Conference school::sports_memorabilia

    
    
    Pittsfield, Ma. 1958-1964      Played, Traded & Motorized Bikes
    
    
    Steve

    
    New Rochelle, New York 1950-55    Flipped and shot at leaners	
    Mamaroneck, New York 1955-58      also closest to the wall. We never
                                      put them in our bike spokes, stole
                                      our parents playing cards for that.

    Mt. Vernon, New York    1950-1955   Flipped cards,bike spokes and
                                        closest to the wall (New Yorkers
                                        were big in gambling young).
    
    In those days you bought them for the gum..seriously!
    
    Jared
    

    Ayer, Mass.		1964-68		played and traded
    
    
    		Jeff

    Hampstead, N.H.     1957-1963       played and traded
    
    
    Greg

    Saugus, MA 1952-56
    Dover, NH 57-63
    				
    Not only flipped 'em (I think we called it "scaling" them) but played
    mock baseball games on the floor after setting up a playing field
    with books and boxes arranged to look like the walls of your favorite
    park.  You would hold a folded-up piece of cardboard in your left
    hand, then flip it towards home plate, where you were holding the
    batter's card in your right hand.  Unfortunately the "ball" was
    usually made out of some player you had many duplicates of.  In
    fact, it was usually (in 1956) Daryl Spencer of the Giants.
    
    In later years, as our resources grew, my brother and I had card
    "battles" on the floor, re-creating famous battles from history:
    the Alamo, Little Big Horn, Gettysburg, Charge of the Light Brigade,
    etc.  Fling two cards at each other, and the one landing face-down
    was "dead." No wonder my old cards look the way they do!  But it
    was fun, and when I look at some of the old cards, I not only see
    the players, but I remember the "roles" they played: Custer, Crockett,
    Santa Anna, etc.

    Brooklyn, NY  1954-1960         traded, flipped, closest to the wall,
    Staten Island, NY  1960-1963    tied 'em up in rubber bands and sorted
                                    them by team.
    
    
    joe

    San Jose,Calif.   1971-1976      trades, sorts, rubberband em &
                      1987.....      hide em so mom wouldn't throw em
                                     out. Pete Rose & Bench wound up
                                     in my spokes! And I still hate
                                     the Reds!

    
    Muskego, Wisconsin   1974-1980   Traded, played the normal games,
    				     created our own game similar to
    				     re .7, where we used an entire
    				     garage and laid out a playfield
    				     and used a spoon and a wad of paper
    				     and depending where the paper hit
    				     you would play an entire game of
    				     baseball-a game I'll never forget!
    
    				     NEVER put cards in my spokes!

    The kids in my neighborhood put their cards in the spokes. My son just
    got a bigger bike and can now get 4 cards in one whack. He now running
    Batman cards in the spokes.
    
    Ed

    Holbrook, Mass.   late 50's - early 60's (Nothing to show for it.
    
    My brother and I used to play a floor game similar to the ones already 
    mentioned.  We would put the players in their positions on the mock 
    ballfield, drawn on the cement floor with chalk.  The bat and ball
    were a pencil and a marble.  If the ball rolled over the card the
    batter was "OUT"!  We got pretty good a lifting the marble over
    the wooden block "green monster", for home runs.  So good that
    we finally hit the celler window, boy was Mom p*ssed.
    
    I used to put the cards in the spokes until someone showed me that
    baloons made more noise.  
    
    Sorry to say the games ended and the cards went to the neighbor's
    kids with all the other "junk".  I can still see the Williams and
    Mantle cards :^( 

    Frank

	Grew up in South Burlington Vermont, collected between, I'm
	gonna guess 1965-1970, flipped the cards, never played any
	other game with them, othe than just to trade, and of course
	we used them in our spokes, the more the better.. :-)

Rick

    I grew up in Marlboro and started collecting cards in 1980 when
    I was in the sixth grade. Me and my friends flipped cards during
    the first year that I collected. We then realized that the cards
    were worth money so we used junk cards to flip and made bets with
    our good cards or stacks of common cards until about the middle
    of 1981. After that, we just traded cards. 
    
    
    							Wally

    
    Orwell, Vermont 1969-1974		Mostly trading, sorting by team,
    					Using players I hated in the
    					spokes.   I don't remember doing
    					any "flipping" or any other
    					games like that.  Out of my
    					8th grade class of 14, I was
    					the only collector.

    Someone describe "flipping". Never heard of it on the west coast
    until this note. Maybe us rich kids were TOOOOOOOOO busy with
    school!;^)
    
    Al

    Flipping or matching as played in Brooklyn New York in the '50s:
    
    hold the card in your cupped hand. Flip your wrist and let go of the
    card.  Picture side is heads, stats side is tails.  Card lands. 
    Opponent flips his card, if he matches yours he keeps the cards.  If he
    doesn't match you get the cards.
    
    Another variation--  usually played in the school yard,( out of sight
    of Sister Mary Perpetual Obligation).
    
    Find a wall.  Hold card in the flat of your hand.  Slap hand against
    wall and let card fall.  The rest is the same as above.

    Pittsburgh, PA    1966-1973           Played both flipping and shooting
    					  (many variations), but only with
    					  my doubles; traded; never put
    					  cards in bike spokes, though

    another variation on flipping as described a couple of notes ago (that
    was called "matching") - there was also flipping for "toppsies" (I
    think that was the name).
    
    Player 1 would flip his card.  Player 2 would flip his card and try to
    let it land where it would be at least partially on top of Player 1's
    card (at least having a corner touching would do).  If Player 2 didn't
    top, Player 1 would go and try to land on either of the 2 cards on the
    ground.  The players would continue alternating until someone got a
    topper and he would then get *all* the cards on the ground for that
    game.  We used to have semi-enforced rules about how far back the
    players had to stand from the center of the pile, how far they could
    lean down, etc.  
    
    Another variation of the matching version of flipping...going for
    doubles.  As I recall, the first player would flip 2 cards.  The 2nd
    player would flip 2 and based on matching one or both of Player 1's
    cards, would win one, both, or none.
    

    Long Island NY  1969-74   Flipped for them, never traded 'em
    
    Motorized bikes and made tunnels for marbles with them.

    1976-1978   made card houses with them.
    
    1976   got yhis urge to autograpgh cards I signed about 175 with
    the players name I was only 10 years old but yuo'd be surprised
    how well they came out(god I wish I hadn't done that though)
    
    
                            Ted

    San Fernando Valley, California
    
    
    1966 to around 1971 (discovered GIRLS, forgot everything else)
    
    We traded after Little League games; I remember standing in the 
    outfield thinking of getting the game over with so I could make trades.
    We usually traded for our hero's, and for  cards of the same teams we
    played on. The first team I ever played on was the Giants, and I've
    been a Giants fan ever since (that was fourth grade!). 
    
    I attended Catholic school during these years, and some one's comment
    about Sister Mary of perpetual devotion brings back *fond* memories.
    We called her FANG, and with good reason. A meaner nun I've never met!
    Playing for cards was quite popular, and to her it was the *DEVILS*
    work. She devoted every spare minute to rooting out this threat to our
    soul, lest we burn in hell eternally for the chance to own cards.   
    She would burst  into classrooms at random and conduct desk searches
    on suspected transgressors. I still  remember a friend drawing a 3 day
    suspension when she discovered 2 shoe boxes in his bookwell. Of course
    confiscation and destruction was a foregone conclusion. 
    
    He went on in life to become a car thief and convicted felon, so maybe
    she was right.
    
    John D.
    

    Hope Sister Fang lived to see Garbage Pail Kids cards, Dinosaurs
    Attack cards, and crack being traded on the playground.  Better
    yet, I hope someone showed her a recent Becketts!

    
    All this talk of Catholic school reminds me that, although baseball
    cards (and the trading thereof) weren't frowned up upon by the
    Daughters of the Holy Ghost (Notre Dame school, Pittsfield Ma.),
    they did forbid Outer Limits cards!
    
    I would much rather they had banned Dr. Kildare cards.
    
    Steve

    I collected between 64 & 70 in Hudson, Ma and did the usual thing with 
    cards on wheel spokes and such.  My flipping days were to flip your
    card against a wall and your opponent(s) would try to get closer to the
    wall.  leaners were topps and had to be knocked down and away.  you
    city boys would relate this to pitching pennies.  this way of flipping
    really destroyed card corners!
    
    p.s i don't have a single card from those years but do have the
    memories.
    
    steve
          

    RE: - 1 
    
    	Thats how me and my friends used to flip our cards too and i'm
        from Marlboro (right next to Hudson).
    
                                           Wally

    
    	Worcester, Mass
    
    	1968-1972	No spokes. Used to keep'm in a large grocery bag.
    	1987-		Wrote my initials on the backs of most to keep
    			track of cards I won back flipping over at
    			Granpetro's house.  Only a few of the 70's & 71's
    			survived the years.