I have been lucky in my collecting in that people have always been generous with me about giving me cards. For instance, a couple of my older brother's friends gave me some good stuff when I was a kid: 1969 Topps football cards (though Charlie C. liked to draw mustaches & beards on some of his cards); an inch-thick stack of 1964 Topps Giants cards loaded with Hall of Famers, many in duplicate, even quadruplicate; and a nice 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan rookie card, upon which Jerry Koosman plays eternal second fiddle to Nolan (sorry, Jerry!).
My real score was when a colleague of my dad's at my dad's office learned that I collected baseball & football cards. He gave my dad to give to me a stack of about 200 cards from the 1950, 1951, 1952 & 1953 Bowman baseball sets. Among these were Ted Williams & Stan Musial (the fate of which can be read in earlier blogs), a Whitey Ford rookie card, two 1950 Roy Campanella & many other superstars. I still have the vast majority of these cards.
Yes, I need to thank those people for their generosity. So, thank you - but you can't have your cards back!
