Melissa Brodt was planning on renovating a bedroom for her son in their new home in Boise, Idaho. It appears he wasn't the first young man to call that room his own, as she'd learn when she tore down green shingles that adorned the walls.
Underneath the shingles was a pretty awesome discovery. The entire wall had been wallpapered in baseball cards from the 1970s and 1980s. They were glued to the wall, which meant the cards would have little to no value, but that wasn't the point. It's not every day that you're fixing up your home and find a little time capsule of the past quite like this one.
Melissa admitted she was expecting something unusual under the walls, because why on earth would anyone shingle a bedroom? Still, this wasn't what she had in mind.
When she stepped back and looked at the wall, Melissa was amazed. She then began to count and found there were over 1,600 cards on the wall. She shared it with a few friends.
"We're not really baseball fans so I didn't really know what I was looking at, but lots of friends said, 'Oh, I know that guy,'" she told CNN.
Among the crop weren't any cards that card collectors would be particularly torn up about. There are, however, many famous faces that are in the memories of baseball fans of that era, including Mike Schmidt, George Brett, and legendary manager Whitey Herzog.
Melissa is in the midst of undergoing a total renovation of the house, which was built in 1969. She got in touch with the previous owner's son about her discovery.
"The only way to really remove it is to cut the drywall out and take it in pieces," she said.
Chris Nelson, now 44 years old, redecorated his room a lot as a kid. When he was 12 or 13, he was obsessed with baseball and had an enormous collection of cards.
"In the late 80s I was absolutely obsessed with baseball," he said.
"We just decided we were going to wallpaper one of the walls with the excess baseball cards."
Chris remembers doing the wall with his parents over a weekend.
"We got some pretty strong adhesive and each of us got a stack of cards and a brush, and we would just paint the glue on the back and tack them up on the wall," he said.
"It was a nice little family activity."
For Chris, it was a nice surprise. The callback to a wonderful time with his parents came just a year after both died.
"It's a nice memory of a family activity that we did for a couple of days where we were all getting along and having fun together," he shared.
Chris doesn't care whether or not the wall is preserved. Melissa hopes to find a way to.
"I would love for somebody to come in and take it if they think it's useful," she said.
"We don't have any interest in keeping it because it doesn't really go with mid-century modern decor and we're not really baseball fans."
