Meaningful Worthless Card Stories

[mrmopar]

Originally Posted by Seven

The card definitely isn't worthless, but what I was given for free, certainly tells a story. I'll update this post with a picture, when I am home, from work.

On my first trip to Cooperstown, I stumbled upon a small store, in Doubleday Court. It was then, and forever will be, to me, the perfect baseball hobby shop. The store, which recently closed, was Baseball Nostalgia. It opened in 1974, and was a longtime staple of Cooperstown. I spent so much time in that store on that day, talking to Peter, about all things baseball cards. I was able to scrounge enough money together, with the help of my father to purchase a 1953 Topps Willie Mays. As a bonus, Peter threw in a signed lithograph of Johnny Mize.

It then became a ritual, everytime I visited the Hall of Fame, I would have to stop into Baseball Nostalgia. Many years later, in 2019, right before they closed, I visited the store, for the last time and spoke to Peter again. I bought some cards, one of them being one of my first 1952 Topps, a Warren Spahn, and told Peter the story of my first time in the store. He proceeded to dig around for a little bit, and found one more copy of the lithograph, of Johnny Mize, and gave me a second copy. It was a gesture I thoroughly appreciated and a bittersweet last memory of one of my favorite places to go, when I visited Cooperstown.

I thankfully was able to experience that store myself on my first (and only, to date) trip to Cooperstown in 2018. I agree, it was exactly what a sportscard and memorabilia store should be. Easily one of the best shops I have ever set foot in and I came away with a gem as well, a cheap ($1) Steve Garvey card I did not have already. It was a fitting part of a "magical" story that I wrote describing the entire experience, but lost due to a computer freeze before I could publish it. I lost my momentum and later posted a more hurried/revised version of it to one of the card sites. In a nutshell, I made my first trip to the Baseball Mecca, met in person a long time online collecting friend for the first time 20+ years after we first "met" online, also hit the Basketball HOF and it was just a fun experience all around. That card I found was a wrong back 78/79 Topps with a 79 front and a 78 Garvey back.