limit for its value in 25 years.

Now we trade online. It doesn't have that personal touch like it did growing up, but even as an adult that excitement arises when a new box of cards shows up at your door.