Whatever happened to your card dealer of the past?

[novakjr]

Oh, I completely forgot one. There is a third still in business in my area. He was always a sporting goods/card shop, and pretty much stays open because the local schools use him for letterman's jackets. His current card inventory pretty much consists of trying to sell his leftover early 90's wax at original value. Boxes upon boxes of '92 Donruss for $35/box...

Also forgot about a newer one that opened up in the past 10 years in Willoughby. It's a pretty solid shop, mostly newer stuff, but occasionally can find a deal on some vintage, and he's pretty good for 60's and 70's singles for set building... I think he's the lone solely sports-card shop in the area..

[Brianruns10]

What happened to the dealers of the past?

They got eaten up by the ones working now. Seriously, some of the guys I see making the rounds at these shows see look as if they're barely mobile...

[Rich Klein]

I talk to him on occasion through AOL Chat. He is now running his family buisness,

Regards
Rich

[saltire]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

I talk to him on occasion through AOL Chat. He is now running his family buisness,

Regards
Rich

Thanks for the update, Rich. If you don't mind, perhaps next time you talk to him you could ask if he recalls dealing with a guy in Scotland, and if so tell him hi from Glenn!

[Exhibitman]

Out of business or dead, I guess...

[gnpaden]

My LCS which has been around for 22 years is closing his doors October 1st. I've been going here since I was a little kid and it's kind of sad. Local shops are hard to find and now even harder, but these guys just can't hang like they used to. Not sure what I'm going to do with my spare time/disposable income now.

[Volod]

Originally Posted by Brianruns10

What happened to the dealers of the past?

They got eaten up by the ones working now. Seriously, some of the guys I see making the rounds at these shows see look as if they're barely mobile...

Which ones - the buyers or the dealers?

[zljones]

HI Stamps and Coins for me out of Clarendon Hills, Illinois when I used to live in Hinsdale. They are long gone and the building is torn down and replaced. My last memory was going down there with $35 in 1991 at the age of 10 trying to score a Hank Aaron card. These guys talked me into buying a 62 Topps Sphann instead since I did not have enough for Aaron. I did not know who Warren Sphann was back then, so when I told my mom I spent all my money on a guy I knew nothing about because the shop owners talked me into it, my mom was furious and went down there demanding they return my money. These guys were in their mid to late 20s back then and they refused to refund. I never went back.
When I moved to Romeoville in my teen years, I remember Gold Glove. they were a great business, very honest, ok prices, nice guys til they went belly up in the late 90s-early 2000s I think.

[theseeker]

I first discovered there was such a thing as a full-time card dealer by noticing a tiny ad in the back of a Street and Smith's Baseball annual. The ad was placed by none other than Kit Young out of San Diego, CA. It opened up a whole new world as before then I, along witrh all my friends, only knew of grocery and variety/candy stores as suppliers.
Is Kit Young still around? I know the shop still is doing business but, like Larry Fritsch Cards, it's a shell of it's former self. Also wonder about the Card Collectors Company. I know it went under not long after new ownership but, what about the original owners? I know Joseph Pasternack is selling whats left of the old CCC Reprint sets on Ebay. He had his own internet site, Champions of Sports, but no longer maitains it.
And that brings me to one more question.....While we all know what happened to whats left of the old dealers-- they reduced overhead by selling on the internet. But why are most of them now choosing Ebay as there main source of sales rather than their own website?
One of the last holdouts was Dean's Cards. For the first time he has a ton of listings on Ebay. Going out of business? Not that I'd miss him, just curious.

[Jerry G]

I remember receiving his mimeographed auction sheets in the early 1970's. There were no pictures and scans were unheard of. I mailed in lots of bids, but only had two wins. The wins were my first two 1933 Goudey Babe Ruths. I stretched my budget and got 'em for 25 bucks each.

At some point the auctions quit coming and I never heard of him again.

[Jayworld]

I began ordering from Richard Gelman's Card Collector's Company about 1977 when I was 10. I remember ordering T206 cards in poor condition for 50 cents each, and also filling out my 1977 Topps sets (he offered all singles at different price points), as well as buying lots of cards (he would offer lots of 25, 50 and 100 different from various years). That's how I started my 1976 Topps set.

I also ordered from Donn Jennings out of Alabama, as I received his catalog about once every other month in the late 1970s.

Others that come to mind were the Mid-Atlantic Coin Exchange (dealt in lots of Bowman cards), Hal's Nostalgia, and of course, Renata Galasso.

I never ordered from Larry Fritsch cards, even when he advertised (full page ads) in Baseball Cards magazine and SCD back in the early 1980s. I always thought he was too high, and he sold his sets for at least $3-5 over other dealers at the time.

Best deal I ever got from a catalog dealer; $9.99 postpaid 1979 Topps mint set from Leon Rock. Still have the set. Also paid $3.50 for the Wonderbread Battlestar Galactica set from Leon. Have no idea what happened to him or the others, although I did read somewhere that Larry Fritsch bought out the Card Collector's Company stock....