If I had to pick one name, it would be Angelo Savelli.
I collected all kinds of cards as a kid in London, Ontario from 1959 to 1965. They all went by the wayside when I went off to a boarding school run by Franciscan fathers in Kennebunkport, Maine for grade nine. But the memory of the cards I'd once had never left me. I’d often think back to my collecting days and wish I still had my CFL and other cards even when I was in my late teens but I thought that there was no way I could ever reassemble what I’d had as a kid. I thought they were all lost forever and could only live on in my dreams. Then came an article in the
Canadian Magazine supplement to the
Saturday London Free Press in 1969 or so. It featured Angelo Savelli of Hamilton, who was described as the world’s biggest card collector with every card ever produced. (Much exaggerated of course. He could have told the reporter that he had every Topps Sports card ever issued.) Angelo had evidently started buying sports cards in 1948 and never stopped. The article filled me with an incredible longing for the cards I’d once had, cards that I thought were now lost in the mists of time. Nostalgia/curiousity prompted me to buy a few packs of the 1971 CFL, 1971-72 NHL and 1972 CFL cards over the next couple of years or so. (I actually felt a bit sheepish and embarrassed buying little kids’ cards at the time!)
Flash forward a few years to 1979. I had finished university and had been working in Toronto for a couple of years. I'd discovered that the big city had four comic shops, two of which carried old gum cards as well. I was a super confident young man by then and didn't give a tinker's damn what anybody else thought of me so I set out to reacquire the treasures of my formative years.
Dedicated card shows didn’t make an appearance in Toronto (and perhaps anywhere in Canada) until about 1986 and they were then really low budget affairs held in less than first class halls/meeting rooms. It was at one of these card shows that I then met Angelo Savelli where he had set up to sell cards. Here he is with his son at a Scarborough(eastern Toronto) card show circa 1986:
We quickly became friends and a couple of weeks later I visited him at his home in Hamilton where I bought a set of the first series of the 1969 Topps Football cards from him. (This was back when I thought I could have every card Topps had ever issued!)
Just a few years thereafter in the late 1980's newspapers and other media sources started running stories about the prices fetched by the T206 Honus Wagner and 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards and card collecting absolutely exploded in popularity with the general public. By about 1992 or so Angie himself opened a "King of Cards" store on Barton Street in Hamilton which I'd visit on occasion. His store was actually on the way (maybe a two mile walk) to Ivor Wynn Stadium from the GO train stop in the magnificent old Hamilton Harbour CN station. After any Hamilton Tiger-Cats game I could then walk briskly to the old Greyhound station on Cannon Street and catch the last Lakeshore GO bus which would let me off after 45 minutes or so right in front of my house in SW Mississauga.
On one of my visits to Angie's store circa 2000, I learned that he was keeping his T206 Honus Wagner card in his safety deposit box at the bank. When I asked whether he ever thought of selling it since he couldn't exactly derive any delight from owning it when it was locked away at the bank, he replied "Every day, Vay, every day." Within six months to a year, he had done exactly that with a sale of all his sports cards but Hockey and CFL to a big California dealer.
But it was at the big semi-annual Toronto Sport Card and Memorabilia Expo in 2005 or so where I saved one of his binders full of expensive hockey cards from the 1920’s and 1930’s from a thief. I noticed that a tall young fellow at the other end of Angie’s table had scooped up what appeared to be one of Angie’s binders and walked off briskly down the aisle. Angie himself was on the other side of the table and was in no position to give chase so I set off after the fellow myself. I caught him before he got to the door of the hall and said “Excuse me, but is that your binder?” Much to my surprise, the fellow just said no and shoved the binder into my hands. While I stood there gawking for a second or two, he swiftly made his exit through the door. Oh well. I’m not in the business of apprehending thieves anyway, but I’d managed the most important detail which was getting Angie’s binder back for him. Angie though thought I should have somehow detained the guy as well!
Sadly Angie passed away on March 16th earlier this year.
