Murry R. Nelson and
Shirley R. Steinberg

Murry R. Nelson

By the age of nine I was hooked, a user, clearly addicted and a threat to
those around me. I stole to support my habit and would barter away my
possessions to get my fix. My need was cards--initially baseball cards
but also football, Zorro, TV Westerns, Rails and Sails, Funny Valentine,
Flags of the World, Celebrities, Davy Crockett, American Presidents, and
any other card that fed my collecting instinct.

Gum cards, most notably baseball cards, were once largely the
province of preadolescent boys, predominantly ages eight to twelve.
Today, despite the extended adolescent habits of many adults (mostly
male) the "hobby" is still mostly populated by male preteens, but their
motivations and practices have become altered by a highly saturated
and more scrutinized economic market.

Card collecting appears to be one aspect of a practice that most
youngsters begin as toddlers when they might have saved pebbles, gum
wrappers, or shells. As they mature and become both more literate and
discriminating, the items collected become more "sophisticated"--
stamps, coins, cards, dolls, gems and rocks, or books by an author or of a
genre. Kids naturally categorize and acquire that which is of interest to
them and available. For more than 100 years, cards have been produced

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