History of the Detroit Convention, 1970-1978
 

In the decade before the first official National Sports Collectors' Convention was held in 1980, the Midwest Sports Collectors Convention, commonly known as the Detroit show, functioned as a de facto National. It was the biggest show in the country in terms of number of dealers and collectors, and matters of general interest to the hobby were discussed there, often in formal or semi-formal meetings. While there had been numerous sports collecting "conventions" in 1969 and early 1970 (see my posts here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=218969 and here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=219073), they were all prearranged gatherings at somebody's house, generally with a dozen or so collectors who would talk, trade, and sometimes go to a ballgame or something. The Southern Collectors Convention in St. Petersburg, Florida in August 1970 had only 12 invited attendees, but it introduced some innovations that made it more like modern card shows: it was held in a hotel (a Howard Johnson's) and was open to the public, 15 or 20 of whom showed up after reading about it in the local newspapers. (See the second link above.)

The following month, in September 1970, the first Detroit show (which had been planned for months) was even more like a modern convention. It was organized by a six-man committee, held in a hotel (originally planned to be in a Howard Johnson's, but moved to the Detroit Hilton after Howard Johnson's gave the organizers "the run-around"), and was also open to the public, with dealers setting up tables; however, it also had celebrity guests, panel discussions, and auctions. Over 100 people attended over two days, by far the most people who had ever attended a sports collecting gathering. This quickly became the template for other conventions around the country, and the Detroit show continued to use this successful format over the next decade as it grew dramatically, to 200 dealer tables and thousands of attendees by the late 1970s.

I posted contemporary accounts of that 1970 Detroit show in this thread: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=218560, and there was a nice account of the 1970 show and a two-page spread of photos in the program for the 1971 convention, which I posted here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=219361. In another thread (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=218371), I posted an account of that 1971 Detroit convention from The Ballcard Collector, along with a followup article by Dick Reuss about the front-page article in the Wall Street Journal, appearing right before the convention, that gave the hobby more publicity than it had ever received and jump-started the growth of the Detroit show. I have also posted contemporary accounts of the Detroit shows of 1973 (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=219016), 1974 (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=217706), and 1977 (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=219018).

With all that as prelude, here are some further accounts of the early Detroit shows, from the programs for the 5th (1974) and 10th (1979) Annual Midwest Sports Collectors Conventions. The first article below, from the 1974 program, is by Lloyd Toerpe, co-organizer of the first Detroit convention and many subsequent shows, including the 1981 National in Detroit. He describes how the idea for the first Detroit show came about: Dennis Graye, a Detroit collector, went to the very first collectors' mini-convention at Jim Nowell's house in California in July 1969 and was so enthused by it that Toerpe had a similar mini-convention at his house in October 1969, after which Toerpe, Graye, and several others began planning for a more ambitious convention in 1970.

The other articles are from the 1979 program for the 10th annual convention. There's a three-page article by Bob Jaspersen, publisher of Sport Fan, with accounts of each of the first nine Detroit shows; then an account by Jim Rowe of his memories of the first Detroit show, and one by Phil Lachmeier of his experiences at the show over the years. Jaspersen's article, in particular, has lots of good details about the shows, including auction results; I assume he took most of this from his own Sport Fan articles about those shows, since his reporting on shows he went to was very detailed with lots of pictures.

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I was lucky enough to go to one of these shows. I recall it being in Plymouth, and it must have been about 1976. I must have been about 15. I recall walking into the biggest room full of cards and memorabilia that I'd ever seen. I walked up to the first table, and this guy had a shoebox full of '53 Bowman stars in mint condition. No slabs, no card savers, no top holders — just a shoebox. There were at least a dozen Mantles, and at $11 each, they were the most expensive cards in the box. If only I had a time machine ...

I wonder who had the better return on investment....

Great stuff, as usual!

I had no idea those shows got so big in the late 70's-wow!