V13 N. 75 Slightly Off the Subject of WC's and Track, But We All Need a Break Sometimes

 While we are waiting for this day's World Championships results to come in I decided this was a good time to put this report on the blog.    This story is about one of my best friends Bill Schnier,  who was over 30 years the head track coach at the U. of Cincinnati.  Bill and I grew up in the east end of Dayton, Ohio and went to competing high schools, Bill at Wilbur Wright HS and me at  Belmont HS.  We never met until many years later however through our mutual interest in track and field when we both belonged to the Kettering Striders Track Club.  Then we were both in grad school at the same time, Bill at Indiana U. and me at Ball State U.   More years later and Bill got me an interview for a coaching job at U. of Dayton.  I knew he had a nice collection of sports memorabilia, but I was not aware of it's extent.  Bill is a big Cincinnati Reds fan and has collected baseball trading cards since he was a little boy.  Not having delved into that collection for the past fifty years, he wondered what it was worth and contacted a guy who deals in cards to see what he had.  The story is recorded on youtube.com and can be found at this link  Bill Schnier's Baseball Cards.   This may inspire some of you old timers to go back into that battered and dusty trunk of your 'stuff' that your mom never threw out when you left home and dig around til you find that old Mickey Mantle rookie card.    The first three minutes of the clip drag on with an intro, but then the presenter gets into the meat of the story.   As for old track and field trading cards which I know did exist, I don't think they are worth anything compared to the baseball cards, but there may still be a market somewhere.   People put a price on anything that reminds them of the good old days.

 George Brose

Thanks for putting this on your blog although I enjoyed your lead in much more.  Most guys I know had more cards than me but not a Mom who is a saver.  Also, I have only benefitted $3,400 but that potential $10,000 figure probably has to do with programs, tickets, pictures, etc.  I don't plan to sell those things but I probably should.  Bill

I had a bunch of baseball cards but used the cards on the spokes of my bicycle so they made a "neat" noise as I rode through town.   That meant more to me then and now I read that I probably had some valuable cards ruined by not keeping them safely and neatly.  

My brother in law collects baseball cards and uses special cloth gloves to put the cards in sleeve plastic pages.  He told me once he had a fairly good copy of a Mickey Mantle card. He was going to try and sell the inventory but I never heard how he did.   Mine profit was 0 but I sure made great noises when riding my bike through town.!     A former Olympian who wishes to remain anonymous

George, 

bill showed me his sports collection (after visit to the local vinyl record store) in his basement a year ago. to call it a baseball card collection would be a big understatement. bill has hats, jerseys, tickets, brochures, books, majority cincinnati reds related, but also ohio pro teams and colleges. i expected track and field books, shoes (guess phil scott got all those) t-shirts. but rethinking, remembered that bill’s sport focus was baseball growing up, till halfway through Capital U. it is an amazing collection, and great to hear it’s “value” confirmed. paid for a nice vacation to the North country!  Bruce Kritzler

That's pretty cool.  John Bork

George,

I really enjoyed this article about baseball cards.  As a kid growing up in Ohio, all of my friends liked the Indians or the Reds.  Those were the baseball cards they all wanted.  I loved the NY Yankees because they won!

When we got bubblegum, we anxiously took out the cards and traded each other for the ones we wanted.  Over time I had all of the old Yankees to include a Mickey Mantle rookie card.

I kept them in a cigar box, but when I went to college, my parents were cleaning things out and came upon this box of baseball cards.  They thought I was way too old, and not a big baseball fan, to want the cards, so into the fire they went.

Little did we know what those would be valued at today.  Charles Hunsaker

 

My parents cleaned out their attic about 50 years ago and got rid of my old baseball cards with other "clutter" at that time.  However, my cards were mostly of the old Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League.  See https://www.baseballhistorycomesalive.com/where-have-you-gone-vince-dimaggio-remembering-the-old-oakland-oaks/?fbclid=IwAR2R5NYU-rB4wEvhPvWgcEOPpjQKQ1YmU92u_bLpKFEWG8jr1pZcNkWUDdU

 

However, the photos there are not baseball cards.  They are actual glossy photos I bought for about 10 cents each at a sporting goods store in Oakland.

 

Mike

I did collect a few baseball cards but not to the extent Bill did.  My folks saved a lot of my stuff, but in reality there wasn't that much to save.  My other interest in trading cars was  war cards which were very popular around the time of the Korean War.  I've met Germans who said the same thing about military or war cards when they were kids.  I met one guy of my generation in Africa from East Germany who said they had a lot of cards about their former colonies and Tanzania the former "Deutsch Ost Afrika" was one of them and that got him interested in wanting to go to Africa.  We also had a series of cards with historical references and questions on the back that had hidden answers that you had to find by using a colored piece of cellophane and cover the card and the answer would appear.    The cigarette and cigar companies had early trading cards of baseball players.  How better to push your product?  Two mutually supporting addictions.   George Brose