I've posted this before, but we have lots of new members. You old-timers can skip it.
As a little kid (say 4-11 years old) we lived in NYC. My dad worked at the A&P Grocery Chain's Factory located at Bush Terminal in Brooklyn. In his job as Superintendent of Shipping & Receiving, he had responsibility for the daily trash hauler (no recycling back then!)
Another tenant on the route was the Topps Factory (also in Bush Terminal.) The driver/owner and my dad became friends (and maybe he just wanted to keep the A&P as a customer), so once he found out my dad had kids, he would stop by nearly every day with uncut sheets that Topps was tossing out. Some were really disasters, but most had just minor flaws. During the Spring/Summer, my dad would come every night with a pile of these huge (OK, they were "huge" to a kid) uncut sheets.
My older brother and I spend countless nights sitting at the kitchen table, with scissors, cutting sheets into cards. (I know. I know...)
I was born in 1955, but my brother is 9 years older, so this went on from probably 1953 or 1954 through 1963 or so. Then it just suddenly stopped, and I never knew why. About a year ago I found out from Dave Hornish that this stoppage coincided with Topps moving their facility from Brooklyn to Duryea, PA.
Oh to have those sheets back!
So I collected as far back as 1959 or 1960, but took some time off. This time around, since about 1985 or so.
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