While still in high school, the majority of my pre-WW2 material was picked up from Vin Minner. He used to set up a table at an annual collectibles show (cards, stamps, coins, etc.) held in Alexandria Bay, NY. I had visited his table one summer when I was a kid and we spent 30 minutes talking about cards. He seemed impressed that a kid as young as I could identify vintage sets; in fact, at one point, he showed some of his tobacco cards and when my Mom asked, "what's the T stand for?" it was me who rattled off "20th century tobacco cards."
Driving home that day, Mom told me she never realized how much I'd known about older cards. Perhaps she realized that all those books I brought home from the school library and all those issues of Baseball Cards and Beckett were actually doing some good. In any case, Mom gave me a lot more latitude when it came to card shows after that.
Anyway...Mr. Minner was one of the first sellers who didn't seem annoyed to deal with an inquisitive kid and his kindness was one of the reasons I stuck with the hobby even after "discovering" things like girls and stupid teenage rites of passage...
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