Another LAX first timer
Like Jeff1970Red and Midmo my first show was also at a hotel near LAX. Later I wondered if I had attended the first National, but the year I went was 1981, not 1980, so I guess it was just a local card show (evidently a popular one).
Anyhow, after seeing an ad in the newspaper, and my folks needing to go down that way from the San Fernando Valley, my vintage fate struck. I think I brought all of perhaps $12 to $15 (on a 50 cent per week allowance, a dollar if I had mowed the yard that week, so practically a fortune) to the show. The first dealer inside the door on the right, the first card show table I had ever seen, had a few vintage cards for sale, and I couldn't pass them up. I instantly spent most of my wad ($11.00, an amount I will never forget) for the following cards:
T206 Christy Mathewson black cap
T206 Walter Johnson pitching
E98 Cy Young
T205 Roger Bresnahan mouth closed
T205 Zach Wheat - Broadleaf
They were all in Fair to F-G condition, and you could say they eventually and inevitably made me a Net54 member. They have definitely helped foster a love of Pre-War cards, and a fondness for lower condition cards. It was still way too early for people to pay any attention to a rare back llike the one on the Wheat. Still have them too. If I were ever to sell all my cards I would still keep the Matty...that card fired up my collecting imagination, and still does. No scans, maybe some day.
Brian
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