The passing of Ron Vitro

[Exhibitman]

Good man, solid hobbyist. RIP, Ron.

[oldjudge]

The first Old Judge cabinets I ever bought were from Ron in the early 1990s. He was an IBM employee at one point if I remember correctly. As others have said, always happy and always had interesting things. He was also incredibly honest. I remember in the mid-1990s there was a card I wanted at an auction in Manhattan. Ron was going and I asked him to bid for me. I figured the card was worth about $5000 but I gave him a limit above this. After the auction ended Ron called me to tell me I had won. Then he told me he got the card for $1250. I asked him how this was even possible. He said he told the other people in the room that he wanted it and not to bid. Everyone loved him so they obliged.
I remember when Ron had some heart problems --probably in the late-1990s or early-2000s. By then his son Ronny was a regular with him at the tables.
He was a good man--rest in peace my friend!

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

He was definitely much loved due in no small part to being quite the opposite of the caricatured notion of a typical dealer. He was kind, warm, even tempered, never pushy and well spoken. He treated people properly and I never heard a single ignorant or sarcastic comment from him. It's too bad that people don't think of someone like Ron when conjuring up their vision of a stereotypical dealer.

[Jay Wolt]

Sorry to hear this, had some purchases w/ Ron
Always a positive experience

[jbsports33]

Thank you so much for posting this! Ron was a great guy
and Barry and I had the pleasure of meeting him at multiple shows and working out some awesome deals. He will truly be missed in this hobby and will miss our conversations.

[D. Bergin]

I met Ron exactly once in the 90's and still remember it to this day. I was set up at a smaller show in CT and Ron comes in and sets up right next to me. I had previously known him from his ads in SCD but had never met him before.

I think I asked him why he was even doing this show, and he said something about being between bigger shows and needing something to do that weekend.

He couldn't have been a nicer neighbor for me to be set up next to. When I mentioned I needed a certain Native American Tobacco silk to complete a set I was working on, to my amazement he went and grabbed one of his boxes under his table and pulled out the one silk I was looking for and sold it to me for peanuts so I could complete the set.

I was just a kid in my early 20's and his stuff blew my stuff completely out of the water, but he was very complimentary of my set-up, while I realistically thought it was pretty trashy LOL. Very friendly, and we chatted it up for the whole show, which was not exactly wall to wall busy, as it was the time period shows were starting to die off a bit. Especially the smaller shows.

I remember he had a stack of Ruth signed checks in his display, just laying there in a pile. I thought at the time they were super expensive, but likely were a tiny fraction of what they go for nowadays. I was such a super dumb idiot back then.

[Andy Sandler]

Ron was a great guy! I will miss him!