Tell your stories Of dealings with legends of the hobby

[BobbyVCP]

BTW last I heard Goody is still alive and Matt from Beverly Hills Baseball Cards talks to him and visits.

[camlov2]

I remember collecting when I was younger and Jim Horne was always around to share info regarding cards. He even allowed me to look thorugh his collection and help sort out topps sets. Even today we discuss some random set each time we get together. The guy was great growing up, he even helped coach some of my baseball teams...

[Rickyy]

Wow Glad to hear Goody is still alive and well. I too dealt with him..over the phone about his ad....I think that was about 1974 and I was also a snotty nosed kid..and I got yelled at. But I did get some nice 56 Topps cards from him eventually.

Also bought complete 73 topps series 4 and 5 from Larry Fristch that year since I couldn't find them in my area stores. I spoke to him over the phone and he encouraged me to complete sets and then work backwards as I got older and had more money...but most of all enjoy and have fun.

My first big purchase was in 75..bought a complete 72 set from Stan Martucci in Staten Island off of his ad in a sports magazine.

I also bought a bunch of singles from the early 70's sets from Bruce Yeko after I read about him having over a million cards in the BB card flippin book.

I wish I was collecting pre war back then...now that would have been sweet!

Ricky Y

[Griffins]

My first dealings were with Goody too. You'd make a reservation, arrive at your appointed time, and he'd totally disregard it. Once in he proved to be an incredibly miserable guy. I recall getting '39 Playball Dimaggios for $5 and Greenberg for a buck, both having sample backs.
His wife, Esther, was really nice to kids and apologetic over the way Goody would treat us, but it made no difference to him.
There were so many good guys at the monthly Garden Grove shows back then- Jim Nowell, Gavin Riley, Merv Williams, Clay Hill, Steve Brunner, to name a few-once we clued into them my friends and I never had to deal with Goody's abuse again.
I dealt a lot with Richard Gelman's Wholesale Card Co too- T206's were .50 each I believe, and I remember getting a Uzit back in one order. My two buddies and I really got into T205's and T206's (about '73, when we were 12) and ended up running ads offer something like 50 '72 Topps for a T206, or 75 of them for a T205. We thought we'd get a few cards but within weeks got totally slammed with T's and had to go around the neighborhood buying more cards to fulfill the trades. I think I ended up with almost 300 T205's and T206's from a couple of ads, and a lot of the cards came from long time hobbyists that just hadn't kept up with the current sets.

[thekingofclout]

September 27, 1971
Adco, The Ultimate Sports Nostalgia Trip, Can Be All Yours For A Mere $100,000

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...5327/index.htm

[tedzan]

Does anyone have any stories regarding Topps executive Sy Berger ?

I understand he was quite a character.


TED Z

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Does anyone have any stories regarding Topps executive Sy Berger ?

I understand he was quite a character.


TED Z

Ted:

There area couple of stories about Berger in "Mint Condition" the book by David Jamieson and a couple of nuggets here and there in the old hobby mags but I think the best stories may never be told. The Shorin family from what I have seen did not like their employees to tell tales except in controlled environments and it does not seem like Sy wants to tell too many stories these days beyond the usual three or four you see repeated everywhere.

I too would love to hear more stories about Sy and Woody Gelman, Len Brown and the other "bigwigs" at Topps back in the day. There must be hundreds of great untold stories from/about these guys. One such example would be the Rookie Banquet dinners in the 60's, which I believe were hosted by Berger and were quite raucous; I'll bet some whoppers happened at those over the years.

[Gary Dunaier]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Does anyone have any stories regarding Topps executive Sy Berger ?

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but Fred Harris and Brendan Boyd's Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, originally published in 1973, has an interview with Sy Berger. About the only "gossipy" thing in the interview is that at the time Mr. Berger was on a water diet.