What are your favorite card/hobby stores from your youth?

[ValKehl]

Originally Posted by NiceDocter

Im another guy who visited House of Cards in Wheaton, MD at their original store.... initially owned and run by John Scott (still a principal owner) and Nick Schoff ( had been running shows in Northern VA not sure if he still is) . Bill Huggins ( I believe actually a relative of Miller Huggins) took over for a while and now Huggins and Scott have a storefront and auction house in Silver Spring MD. I bought a lot of stuff on and off from them in the early 1980s.... and did a private deal with Nick for an uncut sheet of 1952 Bowman high numbers framed ( which I still own) for $800 which was big bucks back in those days. When I picked the sheet up at his apartment he showed me an uncut sheet of 1933 George Miller cards with the rare Ivey Andrews (sp?) ... I think he was asking $10,000 at the time which was way out of my league. Wonder what ever happened to that sheet???? By the way John was very kind to me back in those early days and I still remember and appreciate it! Hope to pass some of that on to others as I go along.

Rocky, Nick Schoff is still running shows in Northern VA. And, Bill Huggins told me many years ago that his is a distant relative of Miller Huggins.

As as kid growing up in the west end of Alexandria, VA, my 3 collecting buddies and I bought our Topps cards (1955-1960) at a 7-11 and a drug store we could walk and/or ride our bikes to. There wasn't a LCS in our area that we knew of. We traded cards, and we played games with our cards (flipping, "sail touch," and "knock down") and card games (blackjack & poker) to win each other's cards.

In the mid-to-late 1980's when I resurrected my childhood collection that, fortunately, Mom didn't toss out many years earlier after I left home, I went to my first card show and discovered the existence of pre-War baseball cards. Soon thereafter, I obtained my first pre-War card, a T207 Recruit of WaJo, in a trade for some 1960 Topps with Bill Huggins at his card shop in Wheaton, MD. Not too long thereafter, my collecting focus became almost entirely pre-War cards.

[icollectDCsports]

Gerhardt's World. Originally located in the Crystal City Underground Mall in Arlington, VA, just across the river from DC, they relocated for a brief period to the Clarendon section of Arlington in the mid-'80s. Absolutely loved that place. Really stoked the flames of my passion for cards and also non-card memorabilia.

[JimC]

Growing up in Richmond I spent many hours looking through cards at Ernie White's shop, called Collector's Corner. In the early 80s I witnessed a lot of amazing collections walk into his place. I used to get dropped off there before I was old enough to drive. There was also a general antiques guy named Jess Holder in Richmond. Just a great guy. Jess had a booth at an old antique mall where he sold everything imaginable, but he always had good cards from the 50s through 70s. I still have a ton of cards we got from both places.

My Dad and I also visited House of Cards and other spots on our regular visits to DC and Maryland.

Val, I too used to get cards at the 7-11s in Richmond and NOVA but as a younger kid in Florida it was the local Li'l Champ convenience store that always had em.

[pete zouras]

Bob Menefee and Ron Barrett seen entering AJ's reliving their youths along with several others of us oldtimers. It's no longer but during the demolition I was able to pull from a dumpster a sign that hung in the window for ages (the reverse says we buy cards). They had a bid board, a carryover from Gerhardts card shop in Arlington mentioned earlier. AJ's was owned by Jim Beck and Nick Shoff before him and I purchased many vintage cards from him, some good and some not so good deals. A great place to jaw a short bike ride from my house.

[mordecaibrown1]

Back in the late 1980’s my wife and I responded to a ad in a newspaper that someone had 5000 cards from the 1950’s. So we were the first to get there and the guy said we can pick out any cards we want for $1 a piece. So I went through
2500 cards and my wife went through 2500 cards. We picked out about 150 cards, paid the $150 and went to eat breakfast going through what we picked out.

[Yoda]

Dawson's Pharmacy in Schenectady, NY. Just outside was a magnificent old Sycamore tree. The year I started my collecting Mr. Dawson had festooned his front window with the new '51 Bowmans and various advertising pieces. I immediately spent my whole .25c allowance on five packs, and with the gang retired to the Sycamore to open our packs and reveal their treasures with dirty, greasy fingers. Frantic trading started immediately.
You can imagine the excitement the next year when the brand new '52 Topps hit like a bombshell. Yikes. I think Mr. Dawson was far more busy selling baseball cards than filling prescriptions.
Dawson's is long gone, as is the Sycamore, replaced by a deteriorating mini mall. Progress, I suppose.
Ah, nostalgia.

[wolf441]

Growing up outside of Boston in the early 1980's, I remember my mom taking me to a card shop in Kenmore Square. There was also a shop in Buzzard's Bay, MA called Park Nostalgia that we used to frequent during summer vacations. I also remember tagging along on grocery shopping trips to the A&P in hopes of snagging Topps Baseball rack packs.

[jingram058]

I've told this story over and over on this forum. My first experience with baseball cards started with 5 cents a pack Topps while visiting my Delta Air Lines stewardess sister in Dallas, Texas in 1967. I collected the entire set, according to the checklists, ultimately. Same for 1968, 1969, 1970. Almost every day my mom would send me to a little store next to The Castaways Bar 2 blocks down Barron Road from our house in Memphis to buy her a pack cigarettes (the cigarettes didn't kill her, diabetes did, decades later, and they thought nothing of selling a kid cigarettes as they knew they were for mom), and I could keep the change to buy packs of cards. Thousands of baseball cards, full sets. I even had one of those plastic green lockers organized by team and by league for one of those years. The others were in shoe boxes, but also organized. Many, many duplicates. Also, I acquired almost but not all of the 1962 Topps set, given to me by an older friend going off to college prep school. Then, I graduated to other interests, and the cards went under my bed. Finally, I moved out to my own apartment, and then into the Navy. Years, decades go by. Cards become valuable. My buddy Louis finds a stash of his old cards while helping his parents clean out the attic of the house he grew up in. Sells them for hundreds of dollars. I rush home and ask my mom if my cards are still under the bed of my old room. "Oh, I gave those away years ago. You said you didn't want them and do whatever when I asked you over and over!"

[ocjack]

I spent the first half of my childhood in Englewood, New Jersey. A small, everyone-knows-everyone kind of town across the bridge from New York. My earliest memories of buying cards (way before the advent of card shops) was going to Jake's - a combination soda fountain (where I aspired to be a soda jerk when I got older), liquor store, tobacconist, toy store and comic book heaven. Jake would put out the newest box of cards and my friends and I would devour them 4-5 packs at a time. Jake's carried them all; baseball, football, zorro, a new baseball entry that contained a marble, tv westerns, etc.

Then in 1960 we moved to Los Angeles. Still buying cards at local drug stores, liquor stores, wherever I could find them. Still no card shops, but many visits to Goodwin Goldfaden's Adco Sports Book Exchange. The store literally burst at the seams with books, magazines, cards and anything a young boy could want. Goodie once offered me a large box that he said contained 1957 Topps and would probably make 4 or 5 complete sets. I forget the price, but it was a bit too much for a 16-year-old so I passed. (Damnnnn!)

Then came the card shops. An era had passed.

[HexsHeroes]

Old Cardboard member Tim Zwick had a wee shop in Lansing (Capital City Cards) before expanding to much larger/nicer premises in Haslett Michigan. He had the best range of collectible cards IMHO. I sold him the majority of my vintage HOF candy/gum/tobacco cards and about 30 each of vending box fresh Brett and Yount rookie cards in the 1990s. Most of the hand collated modern sets I acquired came from a tiny card shop called The Sportstop. A friend started (still owns) a shop in Mason MI named Extra Innings. Lots of fond memories from those days decades ago.

[pawpawdiv9]

All we had was a SEARS, and our mom bought us a beginner set with binder and all of TCMA immmortals for Christmans one year.
It was one of the best-est day ever sharing with my brother. Still have it till this day. THANKS MOM!

[perezfan]

Rich's Five and Dime and Raoul's Pharmacy.... both on Ludlow Avenue in late '60s Cincinnati. Directly adjacent to Burnett Woods, and a few hundred feet down from Skyline Chili (corner of Ludlow and Clifton Ave.)

I know it's a needle in a haystack, but does anyone here from Cincy remember either of these stores? They had all the Topps issues of the day (Sports, non-Sports, and test issues). Simpler times and better days!

[Seven]

Some wonderful stories here, thanks so much for sharing, everyone. It brings a warm feeling to my heart that no matter the ages of everyone here on the forum, we can always fondly remember stories about cardboard, from our childhood. Can't wait to read some more.

[spec]

Like most of the oldtimers who have posted about collecting in the 50s and 60s, I was limited to convenience stores and mom & pop markets when I first discovered baseball cards back in Florida.
However, when I graduated to vintage cards in the 70s and 80s, I had the great good fortune to be in Boston where a variety of card shops sprang up.
My apartment was within walking distance of Walt Kelley's store in Kenmore Square. Since I worked nights and weekends, I was able to spend many weekday afternoons there. However, I also made regular visits to Hall's Nostalgia in Arlington. That required taking the T into Boston, then out to Cambridge, followed by a bus to Arlington, but it was worth the trip. In addition, I used Boston's unique public transportation system to visit Bill Carvalho's store in Melrose and Phil Castinetti's Sportsworld in Saugus whenever I got word that they had purchased some interesting material.
Though my collection still includes wonderful cards from each of these establishments, some of my fondest collecting memories are of afternoons spent discussing sports with Dave and Joel Hall at Hall's Nostalgia and with Walt, Dave and Joe at Kenmore Sportscards near Fenway Park. If any of them read this forum: Thanks for the memories!
B0b Rich@rds0n

[wolf441]

Originally Posted by spec

Like most of the oldtimers who have posted about collecting in the 50s and 60s, I was limited to convenience stores and mom & pop markets when I first discovered baseball cards back in Florida.
However, when I graduated to vintage cards in the 70s and 80s, I had the great good fortune to be in Boston where a variety of card shops sprang up.
My apartment was within walking distance of Walt Kelley's store in Kenmore Square. Since I worked nights and weekends, I was able to spend many weekday afternoons there. However, I also made regular visits to Hall's Nostalgia in Arlington. That required taking the T into Boston, then out to Cambridge, followed by a bus to Arlington, but it was worth the trip. In addition, I used Boston's unique public transportation system to visit Bill Carvalho's store in Melrose and Phil Castinetti's Sportsworld in Saugus whenever I got word that they had purchased some interesting material.
Though my collection still includes wonderful cards from each of these establishments, some of my fondest collecting memories are of afternoons spent discussing sports with Dave and Joel Hall at Hall's Nostalgia and with Walt, Dave and Joe at Kenmore Sportscards near Fenway Park. If any of them read this forum: Thanks for the memories!
B0b Rich@rds0n

Great memories, Bob!

Was Kenmore Sportscards in one of those brownstones right near Kenmore Square where you walked up a short brick stairway in front of the building? I couldn't remember the name of the shop, but my mom used to drive me in back in the early 1980's and we'd park on a street behind the building (I remember 10 year old me thinking it was kind of a sketchy looking area ). I was amazed that there was a whole store that had nothing but sports cards and collectibles!

[spec]

Duplicate post

[Tere1071]

I went to my first card show in 1973 when I was 12 years old in Garden Grove, CA. That afternoon I remember getting a 63 Fleer Orlando Cepeda, a 52 Topps Willard Marshall, and a 51 Bowman Ned Garver. There was no rhyme or reason for my purchases, I just liked the way the cards looked.

Two years later a collector by the name of Wes Schleiger took me under his wing and for the next seven or so years on the first Thursday of the month, we would go to a monthly card meeting located mostly in Fountain Valley, CA. I would help him out behind the table selling cards for $10 and dinner at the KFC. Soon after, I also would help him out at various shows for years afterward and it was through him I got my first job working at a baseball card store in 1979. I never really made enough money to purchase the cards that are sought after and worshiped today, but working in that atmosphere was magical and a blessing.

Phil aka Tere1071

Reliving my youth and then some:

1953 Bowman Color set
1970 Topps Baseball (need about 150 cards for completion)
1971 Topps Baseball complete set
1972 Topps Baseball complete set
1973 Topps Baseball (200+ different cards towards an eventual set)
1974 Topps Baseball complete set
1975 Topps Baseball complete set