1971 West Coast and Detroit shows (and early hobby publicity) in Ballcard Collector

[Rickyy]

Wow that was fascinating read. I remember as starting out in the mid 70's buying from some of those guys like Stan and Jim. Those guys were way into it even back then.

It would be fun to have a convention at a home...

Ricky Y

[trdcrdkid]

As a followup to this post from February --

The articles above about the 1971 West Coast and Detroit shows were in Ballcard Collector #68 (October 1971), and the article by Dick Reuss about the national publicity he and other collectors got in the wake of that Detroit show was in Ballcard Collector #70 (November 1971 #2). In the Reuss article he mentions a 5-minute segment on baseball cards that Heywood Hale Broun did for the CBS evening news, airing on September 4, and editor George Martin added a note saying that a transcript of the segment was in the previous issue of Ballcard Collector, #69. At the time of the original post I didn't have that issue, but now I do, thanks to a board member. I've posted a scan of it below.

I also found the front-page Wall Street Journal article about Reuss and other collectors (August 10, 1971) that got Reuss so upset and led so many people to write and call him. I've posted that below the Ballcard Collector article. Notice that they actually gave his home address in the article, which is probably why he got 800 letters. The reporter also told the now-legendary story of how Frank Nagy spent his life's savings to buy Walt Corson's entire collection, and how the springs on his car gave out from the weight of the cards. (The article doesn't name Corson, but that's who it was.) But I hadn't heard the part about him bargaining with Corson for several days, or about his wife packing up and trying to leave but not getting far because of the busted springs on the car.

[brian1961]

David,

Thank you, brother, for posting these wonderful early hobby documents.

I particularly enjoyed the one with the transcript of CBS's Haywood Hale Broun. I used to enjoy his commentary back in the day. I distinctly remember the one he did on Bobby Orr at the time the Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 1970. Now to find out, 46 years later, that he did a piece on baseball cards, and that he himself was a collector, is quite moving. This is so cool! Thanks, David! ---Brian Powell

[Leon]

The report says -

There were complaints about Irv Lerner as he "dominated the conversation wince he was very opinionated"

.

[brass_rat]

Thanks for posting these, David -- very interesting, as always.

The Time Magazine article that Reuss references in the newsletter was published on October 11, 1971 and is entitled "Modern Living: The Card Sharks".

Since it's behind a paywall, I won't reproduce the whole article here, but it's a short article and simply derivative of the WSJ article.

http://content.time.com/time/magazin...903203,00.html

http://content.time.com/time/magazin...711011,00.html

Cheers,
Steve