Baseball Cards: Collecting the White Sox

However, putting Frank’s card strictly in monetary terms stings. Look at that powerful swing! His huge legs were far ahead of his upper body development. You could see the beast to be.

Thanks for the piece, Ken.

Hoarding on other people’s property. At one point I was very proud of my Topps Olympic Baseball Mark McGwire card. I think it was 84’. In 1999 it was worth 200 bucks.

The following are my least favorite Sox cards of the 84-93 era. They are probably worth negative 2 dollars a piece.

Cangelosi was a very poor man’s punto for those who don’t know.

I hate to think how much ink I ingested as a kid chewing on the gum that came with the Topps cards

He was my favorite player for a while. Loved his distinctive delivery too.

Then I spent a few years trying to get every Sox card ever made. And THEN cards turned into a commodity and the number of card series exploded. I couldnt keep up.

Plus, cards turned into the domain of the Comic Book Guy, and kids got priced out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vldWUKNgfIg

When I was 12 years old, my dad and I were pretty avid collectors. We were at this card shop in some mall (can’t recall where, somewhere near Golf Road by the Gino’s East in Arlington Heights).

We bought a pack of the ‘90 Leaf set and opened it in the store. The owner of the store said there was some theory based on the number of the first card in the pack, you could tell the numerical order of cards you’d get. So he saw my first number and said, “Oh you didn’t get the Thomas card.”(At the time, the card was the crown jewel of that set. Later, Sosa was it. Now, the set is basically worthless)

So I’m flipping through the cards and the second to last card was Frank Thomas. I still remember the adrenaline rush from seeing it. The owner offered my dad $75 for it; I said no way. That card was my favorite; I kept it hidden in the nicest protective case I owned.

Now seeing the price of it in a Beckett magazine just makes the 12 year old in me cry.

Anyways, great stuff Kenwo.

Too bad they are all pretty much worthless, but damnit this was my childhood and that UD Ventura card was going to be worth millions in my mind.

I remember the UD Thomas card was damn near impossible to get. That and the Griffey rookie cards felt like the rarest cards ever.

Just picked up Mat Latos for Yonder Alonso and change.

as soon as I can figure out how, I’ll post my favorite cards. I have some sweet ones even the opos’s would like.

A Shadow!

and playing Star Wars in the other. Talk about some regression.

https://twitter.com/jcrasnick/status/148107180929859585

I collected a lot of OZ back then

I’m shocked

and i was pretty amped, thinking i was gonna get a sweet haul and be rich.
unfortunately the card sets they gave us were these donruss triple play:

which are as worthless as, well, lenny dykstra, i suppose.

Great memories!

why dye no have a job?

@JermaineDye

http://s1000.photobucket.com/albums/af127/atballent/Baseball%20Cards/
if you need a password it should be southsidesox

My favorite is Frank Thomas obvoiusly. I got that one and the Steve Stone one signed in person. The only one I forgot is Bo Jackson 87 Topps. I’ve got plenty of others but these are my favorites by far, partially because they all have a White Sox affiliation.

Not the fruh fruh overpriced places that cater to people with shit tons of money looking for pre-picked through items sold at a horrendous markup, but the grungy ones that have shit stacked to the ceiling in every corner.

There is quite often stuff that is very interesting to me, old wood working tools and electronic equipment type stuff. They almost always have a section or booth that has someone selling baseball cards and old programs and the like. Whenever I get bored with the general stroll through the aisles, the Wife knows to find me where sports crap can be found. And most of it is crap. But you can kill at least a half hour looking through unsorted boxes of baseball cards. I don’t ever buy any of them, as they aren’t in a condition that would be worth anything, but I LOVE seeing cards from the sets of the few years when I did collect, roughly ‘87-’91. Always amazes me what they sold for then, and what little they sell for now.

I had some of the cards posted here before the great “my mom’s basement got flooded bigtime the year after I went away to school and wiped all that shit out” massacre. This post has been great. Thank You.

…plus a lot of Bowman 1950’s w/ the color TV format. My favorite is Eddie Waitkus… On the back it talks about his most memorable moment in baseball. “Last season I was shot by a deranged woman…” (the basis for the Natural)

are there any cards from our yoot that are worth anything anymore?

I had all of my cards stolen when I was around 12 yrs old or thereabouts. It really sucks because I wish I had them! Some of note: Yaz rookie card, Fisk (I think 2nd year), Gossage, Muson, Reggie early years, Fingers…too many to remember &, of course, I don’t recall exact years anymore except Yaz.

I tried collecting for my oldest son in 1988 & I still have them but I don’t believe anything noteworthy. I didn’t keep up due to mass production in ’90’s sigh

Great post KW!

My home computer is broken so I stole this image of a T206 of Hall of Famer George Davis off of Ebay. Mine has a very damaged back as it was apparently glued into a scrap book at one point. You can tell it was a Piedmont Cigarette back. I actually got this in a trade with a kid that was a friend of my cousin in DC. back in 1988. I traded 2 1986 Wally Joyners (the ones with the Rookie cup in the corner and a 1984 Kirk GIbson. He thought he ripped me off.

One of only 40 printed. I was hooked. I realized that my collection was getting out of hand so I have limited it to all white sox and a select few others. My favorite its a jim thome rookie card