[ocjack]

I spent the first half of my childhood in Englewood, New Jersey. A small, everyone-knows-everyone kind of town across the bridge from New York. My earliest memories of buying cards (way before the advent of card shops) was going to Jake's - a combination soda fountain (where I aspired to be a soda jerk when I got older), liquor store, tobacconist, toy store and comic book heaven. Jake would put out the newest box of cards and my friends and I would devour them 4-5 packs at a time. Jake's carried them all; baseball, football, zorro, a new baseball entry that contained a marble, tv westerns, etc.

Then in 1960 we moved to Los Angeles. Still buying cards at local drug stores, liquor stores, wherever I could find them. Still no card shops, but many visits to Goodwin Goldfaden's Adco Sports Book Exchange. The store literally burst at the seams with books, magazines, cards and anything a young boy could want. Goodie once offered me a large box that he said contained 1957 Topps and would probably make 4 or 5 complete sets. I forget the price, but it was a bit too much for a 16-year-old so I passed. (Damnnnn!)

Then came the card shops. An era had passed.