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Griffin'sBarry- I don't recall any rarer stuff, but it was out of my realm then so I probably didn't notice as much. I always wanted a T3 and an Old Judge, but could never afford them. I did see them pretty regularly, but as Chris related there was a pretty heavy slant towards west coast regionals, and Kahn's if you were really exotic. The holy grail was probably something like a '58 Bell Brand Cimoli, it's still a very tough card in a tough set and being in LA very desireable at the time. Remar's got a lot of play, but interestingly they may be the only thing back then that didn't keep pace with inflation, let alone go up.
It was fun in that nothing cost as much relatively as it does now, but you also didn't see nearly as much. Along with rising prices there has been an increase in availability (probably because of rising prices) with ebay and auction houses.
I was at the '76 Anaheim show when a guy (Dennis W. if memory serves, don't want to use his last name in case I"m mistaken) set up with a whole lot of '59 Fleer #68's. They were all fake and Irv Lerner exposed it, and he (Dennis) was told to leave. This was before the Rose rookie fiasco that was after my time.
While the good old days were fun, I think things are a whole lot better now. Prices are higher, but you can find a card on ebay tonite that you would've search shows for years for back then- if you even knew it existed. The information shared on this and other boards makes for both better knowledge and better comaraderie, and all things considered I'll take today over yesterday hands down.