What Was The Hobby Like Back In The Day?

[Tony Gordon]

Another 70's kid here. I first started collecting in 1975. Topps Wax packs were 15 cents at the pharmacy down the street. I also bought the Fleer Pioneers of Baseball. The Fleer had better tasting gum. Next to the pharmacy was a place called Convenient Food Mart, they sold cellos for a quarter and rack packs for 50 cents. The old couple that ran Convenient always kicked me out of the store when I tried to search the cellos and rack packs for George Brett rookies. I also collected Hostess cards but was terrible at cutting them out of the box.

The ultimate place for cards for me in the 1970's was the flea market at the Twin Drive In Movie Theater on Milwaukee Avenue in Wheeling, IL, long gone now. There were dozens of guys selling cards at the Twin. I picked up copious amounts of post-war cards there every Sunday from 10 cents to 50 cents each. In the winter, they moved the flea market to the Axle Roller Rink in Glenview (now a Salvation Army thrift store), just a few miles south of the Twin on Milwaukee Avenue, where I was able to find T205s and T206s for five bucks each. I also set up with my dad at both flea markets.

In 1978 I started subscribing to SCD. I used the ads in SCD to price my cards for the flea market. I bought tons of stuff from the SCD classifieds which were amazing. I also joined the Chicagoland Sports Collectors Association which put on three shows a year at the Hillside Holiday Inn. Those shows were amazing. You got a free auto with admission from a guy like Minnie Minoso or Orlando Cepeda. All the dealers sold their cards out of binders. It was fun leafing through pages and pages of Clemente and Koufax. You could get a mint '56 Clemente for 20 bucks.

There was just one card shop in the entire Chicago region -- the Sports Collectors Store on South Archer Avenue in Chicago. My dad was not too keen on driving me there from the north suburbs but he relented here and there. I think in 1980 or 1981 AU opened in Skokie, much closer to home. AU is still open in Skokie but with different owners and at a new location.

Every kid I knew collected cards in the 1970's. A lot of trading went on in the neighborhood and at school. I always tried to complete the sets. For the life of me I could not get a 1975 Topps Jim Willoughby of the Boston Red Sox.

In 1979, I got my first job as a janitor at a day camp with the sole purpose to earn money to buy cards. More and more shows and card shops started to open but the best place to buy cards remained the Twin flea market. Man, I miss that place!