Jules Xavier
Shilo Stag

During my move to Manitoba in 2012, I discovered a large toy box my father built for me back in the late 1960s holds a small fortune. And not a cache of forgotten dollar bills or gold jewelry.
I realized this after attending a recent sports card show. I was a neophyte to this event compared to the diehard collectors I bumped into at various tables.
This was confirmed also after visiting a few card/comic book stores during my travels. I observed cards I own in the display cases with hefty prices attached.
Moreover, card collecting is not the exclusive domain of males. I observed the opposite sex with a key eye for a bargain. They know their stuff, as did the majority of the card collectors in search of an elusive Willie Mays rookie card or a CFL card featuring Montreal Alouette flanker Terry Evanshen, which I already own.
These cards have been in my possession for more than five decades as well as dust-covered cards featuring Montreal Canadien Hall of Famer Yvan Cournoyer — my favourite NHL player as a kid — and former Montreal Expo pitcher Bill Stoneman or outfielder Rusty Staub.
My prized collection also includes a series of cards from 1968, which you would have found under the lid of York Peanut Butter.
I also have Post cereals hockey marbles which came out in the early 70s while I was in Grade 5 in Comox, British Columbia. I traded away my Toronto Maple Leaf blue marbles and kept the red Canadiens. I’m only missing my goalie Gump Worsley marble, swiped one day out on the playground where we played marbles.
How many kids today can say they play marbles at recess?
Collectors, I learned, will spend money on single cards or entire sets, which are sealed in protective plastic. No bicycle spokes for these cards — those aged 50 and older reading this column will know what I mean.
And remember the ESSO hockey collection from the early 70s … when your dad filled the car he was given a six-pack, which you could put in the book ESSO sold to go with these thumb-sized cards.
In the card business one person’s memories are another’s investment. Collectors are quick to cash in on sports cards and other sports collectibles. In fact, I was told by some of the more established traders that owning hockey, football or other sports cards is a lucrative business.
The card-trading business exploded in the early 90s. Cards are now an investment — not to be wasted on the playground at nearby O’Kelly School by flipping them in a game I once played: match or dodge.
The card-collecting craze sent a lot of people rummaging through their bedroom closets looking for that old collection, with the hope mom had not thrown out while cleaning.
Cards once thought of as worthless — except for the 10 cents you paid for a set of eight and some stale gum — could now rake in a fortune for the owner.
If a card is in “mint” condition you can expect the price to go up. Rookie cards are generally a hot ticket item — you’re banking on the players’ potential. Remember Wayne Gretzky’s card? Own a Sidney Crosby card? How today’s stars like Connor McDavid?
When I perused the many cards made available for sale, my dusty collection paled in comparison. But the value of my cards is more because they are old and rare.
Alas, my collection is not what it once was thanks to my late mother, who decided to cards were better off in the garbage container when we moved from CFB Comox to CFB Kingston when I was going into sixth grade. I am not the only one out there who is crying over lost memories, and perhaps, a small fortune.
I do have a few keepsakes which bring back memories of my youth — remember Stan Mikita of the Chicago Blackhawks or Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings? I have their original cards and have been offered a few bucks, but I refuse to part with them.
Money can’t always buy memories.

My toy box is home to my collection of Post cereal marbles — all Montreal Canadiens, but for goalie Gump Worsley — and Shirriff hockey coins. Plus I have hockey and baseball cards, including the hockey cards now being sold thru Tim Hortons. Photos Jules Xavier/Shilo Stag