PDF Ebook Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, by Dave Jamieson

PDF Ebook Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, by Dave Jamieson

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Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, by Dave Jamieson

PDF Ebook Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, by Dave Jamieson

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From Publishers Weekly

It's a form of megalomania, of course, one famous card collector once said of his hobby—and, as Jamieson explains, there are plenty of people willing to cash in on collectors' obsessions; the secondary market for baseball cards may be as much as a half-billion dollars annually. It used to be even stronger: Jamieson got interested in the history of baseball cards when he rediscovered his own adolescent stash only to find that its value had plummeted in the mid-1990s. His loss is our gain as he tracks the evolution of the card from its first appearance in cigarette packs in the late 19th century through the introduction of bubble gum and up to the present. The historical narrative is livened by several interviews, including conversations with the two men who launched Topps (for decades the first name in cards) and a collector who's dealt in million-dollar cards. Jamieson also digresses neatly into curiosities like the Horrors of War card set, the legendary Mars Attacks, and a profanity-laced card featuring Cal Ripken's little brother. It's a fun read, but it also shows just how much serious work went into sustaining this one corner of pop culture ephemera. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Every time a rare baseball card brings a million-dollar price at auction, thousands of aging former collectors wistfully recall shoeboxes full of rookie cards and wonder if they lost a fortune when Mom cleaned out their rooms. The answer, according to Washington-based, award-winning journalist Jamieson is . . . probably not. Jamieson doesn’t supply lists of valuable cards (there are collectors’ journals for that); rather, he chronicles the history of collectible cards, profiles a few unique collectors, and tracks the development of the hobby and ponders its future. He profiles Jefferson Burdick, an almost forgotten man who donated what was probably the greatest collection of baseball cards ever assembled to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art over the course of a decade before his death in 1963. In tracing the history of collectible cards, Jamieson shows the extraordinary lengths to which the early cigarette and card companies went to separate young boys from their money, a penny and then a nickel at a time. A not uncommon tactic was to issue incomplete sets to keep collectors fruitlessly buying in search of a card that didn’t exist. This is a fascinating history that encompasses not only the nuances of serious collecting but also the business machinations and card-marketing strategies that contributed significantly to the rise of the cigarette and gum industries. Superbly informative and entertaining. --Wes Lukowsky

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Product details

Hardcover: 320 pages

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1st edition (April 6, 2010)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0802119395

ISBN-13: 978-0802119391

Product Dimensions:

6.2 x 1 x 9 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.7 out of 5 stars

71 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#964,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

What a well-researched and nicely-written book. I've been collecting baseball cards since the 1970s, and I learned a lot reading this page-turner. I'd recommend it for anyone who's interested in the hobby. Interestingly, the author comes to the same conclusion I reached about the baseball card industry over a decade ago: It needs to go back to the way it was, with fewer sets, fewer "insert" cards and cheaper prices. And bring back the bubble gum and cardboard.

Wow - if you want to be schooled in the history of baseball/trading cards from their inception: tobacco cards, Cracker Jack cards, bubble gum cards, etc., this book will have you mesmerized! The history of cards is well described in chronological order so its provides a smooth transition from one generation to the next from vintage cards through the "Junk Wax" era to the modern day! We highly recommend you read "Mint Condition" if you enjoy the hobby and/or collect baseball cards in general. This book will not disappoint you!

This is a wonderful book on many different levels. I was surprised to learn that baseball cards have been in existence since the 1860s. The book explores, in a very entertaining way, the marketing of cigarettes and gum by packaging them with collectible cards; images of baseball players being by far the most popular. The author also tells fascinating stories of the men who significantly contributed to the hobby: the entrepreneurs, the collectors, the creative teams and in later years the speculators. The story of how one company became a long running monopoly in the industry and how that monopoly was broken by the head of the baseball player's union was engrossing. The chapter on a contemporary baseball card dealer who warns buyers about doctored cards, can be read in a new light, since he recently admitted to trimming the sides of the world's most famous and valuable baseball card.

This book sat on my wish list for months. I delayed purchasing it because while I loved collecting baseball cards as a kid I figured there was no way an entire book about baseball cards could be enjoyable.I was dead wrong.While the idea of baseball card history sounds rather dull, Jameison makes it humorous, entertaining, and insightful. He does so by displaying the historical import of certain card sets (arguing, for example, that cigarettes owe their American success to baseball cards), interviewing those who played key roles in the creative and business growth of baseball cards, and giving us an up-close look at the most eccentric collectors and dealers.He writes as one who, like me, loved the hobby of collecting and trading cards as a child in the 80's -- only to eventually give up on the hobby when baseball cards became so expensive and overproduced that chidlren could no longer participate in the same way. As such, I felt as if he was investigating on my behalf and speaking on my behafl throughout.That said, if you enjoy quirky American history, business case studies, or interesting characters you should find the book a quick and fun read. Even if you were not a card-collecting child in the 80's.[...]

I, like the author, jumped into the card-collecting craze in the 80s and 90s (the junk wax era of cards). And I was hoping that my card collection would become valuable for me in the future. However, years later, I was shocked when it was revealed to me that my collection was virtually worthless. And this book finally explained to me just why this happened. This book was fun, easy to read, and very entertaining.

I'm about the same age as the author. I know exactly what it was like to spend every dime I had on baseball cards in 1989-1991. A subscription to Beckett was sacred. Every bus ride to school, and back home, we were making card deals as if we were traders on Wall Street. I could only dream of owning a 1984 Donruss Mattingly or a 1982 Topps Ripken. What a shock it was to see what happened to baseball card collecting when I came back to it in my late 20's. If you're like me, you will love this book.

For me the most interesting thing was, that Mr. Boris Korbel is mentioned there as an entrepreneur in Upper Deck company, his father Josef came from the Czech Republic, where he managed Salvation Army activities until the communist coup in 1948. Boris Korbel made billions of dollars in California and came back to the Czech Republic in 1992, where he bought the most prominent soccer team Slavia, which he generously funded. The whole world is a global village !

Best book I've read on the card collecting hobby and the history of sports cards by an author whose mother did not throw out his childhood cards. Well researched and informative. A must read for any card collector.

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Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, by Dave Jamieson PDF