THE COLLECTING GAME 49

IT'S IN
THE CARDS
HOW COLLECTING BASEBALL CARDS
BECAME A LOVE AFFAIR ... AND HOWTHINGS
HAVE CHANGED OVER THE LAST 60 YEARS
B Y JOHN LIEPA

I'm often asked after baseball history

presentations how my love affair with
baseball began. How did more than 60
years of card collecting; years of playing
sandlot ball; years of researching, writing
and lecturing how had it come to play
such an important part in my life?
As an immigrant from a working class
background with athletic brothers, growing up i n the 1950s-60s and wanting to become thoroughly Americanized I
believe my attraction to baseball was natural and inevitable. As kids, we all had
paper routes, delivering both The Des
Moines Register and Des Moines Tribune
to customers along 30th Street from just
north of Drake University to Veterans
Hospital on Douglas Avenue. Twice a day
we picked up our bundled papers on the
corner of 30th and Hickman Road just
across the street from Whisler's Drugstore, later renamed Sampson's. This is
where the lovely "addiction" started.
Our parents made sure we saved most
of our profits, but they allowed for and

J O H N RAWL1NQS
SB.New Y o r k Nationals

understood why comic books and baseball cards were important parts of what
made us happy. At first, our addiction was
broad and all-encompassing we collected comic books: Walt Disney (Mickey
Mouse, Donald Duck, etc.), Roy Rogers,
Hopalong Cassidy and Gene Autry, Classics Illustrated; and yes, even Archie. We
collected Topps, Fleer and Bowman cards
including some football cards. Also Davy
Crocket, Zorro, Wings, Planes, Presidents,
World on Wheels, and Rails and Sails.
Most important, we collected baseball
cards individual players, duplicates,
teams and sets. Yankees and Cardinals
were deified and carefully preserved, protected and saved. Dodgers and Braves,
not so much. They ended up clothespinned to bicycle spokes or traded to our
Estonian friend on Leado Avenue.
We collected cards i n the 1950s and
1960s for all the right reasons it truly
was for the love of the game, player, or
team; no other reasons necessary. In the
process, my brothers and I completed
most of the sets from 1951 through 1959;

CHICA.GO.

DICK

ROZEK

St %' aTi ' if 'Jfi'lt i .'. XSii $ .1

!

Dick Rozek of Cedar Rapids is among

the former Iowa major-leaguers in John
Liepa's baseball card collection.
organized and carefully stored them; and
were lucky to have a mom who didn't
throw them out. As we grew older, our interest i n collecting diminished, only to
come back as our own kids took up an interest. A n d having stayed closest to the
hobby, I ended up with the cards. Then,
when my son got into T-ball and Little
League, we got back into the hobby i n a
serious way first by reopening that big
box of saved gems from the 1950s; then
educating ourselves about the hobby (i.e.,
card conditions and grading services, rar-

SEALS

Cards of John Rawlings (Bloomfield), Danny Moeller (DeWitt), Ducky Holmes (Des Moines) and Arthur Jahn (Struble).

50 THE COLLECTING GAME

ities, 1980s values, etc.); followed by going
to shows to trade, buy and sell; and finally
deciding to collect favorite individual
players and build sets. Over a 25-year period, we completed most of the major
Topps, Bowman and Fleer sets. We continued to trade and buy; and occasionally
lucked out by coming across true rarities
that we were able to add to our collection.
We did this as a family, even giving gifts
and putting sets together at Christmas.
But then around the mid-1970s and early
1980s three major trends i n the hobby
changed everything for us as collectors:
Companies overproduced sets and
subsets and used mass marketing and
overinflated hype, beginning with the
1977 Topps set and continuing to the present day.
A half-dozen professional grading
services arrived dominated by PSA
(Professional Sports Authenticators)
and showed the incredible difference i n
monetary value of cards i n poor condition
compared to those few remaining i n pristine condition.
With the increased use of computers
and eBay, many charlatans pretended to
be legitimate hobbyists and dealers, resulting i n rampant forgeries and counterfeits.
The result was overhyped cards and
sets that were grossly overpriced, and that

Cards of lowans Bob Oldis (Preston)

and Jack Dittmer (Elkader).

made it prohibitively expensive for kids to

either get i n or stay i n the hobby. However, those overpriced, overproduced
cards turned out to have little value.
Additionally, it resulted i n dealers getting into the hobby who knew nothing
about baseball or its history, and who
were i n it only to make a fast buck by
turning over huge volumes of product.
True collectors had to rethink how and
why to collect.
Because I loved and taught U.S. and
Iowa History for 38 years, I decided to
focus on Iowa's contribution to Major
League Baseball. After nearly 60 years of
collecting baseball cards, I found that only
a few collectors nationally focused their
efforts on collecting cards and memorabilia of players born i n their state. The
challenge of completing all those 1948-80
sets had been accomplished, so it was time
to refocus, sell off and trade most of the
sets that were taking over our house, and
redirect my passion to collecting cards of
the 220 lowans who have made it to the
major leagues and the seven lowans enshrined i n the Hall of Fame.
One of the toughest decisions i n all my
years of collecting was to sell off most of
my sets, yet keep a few favorite sets and
some with monetary value. Once that was
done, I threw myself into building the
most extensive collection of players from
one state i n the nation. I have no way of
knowing with certainty, but i n my experience traveling to trade shows, staying
attuned to the hobby's major auctioneers,
and getting to know many of the country's life-long collectors I have yet to
see, or to be made aware of, any collector
having built a similar collection. Over the
past six years, I've been honored to be able
to share images of many of my Iowa cards
in the Iowa Cubs yearbooks.
Now, a few words of advice for collectors, long-time and recent:
Be honest with yourself as to why
you're in the hobby. If you're i n it to make
money and your cards are post-1976, go to
a hobby shop or eBay and check out what
those cards that you were told were a
great investment are really worth. If
you're collecting cards of your favorite
teams, players, etc., for pure enjoyment,
regardless of investment value, welcome
to a wonderful hobby,
Whether you love or hate the advent of
card-grading services, they're here to stay.

So it's worth the few dollars to get your

1950s and 1960s star cards graded by one
of the reputable services. I've broken
hearts when someone brings i n their
prized 1956 Topps Mickey Mantle, thinking it's i n near-mint to mint condition;
looked at my graded 1956 Mantle; and realized theirs is i n very good condition,
worth around $300, instead of a near-mint
card worth about $3,300.
Be wary of purchasing cards on eBay.
Just a few years ago, it was estimated that
90 percent of the autographed Mark
McGuire signed baseballs purchased online were fakes. There's so little quality
control and so many scam artists. I follow
auctions on-line, but 95 percent of my purchases have been with dealers who were
in the hobby before eBay existed. They're
still in business, both on-line and in traditional sales, because they're honest and
they know and love baseball.
Bottom line: It's a great hobby, but just
as the game has evolved, so has the hobby.
Collecting will never be like it was i n the
"Golden Age of Baseball" when I had the
chance to meet Hank Aaron and Luis
Aparicio and Yogi Berra. It was my 1950s
bubble-gum cards coming to life!

John Liepa is a long-time member of the Society for American Baseball Research, has collected baseball cards and memorabilia for more
than 50 years, and does presentations dressed
as 1869 Cincinnati
Red Stockings player
Calvin McVey, Iowa's first major-leaguer.