The passing of Ron Vitro

[BRoberts]

The current hobby could surely use more people like Ron. Always had great experiences with him.

[akleinb611]

Damn. I've been dealing with Ron and chatting him up for well over forty years. Everyone else is correct - he was warm, friendly, charming, a great dealer with great stuff. He was practically the only card dealer my wife liked - she has little patience for arrogance, and we have way too much in this hobby. Ron was always friendly, happy to answer anyone's questions, and was truly a role model for anyone who cared to notice. I still remember my first and best deal with him. He had an interesting jersey behind his table at a show in midtown Manhattan in the mid-80's, a flannel that looked a little like a Yankees shirt, but with an odd-looking logo. I thought it might be a minor league shirt and so I traded several Cincinnati Reds knits for it. Much later, the late Dave Mediema identified it as a prop jersey from the movie "Bang the Drum Slowly." Neither Ron nor I had any idea.

So now, Ron's gone, Dave Mediema died recently, and I'm feeling more and more like an endangered species.

Condolences to Ron's family. They should take solace in the fact that Ron was truly well liked by everyone who met him. In this hobby, that's quite an accomplishment.

Alan Kleinberger

[hcv123]

I remember Ron when I was just a kid back at the Gloria Rothstein shows! Always enjoyed seeing him in recent years at the national and Westchester shows. Talked a bunch and had a few transactions over the years. RIP.

[theshowandme]

Obituary

https://www.tributearchive.com/obitu...3/ronald-vitro

[T206Collector]

I am confident that many cards in my T206 collection came from his table at the White Plain shows over the years. He always asked about my kids. Super nice guy who will be sorely missed. The hobby is lesser without him.

[autograf]

Ron was a good man. I bought my first W600 from him in the mid-1990’s at an east coast national—Bobby Wallace with a glassine envelope. Over the years I bought a lot from Ron and sold him a lot as well. He was always fair on both sides of the transactions. I know he’d had a heart monitor thing for the last 4-5 years but I still enjoyed seeing him at the National with that same smile and calling me Tommy. Prayers to his wife and sons and grandkids. He was an original.

[Rich Klein]

Dave Mediema died recently,


Damned missed this. Dave deserved a thread as well

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by akleinb611

Damn. So now, Ron's gone, Dave Mediema died recently, and I'm feeling more and more like an endangered species. Alan Kleinberger

That's because we are! The hobby knowledge those two took with them is literally incalculable. That's something you don't hear much about when an old-timer passes--the singular, specialized, once-in-a-lifetime information that only decades in this pursuit of ours can bestow, and when we're gone, it's gone. Little of this stuff gets written down in books, so it disappears. Not to put myself in the same category as these legends, but when I go, a book, or at lease a booklet, worth of knowledge and anecdotes to do with my collecting and dealing niches of WaJo and Washington material, much of it about things I've only seen once or twice in my lifetime, the rarest of the rare--and there has been an amazing amount in that category over my lifetime, is lost. When I go up in flames, poof! Sad but true.