Posted By:
Jodi BirkholmScott,
Funny you should mention Hall's Nostalgia. I too remember all their great ads from 20 years ago. Being a youngster up in Canada at that time (and an unabashed BoSox fan), I would always turn to the back of the publication to see what cool oddball items the Hall family was offering that particular week. I loved all the Jimmy Fund stuff they came up with. I actually passed through Arlington, MA, on a family trip in 1990, and got to check out the store firsthand. I bought 2 T206 Hal Chase cards (pink background and holding trophy) for a whole $8 apiece and was in heaven! The Halls were very kind to me, and it was really nice when, working for JSA many years later, that I had the chance to run into them again at the Shriner's show in Wilmington, MA. They're great people to talk to.
Anyhow, (kind of) back on topic: My favorite trade rag, by far, was the sister publication to the SCD, "Baseball Cards" Magazine. Even as a kid, I found Beckett's monthly magazine informative, but far too "thin" (lack of actual pages or "meat"--the same common complaint about today's SCD). It was great for keeping tabs on card prices, and for interesting articles (which seem pretty juvenile by today's standards), but I was always left wanting more. Enter BCM. They combined genuinely interesting articles with a half-decent price guide, and an absolutely wonderful, irreverant sense of humor that still cracks me up whenever I pull out a yellowing issue from that ancient pile in the corner of my study. I remember one issue (I think it was July, 1990, the one with Dwight Evans on the cover) that featured a mock article about somebody so addicted to the hobby that his family intervened and sent him to the "WHITEY Ford Clinic"!!! I always loved the "Collector Q&A" section, and that same issue features a parody enitiled "Wierd Collector Q&A". If you have never had the pleasure, try to find a copy of this particular issue and laugh like you have never laughed before. It hasn't aged a bit! By the early 1990's, BCM, like the SCD of today, had become a shadow of its former self. Its pages numbered fewer than half of what it contained only a brief few years before. I wish BCM could be brought back. It taught us that, such as in life, we should always be mindful of the facts, but to never forget to throw in a good joke every now and then. I hope all of those hobby humorists are alive and well. A much-belated "thank you" to them all!