[OldOriole]

Seeing some of these beauties reminds me of my first encounter with the Old Judge Cabinet cards. It took me a while to find out about 19th century cards after I started collecting in high school. Gradually, by the very late 1980's/early 1990's I found out about the Willow Grove show. It was perfect timing for me as I was in college and had no restraints to take a small road trip.

I distinctly remember seeing some N173's there and, afterwards, encountering a teenage boy riding his bike who happened upon a couple guys making a deal for an N173 (it was common back then to "wheel and deal" even outside the show). The kid said had had many of them at his house a few miles away and was encouraged to bring them in. The next day he returned with a whole box of them, I'll guess there were at least 50 and maybe up to 100 there (it's been about 30 years so I can't be sure how many). Not sure who ended up with them but I'm pretty sure the kid left there with cash and not the cards.

I sure wish I would have sat down and at least looked through them all. But, I can say that about alot of the material I saw glances of there. The quality and vastness of the items was just incredible. Anyway, those last couple of N173 pics just took me back in time.