My first vintage card and what I paid for it!

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Posted By: Stephen Mitchell

This is a great topic - one that certainly brings back memories. My family and I used to attend a public auction held at the Blackstone Hall in North Yarmouth, Maine. Usually I watched for Indian head cents and Liberty head 5 cent pieces which were veritable staples in Maine auctions in those days. Baseball cards were always on my mind but rarely surfaced at the auctions we attended.

Then one night in 1963 or '64 a group of five big cards were offered. (T-3's they turned out to be.) Trying to hold back my excitement I immediately met the opening bid of 25 cents and for 5-10 seconds it looked like a REAL bargain would be had. Then, as the auctioneer was about to close with "sold" an adult in the back upped the ante to half a dollar, which I immediately topped with my 75-cent bid. And that is where it all ended: Five T-3's for 75 cents.

I did not know what I had because I would not own the American Card Catalog for another couple of years and my subscription to The Card Collector - the only hobby periodical in my universe - was in limbo: either it had lapsed or the paper was on hiatus as hobby publications of the era were known to do.

Final disposition of the five cards? Frank Nagy got them along with most of my childhood collection. Old Frank, however, kept my interest going and as a thank-you sent me a T-206 common along with some of his own Famous Card Series issues and his mimeographed auction list.