Reminiscing about the "Good-Ole-Days" in this Hobby

[bammerbb]

The post about Baseball Direct brought back some memories for me. I too subscribed, maybe for 2 or 3 years until i got into high school. My dad would even pick one to read if there was a Cardinals article in it.

And then another memory popped up in my mind. There was one store in the little town I live in that had some boxes of Topps baseball to sell. I would clutch my 25 cent allowance in my hand and run in when mom would take to the store. Once she got used to me, if she saw us coming she would take the box off the shelf for me. I believe there was a 1% sales tax in Iowa at the time. So every so often she would let me have 5 packs for my quarter.

This brings up another memory, fast forward 30 years to 1993. At the time, I started a small small baseball card shop, a buddy of mine let me have space for one 6 foot table. At the time my friend was doing the die-cast Ertl race cars. So I figured out my best decision by ordering a couple boxes of a couple brands of racing cards. So when he would come in, he bought some die-cast and then the next time buy some cards from me. One day (a Saturday) he came down to see us, just so happened I told him about doing a small card show in a city about 20 miles from us. So he asked me if he could come along and I said sure, (this gentleman was a really nice and my buddy and I enjoyed his company. Well the next day we got to the show and set up. As the day progressed, we had some down times and we would chat, and he asked how I got started in cards. So I told him about the grocery store and Topps cards.

The next day was Monday, and I worked at my part time job, and it just so happened that I had a delivery to take to her in the senior housing. So I told her I hoped I didn't make her ears burn too bad and told her about the card show and told her about the conversation I had. She looked at me quisickly and then started to laugh real hard. When she stopped,her reply was she hadn't thought about the cards for a long time and asked about how long it was, so I told her about 30 years.

I have other memories which also came back, and it made me smile. Sorry for the long post.

Brian Blankenburg