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Posted By: John

Bought my first complete set, the 1979 Topps, and my first Beckett guide. It was also the year I discovered my grandmother had saved my Dad's childhood cards, a great selection of 800-900 early 50s cards, primarily 1951 Bowman, 1953 Bowman Color, and 1951-54 Topps, which cemented me as a collector for life. I still remember the '53 Mantle had a top price of $200.

I also remember you could get tons of cards for virtually nothing. We had a local coin and stamp dealer in town that had huge boxes of late-60s and early-mid-70s. I completed a huge percentage of my 1968-1977 sets from this place at $.03 each (including many stars).

In fact, the value of cards was realized so little that work friends of my father would take nice 60s and 70s cards and paste their faces on them, then xerox the results into newsletters to make them look like ballplayers. Lord knows how many good cards were ruined in this way, but I do remember my Dad getting a '73 Schmidt rookie from one guy just before it got this treatment.