[jwjohn06]

I grew up in a suburb of Detroit (Northville) in the 1960's. I didn't start to collect seriously until 1967. I remember getting the first series cards, but not many second series; the places where I bought the cards seemed to skip right over to the third series. I completed the fourth and fifth series easily, with many duplicates. I kept buying cards hoping to get the next two series of cards, but I never saw packs of sixth and seventh series cards. I did find a baseball card machine at the Westland Shopping Center that had the last series. I remember feeding several nickels into the machine, hoping to get the pictured Brooks Robinson card, but i was unsuccessful. I did get a Norm Cash, though.

I also attempted to complete sets in 1968 and 1969. High numbers were harder to find in both years, but they could be found. I wasn't a football card collector, but I remember realizing in September of 1969 that football cards had now replaced baseball cards at Rexall's, and I was not going to complete my set that year. I had seen the ads for cards in the Sporting News, but never thought to order any; money was scarce for me at 11 years old. I did buy one pack of those 1969 football cards, and lucky for me, pulled a Joe Namath, probably the hottest card at the time.