[jingram058]

After the giving up cards, growing up, moving out, and then having mom give the cards to Goodwill story, which everyone has heard a million times, here's another good one:

Not long after I bought a Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig signed OAL ball, and 1933 Goudey Ruth and Gehrig cards, for $1000 out of a reenlistment bonus (1988), I was stationed in Charleston, SC. I met up with a retired Navy radioman who was selling cards at a converted grocery store that had become an antique mall, called Vendors Mall, on Spruill Ave. outside the Navy Base. I bought cards from him, but more importantly, we sat around talking baseball and cards for hours. Basically every Saturday I had off without the duty.

After a couple of years of this, he started saying he was going to truly retire, and was going to sell his vast, many thousand vintage card collection at a local auction house there in Charleston called Rammouilat Auctions.

One Saturday after I had been away on leave for a few weeks, I came in, and sure enough, his space was vacant. There was a fellow directly across who I also knew who sold old books. He saw me and said, aren't you Ingram? I said yes, and he said hold on, and went to the back of his space and came back with a grocery sack that was full and stapled closed, that said "for Ingram" on it.

I went back to my barracks room and opened the sack. I couldn't believe my eyes. The sack was absolutely full of every kind of vintage cards you can imagine...OJs, t206, t205, Goudey, Play Ball, Bowmans, Topps!

If you ever wonder how I have so many great cards, as Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story!