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Posted By: Jim VB

I've told this story before, but here goes. As a little kid we lived in NYC. (I'm talking late 1950's to mid 1960's.) My Dad worked for the A&P Grocery chain, in their Brooklyn plant in the old Bush Terminal. He was the Superintendent of Shipping and Receiving. One of his duties was to co-ordinate the trash pick up at the plant. This put him in contact with the trash hauler who also handled the Topps plant nearby. Knowing that my Dad had 2 sons, he would often drop off uncut sheets that Topps was throwing out for some reason.

My older brother and I would spend many nights at the kitchen table cutting all these sheets into cards, with scissors. I'm not talking about a sheet or two. I'm talking hundreds of sheets per year.

Of course, at the time, sheets had no value, but cards were still cards.