Going to card shows in the 1970s

[geosluggo]

I started collecting as an elementary schooler in the 1970s in the Washington, D.C., area. There were only a few shows a year that my other collector friends and I knew of. The Internet didn't exist and no one I knew subscribed to any hobby publications, so we must have heard about them from the one or two brick-and-mortar card shops in the area. The first show I went to was an hour's drive away at a Quality Inn or Best Western near Baltimore in 1975. After weeks of anticipation and begging of parents, someone's dad agreed to drive four of us. No cards were in sleeves or top loaders back then. One friend bought a 1954 Aaron for $5 or so, which seemed ridiculously high to me. I remember buying a 1959 Clemente and a 1960 Clemente and Aaron for less than $1 apiece because as a 5th grader the thought of spending $1 or more on a single card was incomprehensible.