T206 Wagner in Canada

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

] The Howe rookie (1951 Parkhurst) was probably a $10 card back then.

Not in the slightest. It had great value for the time, even then. Just as coveted as it is today. I'm Canadian and remember it well.

There was a store in my hometown that was famous for selling very bad fake signed cards. All with the same black Sharpie and all pathetic even to my grade school eyes. They had a Howe RC in one of those "iceberg" screw downs. This would have been around 1991. The asking price was $5K. I asked to see it. The jerk/forger begrudgingly "showed" it to me by lifting it from the shelf of the display case to the underside of the glass top. Gee, thanks. Between that move and the forgeries, I never went back. Thankfully, the place didn't last long. Scumbag.

[samosa4u]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

Not in the slightest. It had great value for the time, even then. Just as coveted as it is today.

Are you talking about the late-80s here? Early-80s? 70s? I had some old-timers tell me how cheap it used to be. They also told me that Gretzky's father used to work for Bell and would give his customers a free 79/80 OPC rookie card of his son. He had a deck of them, I was told.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

I edited my post. Please check out what I added. My frame of reference was the 1980's-very early 1990's. We were talking about the Gretzky/McNall Wagner, so I assumed we were all referring to that timeframe. Anyhow, all cleared up.

[samosa4u]

Ah, okay. I see it now.

I was a kid in the 90s too and remember the Howe rookie well. Beckett priced it at 3k and that's how much dealers wanted for theirs (even if they only had VG-EX copies). They called everything back then "near mint."

But Angelo had a store before then, no ?? He was buying and selling in the disco days and cards back then were really cheap. So, that's what I was asking fox about.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

But Angelo had a store before then, no ?? He was buying and selling in the disco days and cards back then were really cheap. So, that's what I was asking fox about.

No he did not. While Angie began setting up at sports card shows in the States in the 1970's, his brick and mortar store on Barton Street dated back only to 1991 or so. Here's a good article on Angie from the Hamilton Spectator:

Angelo Savelli - Hamilton Spectator; 5 April 2024

I need to scan some items for a post on my recollections of my visits to the store.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

While Angie began setting up at sports card shows in the States in the 1970's, his brick and mortar store on Barton Street dated back only to 1991 or so.

I need to scan some items for a post on my recollections of my visits to the store.

Okay! I've not been able to find any pictures of Angie's King of Cards store, but here's what I remember:

The store wasn't just a small cubbyhole. It was deep and roomy with the sales counter at the back. Neither was it overflowing with boxes of cards all over the place. Yes, he had packs of new product on his sales counter but what he was mainly selling was his doubles which were all displayed nicely by sports category in glass cabinets on either side of the store plus one down the middle front to back. These vintage doubles of his went back to the 1920's. More were Hockey than Baseball but he had a fair amount of CFL plus even some Wrestling as well.

I bought this unbroken strip of Hockey coasters that were included in El Producto Cigar boxes during the 1967 Xmas season at his store:



(Not one of mine.)

So cool! I just wish El Producto had issued several more panels.

I also bought a few 1954 Blue Ribbon CFL cards, 1956 Shredded Wheat CFL cards, 1959 Wheaties CFL cards and 1963 CFL Coins from Angie but don't ask me which since I no longer remember. Here though are some sample pics from my present day collection:











Overall though it's funny the things I remember from thirty years ago:

I know I visited Angie's store on 19 November 1994. I had passed up attending the Vanier Cup game at Toronto's SkyDome that day even though my beloved University of Western Ontario Mustangs were playing the University of Saskatchewan Huskies for the title. You see Western had beaten Saskatchewan handily every time they'd faced each other previously in the playoffs and I was confident Western would cruise to another victory. Well Western blew a seventeen point lead in the fourth quarter and had to march down the field with less than a minute to play to score a game tying field goal. Final score:

Western 50 Saskatchewan 40 (OT)

So I missed a great game!

I took my card collecting partner from 1963-65, Tony, to visit Angie at his store once or twice. On one of those occasions (perhaps the day before the 1996 Grey Cup game in Hamilton) Angie was dealing with a twelve year old kid who had $10 to spend on either a Pavel Bure or a Sergei Federov card. I clearly remember Angie saying to the kid "I'd go for Sergei Federov. Pavel Bure is up-and-down but you're not going to go wrong with Federov."

Tony and I of course kept straight faces and said nothing at all. When we left the store, Tony turned to me with a grin on his face and said "Yup! Old Ang sure can't go wrong selling the kid a Sergei Federov card for ten bucks!"

Then another time when I dropped in on Angie not long before he closed up shop, he suggested we go to Sam's Hotel & Tavern just a very few steps to the east so we could continue chatting about cards and sports. It was your regular working class bar and though it was rather early in the evening there were already two working girls in the bar one of whom was wearing a bright red dress. They weren't knockouts but they were alright. When it came time to order, Angie said to me "You know what beer I like these days? It rhymes with whores. It's Coors Light!" From his comment I drew two conclusions. Angie didn't like good beer. I mean I would have guessed he'd have ordered Labatt's IPA (my father's choice) or 50 Ale, Molson Export Ale or Carling Red Cap Ale but he opted for an American near beer instead. Secondly he didn't approve of the whores. (Being more liberal minded in such matters myself, their presence bothered me not at all.) So neither booze nor women tempted Ang. All he needed were his cards!

He regularly sneered at the frenzied collecting of the junk wax sets and some of the prices the manufactured "scarcities" fetched. He told me one time in 1996 or so that he did like the Hockey Pogs though! This was probably because Pogs targetted kids and not adult collectors.

Some years later Angie told me about an incident where the cops had phoned him to leave the house because they'd got a tip of a planned home invasion. The cops then apprehended two armed thugs who had pulled into Angie's driveway! This understandably shook Angie up. He said they were planning to kill him for his collection!

It was also at about that time (1997-2000?) that I asked Angie how he could derive any pleasure from owning the T206 Honus Wagner card when he was keeping it in a safety deposit box. Within about six months to a year he sold all his Baseball, Basketball and NFL cards to a big California dealer and closed his store.

I also remember the non-pretentious old school Bel-Air restaurant across the street run by a Polish couple where I used to get perogies while waiting for Angie's store to open at noon or so on Saturdays.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

IPA. Talk about a throwback! Were they even still making that in 1994? I don't ever remember seeing it anywhere at that time.

[gregndodgers]

Savelli said he started collecting as a 10 year old kid in the 40s when he went on a family trip from Canada to New Haven, Conn., where he bought his first pack of baseball cards from a store.

Then he said that card collecting really took off in the early 70s when the first card convention was held in Detroit.

I recall attending my first card show at a Holiday Inn in around 1977. I saw a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth’ for sale by an older guy. I told the guy that I wanted to buy it. He answered me, “kid, you can’t afford it. It costs $100 !!!”

To me, a 10 year old kid back in 77’, $100 seemed like $10,000 today, and I’m sure most adults at the time thought it was crazy to pay $100 for a cardboard toy!

Ahh, to go back in time!

P.s. Something that cost $100 in 1977 would cost around $600 today when accounting for inflation only.

[bmattioli]

I'll bet he had some great stuff coming into his store from walk-ins off the street and folks looking to sell. That's the era I wish I had a store..

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by bmattioli

I'll bet he had some great stuff coming into his store from walk-ins off the street and folks looking to sell. That's the era I wish I had a store..

By the 1990's though there had already been loads of publicity about the prices vintage cards could fetch. This created unrealistic expectations among the general public with respect to how much their not-nearly-mint "old" cards were worth.

But the mathematics of operating a card shop even in the 1970's and 1980's could be grim. Sure, the proprietor might pay next to nothing for the cards coming in the door but in turn the cards he was selling were fetching only a little something. And he had expenses like rent and salaries including his own.

That's why most card and comic retailing in all but the very biggest cities was done as an adjunct of coin/stamp shops and used book stores. I recall that the first dedicated comic store in my home town of London, Ontario opened in a very low rent outlet on Stanley Street in 1979-80 and still lasted less than a year.

[maniac_73]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

By the 1990's though there had already been loads of publicity about the prices vintage cards could fetch. This created unrealistic expectations among the general public with respect to how much their not-nearly-mint "old" cards were worth.

But the mathematics of operating a card shop even in the 1970's and 1980's could be grim. Sure, the proprietor might pay next to nothing for the cards coming in the door but in turn the cards he was selling were fetching only a little something. And he had expenses like rent and salaries including his own.

That's why most card and comic retailing in all but the very biggest cities was done as an adjunct of coin/stamp shops and used book stores. I recall that the first dedicated comic store in my home town of London, Ontario opened in a very low rent outlet on Stanley Street in 1980 and still lasted less than a year.

And to think they couldve had direct access to the old OPC factory

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

I recall that the first dedicated comic store in my home town of London, Ontario opened in a very low rent outlet on Stanley Street in 1980 and still lasted less than a year.

Guessing it was by that spooky Stanley Variety with its sordid history and creepy owner who mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again.

...but I'll leave it at that, as this could pose the biggest thread derailment ever if we went off on that particular tangent. Balticfox undoubtedly knows exactly what I'm talking about, as we're apparently from the same town. Small world.

[Balticfox]

Sadly it looks as if Angie's old "King of Cards" store is empty and boarded up now:



I believe it was the storefront on the right of the picture above.

[paulmolive]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

Sadly it looks as if Angie's old "King of Cards" store is empty and boarded up now:



I believe it was the storefront on the right of the picture above.

Thank you so much for sharing all of this. Everything on Barton St. is boarded up now lol. I seem to remember it was #630. The storefront was very small, and in the evening it was barely lit up at all. My mom and I would often visit Angelo, and then head to the old Trocadero restaurant just down the street for dinner. I was just a kid.. Glorious times. Angelo helped me find a lot of rare pre-war baseball stuff. I'd make a list, and he'd call me when he found the cards. Awesome guy.