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Fred's reminiscences about his trade with Bill Haber reminded me of the many swaps I did with Bill, who used to visit me in Boston each time he visited his in-laws in Brookline, MA. Bill and I shared an interest in biographical research and he was particularly focused on acquiring cards of obscure major leaguers, especially those he was trying to find death records on. For that reason, his favorite sets were E107, V355, T209-2 and Colgan's Chips.
However, the most memorable trade I made back when the modern hobby was young (1970s) was with Frank Nagy. I had purchased a batch of tobacco cards (not an unusual occurrence in those days) that included some cards I couldn't identify. I send a photocopy to Nagy, who was always very helpful to younger collectors, and he identified them as D381s (Ferguson Bakery). He also said he'd like to trade me for them since he knew a collector who'd trade well for them. His offer was overwhelming in terms of my wants at the time, so I sent between 70 and 80 D381s to Michigan and received a 1954 Bowman Ted Williams, T206 St. Louis variations of Demmitt and O'Hara plus an entire set of R330 Double Play (75 cards, including Williams and Joe DiMaggio), all cards that are still in my collection.
In an interesting twist, I also have most of those D381s. The ones Nagy didn't trade wound up in his monthly auction and I won a lot of them for no more than $10 apiece. The D381s he swapped returned to the fold years later when the collector Nagy traded with, Harry Kenworthy, died and I purchased them from Bill Mastro and/or Robert Lifson.
By the way, I'm still working on the set and need two to complete, Fred Toney and Hugh Jennings, in case any of you can help.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Bo.b Rich.@rd$son