Wholesale Card Company

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Posted By: Richard Masson

Brian's post about the 70s show and the thread about when one started collecting got me to thinking. My first purchase of "old" cards was from Wholesale Card Company. I think they were located back east (NY?) and the principal was Bruce Yeko(?).
In all the various musings on this board over the past year or two, I have never heard anyone mention his name. Was he a lightweight? Was his operation short lived? Does anyone know who he was/is? He used to advertise in the Sporting News, which I think is where we first discovered his catalog.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

His real passion was producing bootleg records/tapes of failed broadway musicals. He had some absolutely amazing material on that stuff.

He was also a very major dealer and had cards everywhere in his house -- INCLUDING his oven

Rich

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Posted By: DD

The last purchase I made from Bruce was in the early 80's. 1960's prices for 64-65 Hockey and Brady Bunch cards. He brought them to a show at the Armory in New York City, after I pestered him on the phone about the 3 month delay. Seems he would wait for 100 orders to come in so he could get bulk postage rate.

Rumor was the stuff you could pick up off his basement floor back in the day was better than the stock most dealers had.

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Posted By: Richard Masson

Great anectdotes. Did he just fade away? I wonder what happened to his inventory?

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Posted By: Mark Macrae

Richard....Your post prompted me to dig into the archive....Yeko / Wholesale Cards was definitely a MAJOR player in the late 60's-mid 70's. The beginning inventory was assembled in the 50's by Gordon B. Taylor. In the early 60's Taylor sold out to M.A. Kohler (No relation to David). In late '62 Kohler sold out to Marshall Oreck, who added the stock to his inventory. Oreck sold the remaining inventory to Yeko in early '66. When Yeko merged this inventory with his, he was likely the largest dealer at the time (With Card Collectors Company in New York just barely behind)... I last saw him set up at the '88 National in Atlantic City & bought some unopened product from him (early 60's) and a thousand count lot of Washington Nationals.... I've just typed up an 7-figure order for him, based on his 1966 prices. My stock of '64 Standups is running low, so I ordered 1000 sets at $3 each........... Oh, & Leon, this was done without a breath, at the same time I was on the phone with a client discussing a College Football ticket stub collection he has for sale.

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Posted By: Richard Masson

I was at the '88 National (finished my 53 Topps set!)and probably bought something from him without realizing who he was.

Where did his inventory end up?