Where'd you buy those packs as a kid?

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Posted By: Dave

My favorite store was Beckers on Main Street in Irvington, NY. Went by there recently and nothing was left but the awning. I still remember sitting out front flipping cards ('71). I'd lose my four packs and head home for dinner. Great memories.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Shop EZ convienence store a few blocks from my home. Scrounge up as much change as I could and head down to buy not just baseball cards but Star Wars cards also. A few years later I think all my money went into the Donkey Kong machine at the Kerr McGee gas station.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

As a kid I'd get up early on Saturday mornings, and bicycle along neighborhood streets and along a road, looking for soft drink bottles. This is before the days of plastic bottles or even aluminum cans. Coke bottles would fetch a 4 cent deposit, RC products 3 cents. If I could find 6 or 8 bottles, then I could bicycle over to a small family owned grocery, cash in the bottles, and buy Topps wax packages at 5 cents each. On a good day I'd get 7 or 8 packs. I can still smell the produce in that store, I can still see dirty, slightly muddy bottles in my bicycle basket. And I need a sip of water right now, I can still taste that gum.

And I was so far back in time, with the wind hitting my cheaks as I bicycle along, the morning dew dripping from the bottles as I peddle along, that I forgot to mention the store name, Hammonds Cee Bee Grocery Store, North Main Street, Franklin KY. This would have been in 1964. The building is still there, with the memories, but the business is long gone.

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Posted By: fkw

1977 Ride my BMX bike down to the local 7-11 or Walgreens with a handful of coinage from the fountain around the corner from my house. I can remember when Walgreens had the cheapest Baseball packs for 15 cents. Id also find my Wackypacks there too.

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Posted By: barry arnold

Frank Wakefield,
many thanks for bringing back memories.
i,too,traveled the roads on my bike seeking out the glass bottles so i could get the deposits to buy those nickle packs of cards. it's amazing to think that those 5 penny packs contained the musials,mantles,etc. that are worth so much today. Along with
the cards, i'd usually get one of those Brownie drinks--pretty
much chocolate water,but elixir back then--and between gulps take
one of the dups and stick it in the front part of my baseball cap
to make sure it would stand up tall.
Thanks again, Judge.
all the best.
barry

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Posted By: John S

Struthers Newstand in Struthers, OH. Dad would take me when he was buying his can of Copenhagen and I would usually get a pack of cards. When I was a little older I would go to a place called Wittenauer's Pharmacy. I think the packs were 15 or 20 cents when I started buying (1977). I remeber being frustarted at the annual price hikes. Once I reached high school they were at 50 cents a pack for Topps Baseball and Football.

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

My grandfather worked in Brooklyn, right near the old Topps
Factory.

Each Saturday when he came to visit the family at our new
home on Long Island's North Shore, he would bring along
an unopened box of Topps Baseball Cards.

This tradition lasted for seven years between 1958 and 1964.

The most exciting part of the experience was when a new series
came out.

The biggest disappointment was, to despite receiving a total of
7 boxes of 1958 Topps, not a single regular Mickey Mantle card
was to be found...albeit 10 examples of the Manle All Star card
decorated our collection.

The first card in our collection was the first card from the first
pack ...which was Baltimore outfielder Jackie Brandt.

Should have listened to my grandmother's advice some 47 years ago...who said

Bruce...why don't you leave one box unopened (this was 1959)...
someday it might be worth a lot of money.

Note: It cost by grandfather $1.20 per box (24 packs @ 5 cents each)
from the Topps Factory.


Best,

Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: Dave Williams

We lived way out in the country, miles from any store, but in the summer we'd talk mom into letting us go to the Schierer Dairy Store, and that's where I bought my first packs in 1971. My sister brought it home to me, and I opened it and liked the Steve Carlton card in there, and promptly became a Cardinal fan for life. Of course I took scissors to it so it would fit in my wallet in the picture section. I wish I had that card back, I've no idea what happened to it.

I also would occasionally get to go to a friends house in a subdivision, and we'd walk all through that subdivision picking up soda bottles (5 cents) and if you were real lucky, a milk bottle (20 cents). A pack was 25 cents so with any luck my friend and I could each get a pack or 2 at the grocery store.

In 1975, a clerk let me walk out of the store with about 20 opened packs of Topps, the glue must have come undone, and the cards were just laying in the box, it was the best day of my young life at that time.

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Posted By: T E

and Austin Street. Drug Store on the corner. Started buying packs in 1964. Went nuts with cards fron 1965 until 1968. I was not user friendly to my cards. They were flipped, cut up for games or tossed on the floor. My mother would clean my room when I was sent off to sleep-away camp during the summer by throwing out my cards.

In 1965, I was wiped out in a game of colors- the game where you would take your stack of cards and put it on the table in succession, until someone put down a card whose color matched the proceeding card. After getting wiped out, I learned there was a trick to the game-every time you win, you separate the winning card from the deck, so that you would not have two cards in succession with the same color. From then on, I was the one who wiped out the other kids. I never divulged my secret, until now.

In 1968, I was 13, my hair was growing real long, and baseball cards no longer seemed so cool, especially when talking to girls. By 1970, I no longer made those trips to the drug store for cards. I did, of course, steal a condom from another drug store, Rexall, down Austin Street. I worked there briefly. The condom was wishful thinking on my part.

I was not quite through with cards though. In about 1973, I walked into Little Nemo's, a nostalgia-type store, and bought a shoebox of t206s for $15. Ah yes, those were the days.

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Posted By: Pcelli60

Several Queens (Corona/Flushing) candy stores and one little drug store..Springtime and topps wax packs- those feelings you can NEVER get back.......

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Posted By: Mark Evans

I grew up in Norfolk, Va. I collected seriously for only one year - 1961 - and bought most of my cards at People's Drug Store. Like others, I relied on deposits from discarded soda bottles and change I could cajole from my dad, who thought I was wasting money. I figure the entire set cost me less than $10. Thankfully, my mom never tossed it out. It resides in a loose-leaf binder in Ex-Mt and brings back wonderful memories. Mark

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Posted By: rob

Campwoods sweet shop, next to Liptons suPermarket...Ossining, NY.

hey dave, shoot me an e-mail if you get a chance...

rob

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Posted By: david poses

another westchester boy on the board. i got my packs at the rye smoke shop. once my brother and i convinced my mom to buy us a whole box of topps wax packs. we got home and tore open the packs and stuffed the gum in our mouths. i think my brother had 10 pieces in his mouth by the time we saw our first reggie jackson card. nice.

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Posted By: Anonymous

When visiting our cousins in Dolton, IL, I bought some at a small store near there named Panozzo's (the family of Chuck Panozzo from Styx owned it), using money given to me by my grandmother.

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

I started buying 1975 Topps cello packs at the 7/11 on the way to my Dad's office. I used to go to work with him on Saturday and do odd job's around the office and the sales floor. Depending on how long I worked and how well I performed, I was rewarded with 3-5 packs of those beautiful celophane beauties. I remember the day I found a 1976 Thurman Munson on top, who at the time was my favorite player. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.

Be well Brian

PS In 1985 I drove to every Ben Franklin in the state to go through there rack packs for Clemens and Gooden rookies.


Hi TREX,
Were you buying 48 -49 Leaf at the local Rexall????

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Posted By: barrysloate

I vividly remember I bought my first pack as a six-year-old in August, 1958, and that there was a Ted Williams All-Star in the pack. I didn't know what that meant, but saw that the card was different from the others and had all those pretty stars on it. My biggest pack buying year was 1960 when I was a second grader. I would go regularly during lunch with a quarter to buy five packs around the corner on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst, on the south shore of Long Island where I grew up. The candy store is long gone and I do not remember the name. There was a sporting goods store down the road that my dad took me too, Weiss's Stationery, and on a recent trip to my old neighborhood, discovered it was still in business! Imagine that, 45 years later.

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Posted By: T E

Those were the days...

Seems to be a heavy NY state influence here- Ascan Ave was in Forest Hills, NY.

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Posted By: Kenneth A. Cohen

My first recollection is of buying 1958 cards at the checkout counter of Peoples Drug Store, long since subsumed into the CVS chain. In relation to my house, it was located pretty much at the outer limits of where a 7 year old could ride his bike without adult supervision, about a mile or so away. (Today a 7 year old couldn't go 20 feet.) Growing up in Alexandria VA I was an avid Senators fan. The following year I can remember sifting through the top and bottom cards of a bunch of 1959 Topps clear cellophane 10-card packs and finding a Harmon Killebrew on top of one of them. I snapped that sucker right up.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I think that is because New Yorkers are baseball card hogs.

I base this, in part, on a story told me by a collector who went to NY as a kid. I think it was early 1953 (season, not year), but it might have been late in 52. As I recall the tale, he rode with his Dad in a car from Kentucky up to NY or NJ, very near NYC. Stayed with an uncle. One day they drove into the city to see the Yankees. Outside the stadium, at a news stand, the storyteller bought a pack of 1952 Topps cards. When he opened it there were all these players he'd not seen before. Back in Lexington, KY, they had 1952 Topps cards, but none of the last series. None of that final series ever made it back to Lexington store shelves. And here in his hand was a pack full of high number cards. He went back to the stand and bought a box. And once back home, he swapped some of that box away with his card collecting buddies, and was able to complete the 52 Topps set.

So even back in 1952, New Yorkers were hogging cards, holding out the series with Mantle. Making the rest of us come to them, and submit to their terms... You rascals!!!

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Posted By: Bob Pomilla

Mostly in a little candy store on Bryant Ave., just off the Cross Bronx Expressway and a couple of candy stores on 174th st. Still have the memories of hitting my father up for a quarter when he'd arrive from work and then scooting around the corner for five packs of Topps. This was the late 50's-early 60's. After all these years, the remembered thrill of opening a pack still makes me smile.

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Posted By: Bill Stone

In 1955 I lived in Burbank, California --our new house was in a former avacado orchard and my brother and I would go and " harvest" the crop, sell the avacados to the neighbors and then take our money down to a little neighborhood grocery store where I would buy as many packs of Topps as I could. My brother would usually buy a huge dill pickle out of a jar on the counter and I would get a Hires rootbeer. We would come home and I would sit outside and open each pack , sorting the players into their teams --hoping to get a Frank Sullivan ( a Burbank boy) or in my case always hoping for a Dale Long , the hero of the Hollywood Stars ( remember this was before the Dodgers came west) but inevitably I would always seem to get one Wayne Terwilliger and one "Spook" Jacobs in every pack!! When the avacados were not a source of income we would go up to the new construction taking place all around our neighborhood and pick up bottles. On Saturdays we would go around the neighborhood and pick up newspapers and store them in a friend's garage and once a month his dad would take us to a recycling plant where we sold the papers --it was a nice little set of businesses that always seemed to give us plenty of money to buy cards .

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Posted By: jackgoodman

Jake's Liquor Store, Palisade Avenue, Englewood, New Jersey. The name wasn't entirely accurate because they were primarily a soda fountain, news stand, and carried toys (I remember Hartlands behind the glass case). But I guess they sold liquor and tobacco and thought that was a better draw for customers (and a rumor I heard later on was that Jake was also the town bookie - but who knows?)

Bought all of the late '50s baseball, football and non-sport cards of the decade from him (and most still reside in my collection). Would stand outside after buying my packs for the day and toss the wrappers (stupid,stupid,stupid) and then trade with my friend for the ones I needed to complete the checklist.

Great question.

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Posted By: Matt E.

1971 I was 10 years and I used to ride my red Schwinn with fat tires and double wire baskets on the back loaded with the larger pop bottles to a place we called THE DELL in Tiffin, Ohio. I would buy 3-4 packs of Topps and a few Marathon Bars. Then literally take one to two steps outside the door and open the packs and sit and eat the candy bars. I do remember the candy bar had a ruler on the back for some reason.

Looking back it is pretty amazing none of us got killed since we were traveling a pretty busy State Route to get there. Handled, wrinkled and creased were how my cards made it home, just like the ones I buy today.

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Posted By: Mike Ernst

Small town western Nebraska (Scottsbluff) corner grocery store from 1955-1959, then at 16th and Van Dorn in Lincoln from 59 through 61, when I became too sophisticated to continue with a boy's hobby. (I was then 14)
One thing I remember from 1955---buying a nickel pack (7 cards) and in the back of 1955's was a 1954 card!! Really bummed me out! Still have it--the green background 54 of Yogi Berra.
How they got a 54 card in a 55 pack--who knows?
The other thing I remember--scrounging to be able to afford a nickel pack at least once a week--and Bobby Forrest, who lived a block away, and whose dad was the Cadillac dealer, would buy two boxes with the money his parents gave him. I know that I have treasured mine more than he did his, mostly because they were hard to come by.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

We had four stores to choose from........corner pharmacy and soda fountain store, Klinsky's Candy
Store, Brown's Candy store on our trek to school, and Jack's (hole-in-the-wall) general store.

And, if we were lucky, on occasion we would run into Phil Rizzuto, who lived two blocks away in our
neighborhood. The very 1st BB cards I acquired were the Homogenized Bond Bread in late 1947.

In 1948, LEAF Gum Boxing and Pirate's cards. Boxing was very, very popular during the 1940's. Only
got a few 1948 Bowmans (BB & FB).......In early 1949, the colorful LEAF Gum BB cards were available.
I could talk about these cards all day, we really loved them with Babe Ruth, Wagner, Joe DiMaggio,
Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson, etc., etc. But, if you are interested in the full story on
this set, I will refer you guys to my article in the current OLD CARDBOARD magazine.

By late Spring of '49 the 1949 Bowmans were available and at 1st we didn't know if we liked them.
The pix were clearer than the Leafs; however, we couldn't flip or scale them like we did with the
larger size Leafs. But, the Bowman gum tasted better and we could blow bigger bubbles with it.

And, by the end of summer we had mixed emotions...."darn, we have to go back to school"....but,
there was "much joy in Mudville", as the last Series of 1949 BB cards were available in the Fall......
Richie Ashburn....Edwin "Duke" Snider....Leroy "Satchell" Paige....and 105 more cards....WOW !

Every year from Spring to Fall we would anticipate the thrill of what the next Series of Bubble Gum
cards would offer......Finally, in the Fall of 1952 I opened up a 5 cent pack of Topps Hi# cards and
I was staring at Sam Chapman, Babe Herman, Hal Jeffcoat, George Spencer, and MICKEY MANTLE....WOW !

I remember this moment as if it was just yesterday......then I went onto to "staring" at Girls and Cars.....
and, that ended my BaseBall card collecting days as a kid.........until 1977.

T-Rex TED

BRIAN W.......It's 1949 LEAF BB......not 1948-49 (we are not talking about a BasketBall or Hockey set).

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Hey Mike, it's cool to see another Lincolnite here amongst all the New Yawkers... the only thing at the Van Dorn location you talk about now is a Mexican restaurant, a hair salon, a pet store and a fire station.

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Posted By: CLAUDE

Well, I didn't buy BB packs as a kid growing up in Bellevue,Nebraska but, instead, bought TONS of Wacky Packages at the locak Hinky Dinky supermarket in the mid '70's instead. My friends all did the BB cards but I stuck to my guns and literally 'stuck' the Wacky Pack stickers all over my room (dresser, head board, closet wall!). Wish I had done the baseball too!!! This thread IS really cool and carries us all back to a simpler time...cool to go back there even for a couple minutes!!!

(I have posted this photo here before and most love it...'52 Topps anyone?!)

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Posted By: Todd Schultz

1966, Mankato, Minnesota, at the Ben Franklin dime store. It was a two-block bike ride down Black Eagle Drive, then over about 200 yards to the Tempo mall, which had a Tempo department store, the Ben Franklin-shared with Rexall Drug, Red Owl grocery store, a hardware store, Dan's Barber shop (still there), Fat's Liquors and a 24 Hour Martinizing place. As a Twins fan, I was thrilled to pull a Sandy Valdespino in my first pack.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Claude- that may be the best baseball card photo I have ever seen. Can you share what you know about it. Is it actually in color from 1952, or has it been colorized? And look at those uncut sheets hanging in the window- not to mention a million unopened packs. Clearly all the cards are 1st series.

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Posted By: CLAUDE

No, I posted a copy of the original here a while back that was black & white....someone here on the boards photo-shopped it and added color!! Looks really nice in color! I had just a copy of the photo...the original sold in an auction for a good sum I believe last year sometime. Someone even commented on the sheets and identified a few of the players in the earlier post of the photo.

-Claude

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Posted By: Scot Reader

The Foothill Little League snack bar in Upland, California. We got a clear plastic token after each game that we could redeem at the snack bar. Some kids used their tokens for "donuts" which were really deep-fried Pillsbury biscuits doused in cinnamon and sugar (admittedly, they were pretty tasty). But a token could also be exchanged for a 1977 Topps baseball wax pack. I thought it was especially cool to find cards of Mariners and Blue Jays in their inaugural season. My greatest prize at the time was the colorful card of "The Bird" Mark Fidrych which sported on front both the red A.L. All-Star banner and the Topps Rookie All-Star trophy.

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Posted By: Peter Thomas

on route 9 Boston/Worcester Pike - 1 block from east Natick elementary and 1 block from home with lots of pop bottles to be found along the way to get 49 Leafs.

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Ted,
I knew you'd take the bait on th "48-49" Leaf reference, as I read your wonderful article on the subject. I'm sorry I sold all of my short prints a few years ago, but my Tobacco card addiction got the best of me.

Be well Brian

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Posted By: davidcycleback

There was a dime store at the neighborhood mall. They had baseball, basketball, hockey and football packs. I would also buy Bazooka gum the size of a slab of concrete. I could chew the entire piece, but my mouth would be sore.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

I figured you were trying to "bust my chops".....so, I just had to bust yours, just in case.

We think the same, guy......I did sell off (to a friend) a dozen of my 1949 LEAF "short-prints" 10
years ago. And, it took me that long to finally recover them. And, at a cost that was 10x greater
than what I paid for them in the 1980's. Anyhow, the set is complete again, for the 2nd time.

T-Rex TED

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Ted,
You could have at least saved me 1 Leaf pack to open for Christmas. I would have happily sent you a whole box of 75 or 76 cello's for it....

Be well Brian


PS I may have to treat myself to a nice 76 cello to open Christmas morning.




Claude, that's the coolest picture of a Woolworth's store I've ever seen. Our local store had Wax and a few racks, but that display is awesome.

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Posted By: Gary Nuchereno

Elek's, Gartley's,Mehltotters and Mcgee's corner stores were
all in riding range of my blue bycycle with streamers hanging
from my handlebars. I would shovel snow in the neighborhood
and hoard my money until the baseball cards showed up at any of these four stores in Buffalo New York. My mother would often send me to the store for cigarettes and yes they never had a problem selling them to a ten year old. These store
owners knew everyone in the community. I remember saying
gottem,gottem,needum,needum,gottem as we went through each pack and I remember getting a 1958 Mantle with the orange background and my heart skipped a beat. In 1961 my plan for
saving money for baseball cards was ruined when lo and behold
what's this BASKETBALL CARDS.I just loved Bob Cousy. I am not exaggerating, I had 50 complete sets of Fleer 1961 Basketball which I sold for a few dollars each back in the early 70's. Great thread
great memories.

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Posted By: ockday

For me,in the early 60's, it was 2 stores on Kings Highway in Brooklyn..Joe's Variety Store and Nat's luncheonette.
Joe's was my favorite because he used to have a big bin where he dumped hundreds of cello packs and I used to sort through them looking for any Yankees showing, and Mantle in particular. I would flip cards with my friends but always tried to keep the Mantles for myself. I accumulated a real nice stash of Mantles but we moved to a new home in 1968 and the cards vanished during the move.
Definitely great memories!

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Posted By: Steve

I have been lurking for about 6 months but loved this topic and found it interesting how many different people mentioned 1977 as the first year they bought cards.

I was 9 years old and my mother would give me 2 dollars on Saturday if I had finished my chores that week, which if I remember correctly would buy 7-8 packs of Topps. I would ride down to the corner store on the Naval Base, race home and then open them with Mom. I would then sort them by team and use rubber bands to hold the teams together. I wish I knew about top loaders back then.

As Scot mentioned I also loved the All Star cards - I was a big fan of the "Big Red Machine" and my favorite card was the Johnny Bench All Star card as well as the aforementioned Mark "The Bird" Fidrych card.

Any thoughts as to why 1977 has come up so many times in this thread?

Maybe it is just because it was 30 years ago and we are all middle aged.

Thanks for listening.

Steve

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Posted By: Ray Piskadlo

Brothers Bakery in Kearny, NJ. And when I was visiting family in the Poconos, the ShurSave supermarket at the intersection of 940 and 115 in Blakeslee, PA (5 min north of Pocono Raceway).

My big collecting year was 1987... those wood grain borders... wow!

The big cards were McGwire, Canseco, Bo Jackson, and Will Clark.

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Posted By: Bob

My first pack was a 1958 Topps purchased at Wyberg's Drug Store on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was astounded when a friend of mine showed me his collection and there were some cards I had never seen before, turns out they were the 1957 series which looked soooo different from the blah 1958 series.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Bob- I always liked the 1958's, because like you they were the first cards I bought. I can actually remember a day in kindergarten when an older kid showed me his cards and I'm pretty sure they were from 1957, but the memory gets foggy at some point.

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Posted By: Judson Hamlin

No, I've never had Campari, but I did read the US Supreme Court case involving Falwell and Flynt.

Anyway, my first packs would have been from Welsh Farms on Riva Avenue, East Brunswick, Woolworth's in North Brunswick and or McCrory's at the lovely Brunswick Square Mall, all in the 1975-77 years and all in beautiful Middlesex County, NJ.
And the Two Guys, also in EB


edited when I remembered Two Guys- good pretzels, too

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Posted By: Rich Klein

In Clifton New Jersey in the basement 3rd series 1968

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

The Lin-den in Linden, New Jersey; O'Johnnies in Clark, New Jersey.

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Posted By: howard

A grimy no-name candy store somewhere around 21st st on 9th ave. in Manhattan. The owner was a grizzly old guy who I recall was pretty nice. I used to go in and buy a jaw breaker and with whatever money I had left over I would buy baseball cards or Wacky Packages. I bought the entire '72 Topps set there but they were eventually tossed by mom.

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Posted By: martindl

Great topic.

1965. We lived on a large hill, about half way up, so had two stores to chose from - the top shops or the bottom shops. Both were newsagents and sold papers , sweets (candy) and the like. My Dad got paid from the factory on a Thursday, so at dinner he'd hand over the whole thing to my Mom who would empty it onto the table. She'd put money aside for the bills, give my Dad a few notes and my sister and I got our pocket money - I was older so i'd get 6 pennies (half a shilling) and she'd get two.

First thing Saturday morning i'd ride up to the top shops to see what wonders they had for me that week. I usually bought a comic and if it was football (soccer) season would buy packs of cards. One time they had American cards - you had a choice of Civil War Bank Notes or Baseball cards each at a penny a pack. I only bought a couple of the Baseball card packs because I was sure that the Civil War notes were real money and one day I'd come to America and spend them. The baseball cards were 1963 Topps. I saved the Clemente cause I thought it was the handsomest card i'd ever seen.

Well, I made it to America but the notes and the Clemente were long gone at that point.

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Posted By: bobw

We lived on East 15th Street and Avenue U in Brooklyn NY and we had 2 candy stores to buy packs from. One was next to the subway station and another one was one block over by East 14th St. One day, the guy under the subway charged us 2 cents tax for each pack and we never went back to him again. The other store got all our business from then on. I remember in 1970 buying tons of Topps first series and never getting a Dick Selma card to finish the series. I never finished the series until I went to a mid 1970's Paul Gallagher card show in a church by Lincoln Center and finally buying one.

I am the one who colored in the 1952 Topps Woolworth photo from the Lelands auction. I used Photoshop to remove the creases and clean up the photo and then add color. Here is the other photo I did of the 1953 packs.

[IMG][/IMG]

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Posted By: Billy Stair

I spent my entire weekly allowance at the Sterling store on the square in the small town I grew up in. I still remeber 1971-1975 and buying those packs and fortunately I still have many of the cards!!!

Bill

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Posted By: Joe Jones

I bought my 1989 topps packs at a local baseball card store at 8 years old in south east Michigan. Too bad that store did not have any prewar material .