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Posted By: warwshawlaw

Runscott: You didn't get basketball cards until the 1970's because no one else did, either. There weren't any from 62-69. Reminds me of the 1969-70 tall boys. I found a stack in an antiques store around 1974 and begged my parents to buy them, which they did. I got most of the set around ex condition and held it for many years. In 1988 I finished it cheaply at a major show in SF. I got some slabbed (the really nice ones) then panicked and sold it when I was caught short one month. I've regretted it ever since. I did keep a Chamberlain dupe as a remembrance...

Hockey cards held an interest in my neighborhood of NY for about two weeks in the winter. We'd buy a few packs, looking for Orr, Espo or Mikita, then resume arguing Yankees or Mets.

Football cards were nothing to us; the Giants sucked perpetually (Tarkenton for Snead, give me a friggin break) and the Jets fell off the radar after Broadway Joe's knees gave out. I did luck into a big pile of 1971 rack packs in 1977, though, at a local drugstore that used to put all its old packs into a big bin on special. Went back a few years later--the store and the bin were long gone...

In terms of where-was-I-when, I heard about #715 in the living room of my family's weekend home from tv--black and white if you can believe it...I knew none of the racist crap that was going on. Hammerin Hank was the #1 star among us kids...

I always dreamt of owning certain cards as a kid: T206 Johnson, Hank Aaron rookie, 1954 Mays, a Babe Ruth, etc. Much of my adult collecting is getting those damned cards.

Subsets: when I was 10-12 I thought the absolute greatest cards in the world were the 1974 Hank Aaron specials, the 1975 MVP run, and the 1976 all time greats. I dedicated myself to collecting all of the cards depicted in the Aaron and MVP sets. I got all the Aarons, but just about killed myself chasing down the 1955 campanella, 1962 wills...at least until I found out they never existed.

OJ's: I remember turning my nose up at a table loaded with OJ's in the late 1970's at a show. So small, so bland looking. Little did I know...

Seemed like some cards and other items just showed up in what we'd today consider such absurdly large numbers that we thought there was no hurry. I recall a table loaded down with hundreds of Zeenuts at one SF show. I didn't feel like going through it. No hurry to buy those there. Another show a dealer had dozens of Ty Cobb checks. I figured I'd save my $50 and spend it on something else, then maybe get a check later on.

I bought a 1953 Mays in nice near mint condition for $25 at a 1976 ASCCA show in NY. I had to borrow 6 months' advance allowance from my dad to do it. When my mother picked us up, she nearly killed him for letting me piss away $25 on a baseball card. Four years later, when the card was selling for $500, she nearly killed him for not buying more...

I used to comb antiques stores for cards, buy them, then fleece my friends in trades. My next door neighbors had a father who was a professor. His students gave them collections and they in turn fleeced me. Cards were the absolute best business training I ever got.