‘A lifetime of achievement’: Sask. sports card collector bids farewell to prized possessions

Barry Firby smiles down at the sports cards he chose to keep for his personal collection. (CTV News)

A Saskatchewan man is bidding farewell to a lifetime of work, after spending more than 70 years collecting an impressive array of sports cards.

A large chunk of Barry Firby’s collection will be auctioned off in April through Quebec-based Classic Auctions, the world’s largest hockey cards and memorabilia auction house.

Over the decades, it never crossed Firby’s mind that he would one day auction off his prized possessions.

“It’s always been a hobby,” he said. “I never had a goal that I’m going to build this up, and it’s going to be worth a lot of money someday.”

Firby, 79, became a self-proclaimed “sports freak” at just five-years-old, when he fell in love with the Montreal Canadiens. He remembers listening to the hockey games on the radio with his parents every Saturday.

Around that time, he got his hands on his first two collectibles: black and white pictures of Habs centre Jean Beliveau, and Saskatchewan product Gordie Howe.

The hockey pictures – not cards – were part of a promotion for Beehive corn syrup. For every product purchased, customers could request photos of hockey players that would be delivered in the mail.

“When they were coming (in the mail), you just couldn’t wait,” Firby recalled.

After that, he was hooked.

He started collecting sports cards that he’d cut out from the backs of cereal boxes.

“If you cut them out really well, you had a very nice card. If you hacked them out, the card wasn’t as nice,” said Firby, who has always taken great pride in the way he handles and cares for his cards.

“I do not have a card in my possession with a crease.”

The condition and consistency of Firby’s collection stood out the most to Marc Juteau, founder and president of Classic Auctions.

Juteau visited Firby’s home last month in Kenaston, Sask., about 85 km south of Saskatoon, to see the cards first-hand.

“There were a lot of impressive things about his collection,” Juteau told CTV News, highlighting the age and quality of Firby’s vintage cards.

“Most of the value of the vintage cards nowadays, is the condition that they were preserved in. His cards, his collection was in fact preserved in a very nice condition, which is rare.”

At its peak, Firby’s collection included tens of thousands of sports cards in hockey, baseball and football.

He believes the holy grail of the items up for auction, will be his complete set of the 1951-52 Parkhurst hockey cards, which includes Gordie Howe’s rookie card.

Juteau called it a “very important set” for the auction. He estimates the sets could fetch tens of thousands of dollars, although a complete evaluation hasn’t been done yet.

A 1948 Bowman baseball set, and a 1950 Bowman NFL set will also be auctioned off. Firby says he stumbled up those “almost by accident,” while on a family vacation in Disneyland.

“People would run ads in the newspaper, and this one particular person in Los Angeles said he had two complete sets,” he said. “I met him at his home and was able to purchase both.”

An evolving collection

The internet was a “game changer” for card collectors like Firby. Suddenly, he had access to any card he wanted.

Back then, decent cards were sold for a decent price, he said. But once the grading system was introduced, values for highly graded cards skyrocketed.

“(Building a complete set) became very expensive to do, one card at a time,” he said.

Firby still browses eBay for cards, but he’s also built up a network within the collecting community.

He even made his own collector cards for the 1991 boys’ baseball team that he coached in his hometown of Kenaston, Sask.

“I’m not chasing the next great card,” he said. “I’m collecting thigs that have some sort of meaning to me.”

“It’s been a lifetime of achievement for me.”

About a dozen of Firby’s sets will be sold through Classic Auctions, leaving the collector with a modest few hundred cards that he plans to keep.

But this isn’t the end of his hobby.

Moving forward, he’s focusing on a few “superstars,” like Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr. He already has a binder dedicated to Wayne Gretzky.

Collecting is hard to give up “cold turkey,” Firby said. But giving someone else a chance to own his lifetime’s work feels like the right decision.

“I can’t say I have any major regrets,” he said. “Of course, over that many years of collecting, there were cards that I traded away that I wish I hadn’t in hindsight. But you can’t live in hindsight.”

The best of Firby’s sets will be auctioned off in April, according to Classic Auctions, while the rest of his sets will be up for grabs in the June auction.