Funny story about my co-worker and his son

[Jimmy the Greek]

So my co-worker knows that I'm heavily into cards and enjoys talking to me about it in an effort to learn about a few things and overall he just finds the things I tell him interesting. He tells me that he buys his 9 year old son cards from Target once in a while and he likes to play games with them, read the stats etc..

Today, he brought in a few cards to show me at the request of his son just because he likes them and wants to show them off to me. First card is a Topps Opening Day Aaron Judge auto. I was like WTF?!? I kind of went crazy and said you have no idea what you have here, do you? He says, "no clue". I pulled up some sold listings in ebay he was pretty blown away. He said he never heard of Aaron Judge and if someone would offer him any Mike Trout card he'd probably trade it because he knows Trout. I told him to never make a deal without talking to me first. His kid was just throwing this card around in the games he plays, unprotected etc...I said I'll bring a penny sleeve and toploader in to work tomorrow to get that baby protected.

Thought I'd share the story as I figured you guys would be somewhat entertained by it.

[Hdpooh34]

The funny thing is if you asked 100 kids nowadays to identify Aaron Judge or Mike Trout based on their picture, many more would be able to pick Judge.

[TimBuckTwo]

You don't know what you don't know.

[seabass97166]

Did those kids forget what Trout looks like?

[no10pin]

Originally Posted by seabass97166

Did those kids forget what Trout looks like?

He was hurt for 7 weeks, that's like 5 years in kid time.

[Hdpooh34]

Originally Posted by seabass97166

Did those kids forget what Trout looks like?

Some of them never knew. Trout is the best in the game but he's not recognizable like Jeter, Jordan, Lebron. Outside of Southern California and baseball fans, if you showed s kid a picture of Mike Trout, I'm not sure he would recognize him. He doesn't appear on commercials, on TV, and he's not on the Yankees.

[texmcpherson]

This is why you don't save any for the kids

[seabass97166]

Fair enough. I thought we were talking about kids who like and play sports and buy Target packs

[Peties Army]

Originally Posted by texmcpherson

This is why you don't save any for the kids

Winner

/Thread

[7nohitter]

Great thread and story!
About 15 years ago I worked with an older guy who talked to me about the Mantles and Williams' he had. He offers to bring them in the next day. He come up to me, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a stack (no '52's) with a rubber band around them!!!
There was a 53 Mantle, 54 Bowman, 55 Bowman, 57 Topps of both, 58 of both.... insane. I'd say they were still in VG-EX shape and I gave him toploaders for them.
He knew they were 'good' cards but was amazed when I told him values.

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by texmcpherson

This is why you don't save any for the kids

couldnt agree more.

This is why retail is awesome. lots of "rare" cards, particularly parallels, go "bye bye"

[bajcards4215]

Great story, OP.

And also this (!!)

Originally Posted by 7nohitter

Great thread and story!
About 15 years ago I worked with an older guy who talked to me about the Mantles and Williams' he had. He offers to bring them in the next day. He come up to me, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a stack (no '52's) with a rubber band around them!!!
There was a 53 Mantle, 54 Bowman, 55 Bowman, 57 Topps of both, 58 of both.... insane. I'd say they were still in VG-EX shape and I gave him toploaders for them.
He knew they were 'good' cards but was amazed when I told him values.

[Halbert]

Originally Posted by seabass97166

Did those kids forget what Trout looks like?

Aaron Judge is more popular than Trout

[cnewby]

Originally Posted by Halbert

Aaron Judge is more popular than Trout

+1

[TarjetasBéisbol]

Originally Posted by Halbert

Aaron Judge is more popular than Trout...at this moment.

Fixed it for you!

[cnewby]

Originally Posted by TarjetasBéisbol

Fixed it for you!

That's what 'is' means.

[oplum29]

Originally Posted by Jimmy the Greek

So my co-worker knows that I'm heavily into cards and enjoys talking to me about it in an effort to learn about a few things and overall he just finds the things I tell him interesting. He tells me that he buys his 9 year old son cards from Target once in a while and he likes to play games with them, read the stats etc..

Today, he brought in a few cards to show me at the request of his son just because he likes them and wants to show them off to me. First card is a Topps Opening Day Aaron Judge auto. I was like WTF?!? I kind of went crazy and said you have no idea what you have here, do you? He says, "no clue". I pulled up some sold listings in ebay he was pretty blown away. He said he never heard of Aaron Judge and if someone would offer him any Mike Trout card he'd probably trade it because he knows Trout. I told him to never make a deal without talking to me first. His kid was just throwing this card around in the games he plays, unprotected etc...I said I'll bring a penny sleeve and toploader in to work tomorrow to get that baby protected.

Thought I'd share the story as I figured you guys would be somewhat entertained by it.

this is a throwback story to the days when our grandfathers and fathers bought cards for the bubblegum and used the cards for their bicycles to make that noise in them.

[HYPTZEMDSTRPLES]

Originally Posted by 7nohitter

Great thread and story!
About 15 years ago I worked with an older guy who talked to me about the Mantles and Williams' he had. He offers to bring them in the next day. He come up to me, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a stack (no '52's) with a rubber band around them!!!
There was a 53 Mantle, 54 Bowman, 55 Bowman, 57 Topps of both, 58 of both.... insane. I'd say they were still in VG-EX shape and I gave him toploaders for them.
He knew they were 'good' cards but was amazed when I told him values.

Was there a big ugly mark on the borders from the rubber bands?

[7nohitter]

Originally Posted by HYPTZEMDSTRPLES

Was there a big ugly mark on the borders from the rubber bands?

Fortunately no because he only used the band that morning to bring them in. Normally they were just laying loose in a box.

[LCM1223]

Originally Posted by texmcpherson

This is why you don't save any for the kids

Bingo

[HYPTZEMDSTRPLES]

Originally Posted by 7nohitter

Fortunately no because he only used the band that morning to bring them in. Normally they were just laying loose in a box.

Maybe he thought they were reprints?

[Big35Hurt]

Originally Posted by oplum29

this is a throwback story to the days when our grandfathers and fathers bought cards for the bubblegum and used the cards for their bicycles to make that noise in them.

Totally agree. 1978 Topps was my first year of collecting baseball (yeah I am old, lol). On the back there was a baseball game, so of course I would play it against my friends and sister. Cards would get shuffled and eventually initials written on them so that we knew who owned the card. There was no thought of the card having value or sending it off to get graded right away.

With that said, the cards I pulled as a kid don't have the value or rarity of some of these inserts. So it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it certainly reminds me of the simpler days of collecting.

[JMarchand1981]

Originally Posted by texmcpherson

This is why you don't save any for the kids

Well. Played.

Leave none for the chil'ren and this won't be an issue.

[JMarchand1981]

Originally Posted by Big35Hurt

Totally agree. 1978 Topps was my first year of collecting baseball (yeah I am old, lol). On the back there was a baseball game, so of course I would play it against my friends and sister. Cards would get shuffled and eventually initials written on them so that we knew who owned the card. There was no thought of the card having value or sending it off to get graded right away.

With that said, the cards I pulled as kids don't have the value or rarity of some of these inserts. So it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it certainly reminds me of the simpler days of collecting.

My first memory of the hobby was with my brother and cousin. We would play "closest to". You would sit down and kind of frisbee the card towards a wall from about five feet away. The closest to the wall would win the cards being thrown. If you had a leaner(one that leaned up against the wall), you won the cards being thrown AND the next card in each persons stack of cards.

1987 topps was the first cards we did this with. I believe that I remember a roger Clemens all-star card being like the best card ever at the time(I typed it with the exaggeration intentionally). Having that card in your stack was like having four aces if you were playing war(the card game).

[jmmintz]

Originally Posted by seabass97166

Did those kids forget what Trout looks like?

If you walked up to 100 adults on the street with a picture of Trout out of uniform, my guess is maybe 2 could tell you who he was. In uniform? Maybe 15.

MLB does not do a good job of marketing their stars at all, and baseball is not part of public consciousness right now.