What Was The Hobby Like Back In The Day?

[Seven]

Originally Posted by TCMA

I think you’ll enjoy the blog post I made for the SABR Baseball Cards Research Committee earlier this year. Check it out:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sabrbas...ago-today/amp/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Will Gladly check it out. I'm open to reading some books on the Hobby as well if you have any suggestions.

Side Note: SABR's baseball cards twitter account is one of my favorites to follow.

[bmattioli]

I'm a '70's kid who bought my cards with my paper route tip money, the rest was saved.
7 Topps packs for a dollar and I loved the Hostess cards which were cut and saved, Food issues are my passion..

[lumberjack]

In Detroit in the mid 1970s we had a collectors club, which I believe was called the South East Michigan Collectors Association. If there had been a letterhead, it would have to have been printed on the horizontal. Tim Zwick, whom I believe is out there, could fill us in on the club's short history. Dues were something like $5 a year.

We just couldn't generate interest, which is a puzzle as the Detroit conventions always were popular.

Chicago had a number of advanced collectors as well, but their club did much better attracting members. I believe they would host a show and have their meeting at the same time.

This doesn't have much to do with the above, but Mr. Mint, who was like a hurricane, walked around with a small suitcase filled with cash. I think everyone knows that. He kept after Frank Nagy, hoping Nagy would let him run amok....Frank Nagy, who had seen it all, would just say, "Bring more suitcases...."
lumberjack

[whitehse]

Originally Posted by lumberjack

In Detroit in the mid 1970s we had a collectors club, which I believe was called the South East Michigan Collectors Association. If there had been a letterhead, it would have to have been printed on the horizontal. Tim Zwick, whom I believe is out there, could fill us in on the club's short history. Dues were something like $5 a year.

We just couldn't generate interest, which is a puzzle as the Detroit conventions always were popular.

Chicago had a number of advanced collectors as well, but their club did much better attracting members. I believe they would host a show and have their meeting at the same time.

This doesn't have much to do with the above, but Mr. Mint, who was like a hurricane, walked around with a small suitcase filled with cash. I think everyone knows that. He kept after Frank Nagy, hoping Nagy would let him run amok....Frank Nagy, who had seen it all, would just say, "Bring more suitcases...."
lumberjack

Great stories....We had always heard about the Detroit shows especially with Jim Hawkins but I never went. Chicago always seemed to be a great place to get cards so there was no reason to go to Detroit.

Mr. Mint....ugh. That guy was a weasel from the very beginning in my opinion. Too many stories about him and they are all very true...and then some.

[Tere1071]

Originally Posted by whitehse

Great stories....We had always heard about the Detroit shows especially with Jim Hawkins but I never went. Chicago always seemed to be a great place to get cards so there was no reason to go to Detroit.

Mr. Mint....ugh. That guy was a weasel from the very beginning in my opinion. Too many stories about him and they are all very true...and then some.

Around 1987 I purchased some Yankees World Series programs from 1921, 22, 23, 26, 27 and 28 for the store I worked at. They varied in condition, but most were intact. We took them to one of the local conventions where Al Rosen was selling. He saw the programs and the prices we were asking and became furious. I remember him telling someone rather loudly that "we wanted a million bucks for our stuff." Hundreds were more like it and we had no trouble selling them through Sports Collectors Digest. It was rather enjoyable seeing him get worked up because we wouldn't drop our prices.

Remember, Al Rosen and other "superstar" dealers are/were large fish in a very small pond. Collecting will always exist without their presence.

[GasHouseGang]

I grew up in a small town in the midwest and I was the same as Bruce. I used my lawn mowing money in the 1970's ($3 a lawn) to buy cards and saved the rest. That wouldn't even buy a pack now. Everyone that collected bought that year's Topps packs putting together sets one card at a time and traded with each other to try get cards you didn't have. I didn't know there were any dealers or other ways to get cards. If it wasn't available at the local grocery store, it didn't exist. That was life before the internet.

[Seven]

Originally Posted by lumberjack

In Detroit in the mid 1970s we had a collectors club, which I believe was called the South East Michigan Collectors Association. If there had been a letterhead, it would have to have been printed on the horizontal. Tim Zwick, whom I believe is out there, could fill us in on the club's short history. Dues were something like $5 a year.

We just couldn't generate interest, which is a puzzle as the Detroit conventions always were popular.

Chicago had a number of advanced collectors as well, but their club did much better attracting members. I believe they would host a show and have their meeting at the same time.

This doesn't have much to do with the above, but Mr. Mint, who was like a hurricane, walked around with a small suitcase filled with cash. I think everyone knows that. He kept after Frank Nagy, hoping Nagy would let him run amok....Frank Nagy, who had seen it all, would just say, "Bring more suitcases...."
lumberjack

I've read many stories of Mr. Mint, but that one is pretty funny. I would love to hear more of the history behind that Association.

[NiceDocter]

Ah the good old days. I was an active collector as a kid between 1966 and 1972..... saved those cards (THANKS MOM !!! rip) and got back into it again in a big way in 1980. I bought collections as a kid from other kids.... a shopping bag full for 5 or 10 bucks! Dealers and collectors were very much overlapping in those days as a lot of the shows had regular guys buy tables and set up. Fees were low (maybe 20-25) a table.... condition was not so important as the card itself. There was a lot of trust in those days.... lots of times I would buy a pile at a guys table and then say "Hold this for me please" after paying and just pick the pile up on my way out the door later on. Once I saw a guy in The Trader Speaks ( one of the greatest old time sports collecting digests) advertise Ty Cobb checks for $20..... I sent the guy a check for $20 plus postage, he sent me 6 checks (!!!!!) and said pick the one you want and send the rest back! And I did! It was a better time in a lot of ways although to tell you the truth I still get some of that same spirit in dealing with many of the guys here on this board and at the fewer and smaller shows I go to. Lets all remember its more about the stories and the relationships than the stuff..... although we all sure like that stuff!!! Rocky

[riggs336]

Mail auctions! I loved them. You would write your high bid on a postcard, mail it in and wait a few weeks to see if you won.

[rats60]

I was buying cards from Woody Gelman, Card Collectors Co, Bruce Yeko, Wholesale Card Co and Larry Fritsch to complete my Topps sets. I was paying 1.00 or less for cards. Some prices from that era, Roberto Clemente RC 1.00, Tom Seaver RC .10, 1963 7th series including Rose RC and Stargell RC 5.99 or .11 per card. Most commons were .05 to .10. Stars were .25 to 1.00.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by NiceDocter

Ah the good old days. I was an active collector as a kid between 1966 and 1972..... saved those cards (THANKS MOM !!! rip) and got back into it again in a big way in 1980. I bought collections as a kid from other kids.... a shopping bag full for 5 or 10 bucks! Dealers and collectors were very much overlapping in those days as a lot of the shows had regular guys buy tables and set up. Fees were low (maybe 20-25) a table.... condition was not so important as the card itself. There was a lot of trust in those days.... lots of times I would buy a pile at a guys table and then say "Hold this for me please" after paying and just pick the pile up on my way out the door later on. Once I saw a guy in The Trader Speaks ( one of the greatest old time sports collecting digests) advertise Ty Cobb checks for $20..... I sent the guy a check for $20 plus postage, he sent me 6 checks (!!!!!) and said pick the one you want and send the rest back! And I did! It was a better time in a lot of ways although to tell you the truth I still get some of that same spirit in dealing with many of the guys here on this board and at the fewer and smaller shows I go to. Lets all remember its more about the stories and the relationships than the stuff..... although we all sure like that stuff!!! Rocky

My brother and I did too. One collection we bought for 25.00 was basically a 1958 set, 2 1959 sets, 2 1960 sets plus extras. The boy’s mother insisted that we get our money back because her son was notorious for taking advantage of other kids. We told her we were happy with the deal and kept the cards. In retrospect it was a very smart move.

[Tere1071]

Originally Posted by Seven

I've read many stories of Mr. Mint, but that one is pretty funny. I would love to hear more of the history behind that Association.

Beginning in the early 70s there was a collectors club organized in Orange County, California. One of its inceptors was a gentleman named John Parks who taught at a middle school in Garden Grove. I attended my first show there in 1973, no charge for a table. That day I remember getting a 63 Fleer Cepeda, 51 Bowman Garver and a 52 Topps Willard Marshall. It was during that time I responded to a Fritsch ad and purchased a vending box of 1973 fourth series Topps baseball for the princely sum of 5.00.

I didn't get to return to the Garden Grove location until late 1975. It was a club where you got a membership card and there was a monthly meeting held on the first Thursday. After a few changes in location, it finally settled in Fountain Valley at Mile Square Park where it became a fixture for more than a decade.

Most people who sold at these meetings were primarily collectors. The corner retail store was still the main source for us to buy packs of cards, Paul's Liquor of South Gate, CA was the major contributor to my early collecting (1969-75). We would bring our cards to school to show, much like kids later brought their Pokemon cards to play with. Collecting seemed to be a fairly normal thing to do IF you purchased from a store. I purchased some older cards responding to ads and my peers thought I was crazy spending money that way, I wonder if they would still think the same today.

Sports collectors stores weren't common until the late 70s-early 80s. In 1981 with the inception of Donruss and Fleer it became much easier to purchase cases and many of you who collected as youngsters at that time already know how things turned out. By the mid-90s many of the stores were out of business. Local shows also began to disappear as collectors left the hobby angry that the cards they purchased suddenly weren't worth much.

Collecting in the 1970s seemed magical. It wasn't about investment for most, just having cards took you into another realm. It's easy to wax nostalgic and in 40+ years from now, those actively breaking cases and following collecting investment advice may look back and consider this era special. What stood out for me and perhaps for others was the fun and innocence.

[vintagechris]

Originally Posted by lumberjack

He kept after Frank Nagy, hoping Nagy would let him run amok....Frank Nagy, who had seen it all, would just say, "Bring more suitcases...."
lumberjack

That's classic! Bring more suitcases.