How hard was it to find new Topps series in 1950s, '60s and early '70s?

[Volod]

In 1963, my father fulfilled a long-time ambition of owning his own store - a small tobacco, book and magazine place on the main drag of our town in central New York. Lots of kids frequented the store for candy, so naturally the wholesale rep was always pushing loads of waxpacks. I worked for the old man a couple of years after getting out of the service, and still recall one summer - think it was 1966 - when my father got into a heated argument with the candy rep over an order. He still had several boxes of Topps waxpacks in his cramped storage room that he knew would not move and the rep wanted him to take the new series, but he refused because he couldn't get return credit for his current stock. Later that day, he had me haul the whole lot out to the dumpster in back and toss it. I kind of waivered over it because it was a s-load of cards and I still remembered treasuring cards as a kid, but my interests had grown up, so I quickly dumped those thousand or so packs without recrimination.

[Exhibitman]

I was just a kid when series ended--9 in 1974--but I never saw any of the high #s in 71-73 at retail, and I only got 71 football 2nd series in 1976 when a local candy seller had half a box of cellos on the counter.