What Was The Hobby Like Back In The Day?

[Seven]

Every so often, I'll see a post here or there on a thread talking about the Card Collecting Hobby years back. I know on the forum there are a number of collectors who have been around for a long time, so if you wouldn't mind me asking, What was it like back in the day? How were shows? The general community?

I'm in my mid 20's and I'll freely admit I feel a little overwhelmed nowadays, at least when it comes to the newer stuff, so I try to stick to vintage. Even with vintage though, some cards just seem like a pipe dream, at the moment, with the amount of money they can end up costing. Was it always like that? Or were there better deals to be made, 20, 30, 40 years ago?

I'll cease my rambling there. Regardless I love this community and would love to hear from the more experienced collectors what the hobby used to be like.

- James.

[TCMA]

I think you’ll enjoy the blog post I made for the SABR Baseball Cards Research Committee earlier this year. Check it out:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sabrbas...ago-today/amp/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Seven]

Originally Posted by TCMA

I think you’ll enjoy the blog post I made for the SABR Baseball Cards Research Committee earlier this year. Check it out:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sabrbas...ago-today/amp/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Will Gladly check it out. I'm open to reading some books on the Hobby as well if you have any suggestions.

Side Note: SABR's baseball cards twitter account is one of my favorites to follow.

[bmattioli]

I'm a '70's kid who bought my cards with my paper route tip money, the rest was saved.
7 Topps packs for a dollar and I loved the Hostess cards which were cut and saved, Food issues are my passion..

[lumberjack]

In Detroit in the mid 1970s we had a collectors club, which I believe was called the South East Michigan Collectors Association. If there had been a letterhead, it would have to have been printed on the horizontal. Tim Zwick, whom I believe is out there, could fill us in on the club's short history. Dues were something like $5 a year.

We just couldn't generate interest, which is a puzzle as the Detroit conventions always were popular.

Chicago had a number of advanced collectors as well, but their club did much better attracting members. I believe they would host a show and have their meeting at the same time.

This doesn't have much to do with the above, but Mr. Mint, who was like a hurricane, walked around with a small suitcase filled with cash. I think everyone knows that. He kept after Frank Nagy, hoping Nagy would let him run amok....Frank Nagy, who had seen it all, would just say, "Bring more suitcases...."
lumberjack

[whitehse]

Originally Posted by lumberjack

In Detroit in the mid 1970s we had a collectors club, which I believe was called the South East Michigan Collectors Association. If there had been a letterhead, it would have to have been printed on the horizontal. Tim Zwick, whom I believe is out there, could fill us in on the club's short history. Dues were something like $5 a year.

We just couldn't generate interest, which is a puzzle as the Detroit conventions always were popular.

Chicago had a number of advanced collectors as well, but their club did much better attracting members. I believe they would host a show and have their meeting at the same time.

This doesn't have much to do with the above, but Mr. Mint, who was like a hurricane, walked around with a small suitcase filled with cash. I think everyone knows that. He kept after Frank Nagy, hoping Nagy would let him run amok....Frank Nagy, who had seen it all, would just say, "Bring more suitcases...."
lumberjack

Great stories....We had always heard about the Detroit shows especially with Jim Hawkins but I never went. Chicago always seemed to be a great place to get cards so there was no reason to go to Detroit.

Mr. Mint....ugh. That guy was a weasel from the very beginning in my opinion. Too many stories about him and they are all very true...and then some.

[GasHouseGang]

I grew up in a small town in the midwest and I was the same as Bruce. I used my lawn mowing money in the 1970's ($3 a lawn) to buy cards and saved the rest. That wouldn't even buy a pack now. Everyone that collected bought that year's Topps packs putting together sets one card at a time and traded with each other to try get cards you didn't have. I didn't know there were any dealers or other ways to get cards. If it wasn't available at the local grocery store, it didn't exist. That was life before the internet.

[Seven]

Originally Posted by lumberjack

In Detroit in the mid 1970s we had a collectors club, which I believe was called the South East Michigan Collectors Association. If there had been a letterhead, it would have to have been printed on the horizontal. Tim Zwick, whom I believe is out there, could fill us in on the club's short history. Dues were something like $5 a year.

We just couldn't generate interest, which is a puzzle as the Detroit conventions always were popular.

Chicago had a number of advanced collectors as well, but their club did much better attracting members. I believe they would host a show and have their meeting at the same time.

This doesn't have much to do with the above, but Mr. Mint, who was like a hurricane, walked around with a small suitcase filled with cash. I think everyone knows that. He kept after Frank Nagy, hoping Nagy would let him run amok....Frank Nagy, who had seen it all, would just say, "Bring more suitcases...."
lumberjack

I've read many stories of Mr. Mint, but that one is pretty funny. I would love to hear more of the history behind that Association.

[vintagechris]

Originally Posted by lumberjack

He kept after Frank Nagy, hoping Nagy would let him run amok....Frank Nagy, who had seen it all, would just say, "Bring more suitcases...."
lumberjack

That's classic! Bring more suitcases.

[whitehse]

Originally Posted by Seven

Every so often, I'll see a post here or there on a thread talking about the Card Collecting Hobby years back. I know on the forum there are a number of collectors who have been around for a long time, so if you wouldn't mind me asking, What was it like back in the day? How were shows? The general community?

I'm in my mid 20's and I'll freely admit I feel a little overwhelmed nowadays, at least when it comes to the newer stuff, so I try to stick to vintage. Even with vintage though, some cards just seem like a pipe dream, at the moment, with the amount of money they can end up costing. Was it always like that? Or were there better deals to be made, 20, 30, 40 years ago?

I'll cease my rambling there. Regardless I love this community and would love to hear from the more experienced collectors what the hobby used to be like.

- James.

Hi James,

I was collecting as a nine year old in 1973 and have not looked back since. By 1979 there were a few card shows around the Chicagoland area where I grew up and they were promoted by the Chicagoland Collectors group headed up by Bruce Paynter who was the promoter of the first National card show in Chicago (National card shows moved around back in the day and local promoters were responsible to put on the show with the over site of the National board). Most collectors in the area back then look at the Hillside, Illinois Holiday Inn as the place where the card shows happened once a month and that was usually it. No small shows held in schools or churches or anything like that, at least in the area in which I lived. In 1979 My dad, myself and another collector friend held a card show in our garage and we advertised that we were buying sports cards. We had a line down the street with people bringing us shopping bags of cards to sell and they could not believe it when we were handing them hundred dollar bulls for their cards. Remember, there were no price guides except for Beckett's annual guide so vintage cards were not pricey back then. At that garage show I walked away with a full set of 1955,57, 62 and 64 Topps baseball sets and hundreds of doubles to trade or sell. We continued to have shows and I remember paying $50 each for a Goudey Gehrig and Ruth that walked in the door which had a Beckett book value at the time of $200 and my dad thought I was nuts for spending that kind of money. I loved shows then because one never knew what was going to walk in the door. Cards shows started to become more popular in about 1981 and literally blew up in the mid-80's. It was a great time to be a collector because it was more about the card and not the grade and most people in the hobby were genuine collectors and not flippers.

There were no price guides until Dr. Beckett published his annual price guide I believe in 1980 or so which meant prices remained relatively the same for the year until the next annual price guide came out. There was no need to adjust prices as the demand was fairly static until the error craze came about in 1981 with the Fleer and Donruss errors, most notably the "C" Nettles card. This card and most of the Fleer errors were bringing crazy prices and this was the time we saw monthly or weekly price guides being produced such as the Card Prices Update (CPU). Once the weekly price guides came out we saw huge fluctuations in new cards and slowly, the vintage cards as well. I remember being at one of those early Chicago shows and was offered a near mint '53 Mantle for $50 bucks and I had spent everything I came with. I didnt have the funds and lost out. I also remember another show where a kid had a rare Babe Ruth rookie that he was asking $200 bucks for and everyone turned him down because they thought his asking price was too crazy.

The hobby was filled with Bill Mastro type people who had been in it since they were kids. I remember being young and seeing another young guy named Keith Olberman at many of the shows, buying and selling cards. It was a great hobby to be a part of during that time frame which allowed me to have an incredible collection and meet some awesome people both int he hobby and sports in general. There were certainly deals to be had but you had to know how to haggle and trading was much more preferred than selling.

I am sure others have clearer memories of those days back then than I do.

Good times for sure.

[Seven]

Originally Posted by whitehse

Hi James,

I was collecting as a nine year old in 1973 and have not looked back since. By 1979 there were a few card shows around the Chicagoland area where I grew up and they were promoted by the Chicagoland Collectors group headed up by Bruce Paynter who was the promoter of the first National card show in Chicago (National card shows moved around back in the day and local promoters were responsible to put on the show with the over site of the National board). Most collectors in the area back then look at the Hillside, Illinois Holiday Inn as the place where the card shows happened once a month and that was usually it. No small shows held in schools or churches or anything like that, at least in the area in which I lived. In 1979 My dad, myself and another collector friend held a card show in our garage and we advertised that we were buying sports cards. We had a line down the street with people bringing us shopping bags of cards to sell and they could not believe it when we were handing them hundred dollar bulls for their cards. Remember, there were no price guides except for Beckett's annual guide so vintage cards were not pricey back then. At that garage show I walked away with a full set of 1955,57, 62 and 64 Topps baseball sets and hundreds of doubles to trade or sell. We continued to have shows and I remember paying $50 each for a Goudey Gehrig and Ruth that walked in the door which had a Beckett book value at the time of $200 and my dad thought I was nuts for spending that kind of money. I loved shows then because one never knew what was going to walk in the door. Cards shows started to become more popular in about 1981 and literally blew up in the mid-80's. It was a great time to be a collector because it was more about the card and not the grade and most people in the hobby were genuine collectors and not flippers.

There were no price guides until Dr. Beckett published his annual price guide I believe in 1980 or so which meant prices remained relatively the same for the year until the next annual price guide came out. There was no need to adjust prices as the demand was fairly static until the error craze came about in 1981 with the Fleer and Donruss errors, most notably the "C" Nettles card. This card and most of the Fleer errors were bringing crazy prices and this was the time we saw monthly or weekly price guides being produced such as the Card Prices Update (CPU). Once the weekly price guides came out we saw huge fluctuations in new cards and slowly, the vintage cards as well. I remember being at one of those early Chicago shows and was offered a near mint '53 Mantle for $50 bucks and I had spent everything I came with. I didnt have the funds and lost out. I also remember another show where a kid had a rare Babe Ruth rookie that he was asking $200 bucks for and everyone turned him down because they thought his asking price was too crazy.

The hobby was filled with Bill Mastro type people who had been in it since they were kids. I remember being young and seeing another young guy named Keith Olberman at many of the shows, buying and selling cards. It was a great hobby to be a part of during that time frame which allowed me to have an incredible collection and meet some awesome people both int he hobby and sports in general. There were certainly deals to be had but you had to know how to haggle and trading was much more preferred than selling.

Good times for sure.

Andrew,

It's always interesting hearing stories like this. I know everyone seems to romanticize the past, we look at it through rose colored glasses but that sounds like a truly wonderful time to collect. Card prices on the whole haven't even kept in line with inflation, they've blown past it! Even $200 for a Ruth or a Gehrig would have been an absolute steal if we look at the prices now.

I look at the state of the Hobby and I'm puzzled to say the least. I understand the concept of premium new products, a manufactured supply and demand, but I see people paying thousands of dollars for cards of players that haven't even sniffed the Big Leagues yet!

The Vintage side is a little more understandable, I can come to grips with the fact that as years pass, less and less cards from way back, whether they be the old tobacco, caramel or bubblegum cards are going to be around. Still the surge in pricing is incredible. Again just me rambling at this point. Maybe it was the pre-internet days, that kept prices down

Thanks for the insight!

- James

[Exhibitman]

I got my first cards in 1970 when I was 5, then a lot more in 1971. I don’t really date my ‘serious’ collecting until about 1974-1975. With a brief detour in HS I have been at it ever since. So, some reflections on the OP question:

In the middle to late 1970s there was virtually no hobby, at least not as we think of it today. The publications were amateur labors of love that mostly consisted of a few articles and mail order ads. You literally had to know of the publications to even know to get them, because they were not retailed. My first ‘break’ in terms of card knowledge was seeing The Complete Book Of Baseball Cards by Steve Clark in a bookstore in 1975 and pestering my parents to buy it for me. I read it over and over, gleaning what I could from it and drooling over the images of T and R cards I dreamed of owning. I also found listings for hobby publications and organizations in there.

There were no price guides, so you pretty much winged it. A card might be worth a lot more from day to day depending on who it was who you dealt with. Also, no one gave a damn about condition. It was all about completion and amassing more, not what condition it was in.

You got cards from wherever you could. I lived in NYC the first few years I collected and my friends and I had free run of the streets after school and on weekends (at like 9-10-11 years old; very different times) so we ended up going to antique stores, old book stores, junk stores, mom and pop candy stores, drug stores, basically anywhere we thought we might find cards. When you found a “honey hole” (as the American Pickers guys would call it), you would try to keep it secret from your friends and clear it out as fast as your allowance would let you. Corner candy stores were also good places to go because they would put out old remnant wax packs for sale. I remember one store near my house that had a barrel of mixed wax dating back several years that I dove into frequently, and another one where I cleaned out a half box of 1971 Topps 2nd series football in February 1977.

People generally had no idea that cards were collected or had value--this was before the news stories on Mr. Mint and so forth--so when you told someone you were a collector, they’d often just hand you their grown kids’ old cards. I had neighbors whose father was a professor at a local college and he’d ask around campus for cards for them, so they had the greatest collection. My greatest ‘find’ ever was when I was 12 and newly arrived in Los Angeles. My parents took me to someone’s house. The hostess asked me what I liked to do, I said collect cards, and she handed me a 2’ square box filled to the brim with her kids’ old cards. Thousands and thousands of them. I had the greatest sorting party on the floor of my bedroom that evening, culminating in finding a 1955 Ted Williams.

Card shows were practically non-existent, though there were card clubs that were starting up and they started to have annual or bi-annual shows usually clustered around a holiday. My first show was the American Sports Card Collectors Association show the Saturday morning of Thanksgiving weekend 1976 at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC, thanks to discovering the ASCCA from either the Clark book or some publication I found through the Clark book. I finished my Topps run of Willie Mays cards there, with a loan against my allowance of $45 to enable me to buy the 1952-1953 cards. My mother nearly killed my father when she found out he’d allowed me to spend that much on two baseball cards; several years later I sold the 1953 Mays for $350. In Los Angeles I went to the shows in Anaheim that became the National. I bought my first T206--a Johnson ready to pitch--from Mike Berkus at one of those shows. Set me back $12. As a kid with limited funds my thing was the discount boxes. I still have a 1953 Musial I pulled out of one of them for a buck. I filled in most of a run of Mantle cards from those boxes. Not a 1952...

When we moved to LA in 1977, I ended up finding a card club, the West Coast Card Club, in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. This was when I was 12-15. We had monthly meetings at a church basement in Northridge. For ten bucks you could rent a 6’ table and sell. If I made $50 in a night I was thrilled. No one gave a crap about sales tax, business licenses, etc. It was just a silly thing we did. My parents would just shake their heads and let me loose for an evening at the church. Every meeting there was an auction. I remember paying $3.25 for a 1952 Bowman Mantle at one auction, about a buck a card for a group of signed 1953 Bowman cards in another.

There were a few hobby shops but they were odd places run by even odder people. The first one in LA was run by Goody Goldfadden. He was a pioneer and legend of the hobby but also a legendary jerk, especially to kids. I went to his store once and it was enough.

The collecting made you into a little businessman. When you found a good source of cards you’d use the extras to trade your friends for more cards. The usual ratio was one ‘old’ card for anywhere from 10-30 new cards. That was how you could quickly fill out your newer sets. Since there was a dearth of information on old cards, if you knew something you quickly learned to keep it secret and use it to your advantage in a deal. I once spotted a very rare regional card in another kid’s stash and got it as a ‘throw-in’ on a deal because he had no idea what it was. We were ruthless little sharks. On the other side of the coin, since there was so little easily gotten data, you would often think something was amazing when it really was pretty common. A trading buddy had a Callahan HOF Carl Hubbell and thought it was the greatest thing ever. It wasn’t.

Collecting also gave you invaluable experience interacting with adults. If you knew your cards you were treated with respect as a colleague, not as a dumbass kid. I remember ‘talking cards’ with a variety of guys as old as my grandfather, as an equal.

[Tere1071]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

I got my first cards in 1970 when I was 5, then a lot more in 1971. I don’t really date my ‘serious’ collecting until about 1974-1975. With a brief detour in HS I have been at it ever since. So, some reflections on the OP question:

In the middle to late 1970s there was virtually no hobby, at least not as we think of it today. The publications were amateur labors of love that mostly consisted of a few articles and mail order ads. You literally had to know of the publications to even know to get them, because they were not retailed. My first ‘break’ in terms of card knowledge was seeing The Complete Book Of Baseball Cards by Steve Clark in a bookstore in 1975 and pestering my parents to buy it for me. I read it over and over, gleaning what I could from it and drooling over the images of T and R cards I dreamed of owning. I also found listings for hobby publications and organizations in there.

There were no price guides, so you pretty much winged it. A card might be worth a lot more from day to day depending on who it was who you dealt with. Also, no one gave a damn about condition. It was all about completion and amassing more, not what condition it was in.

You got cards from wherever you could. I lived in NYC the first few years I collected and my friends and I had free run of the streets after school and on weekends (at like 9-10-11 years old; very different times) so we ended up going to antique stores, old book stores, junk stores, mom and pop candy stores, drug stores, basically anywhere we thought we might find cards. When you found a “honey hole” (as the American Pickers guys would call it), you would try to keep it secret from your friends and clear it out as fast as your allowance would let you. Corner candy stores were also good places to go because they would put out old remnant wax packs for sale. I remember one store near my house that had a barrel of mixed wax dating back several years that I dove into frequently, and another one where I cleaned out a half box of 1971 Topps 2nd series football in February 1977.

People generally had no idea that cards were collected or had value--this was before the news stories on Mr. Mint and so forth--so when you told someone you were a collector, they’d often just hand you their grown kids’ old cards. I had neighbors whose father was a professor at a local college and he’d ask around campus for cards for them, so they had the greatest collection. My greatest ‘find’ ever was when I was 12 and newly arrived in Los Angeles. My parents took me to someone’s house. The hostess asked me what I liked to do, I said collect cards, and she handed me a 2’ square box filled to the brim with her kids’ old cards. Thousands and thousands of them. I had the greatest sorting party on the floor of my bedroom that evening, culminating in finding a 1955 Ted Williams.

Card shows were practically non-existent, though there were card clubs that were starting up and they started to have annual or bi-annual shows usually clustered around a holiday. My first show was the American Sports Card Collectors Association show the Saturday morning of Thanksgiving weekend 1976 at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC, thanks to discovering the ASCCA from either the Clark book or some publication I found through the Clark book. I finished my Topps run of Willie Mays cards there, with a loan against my allowance of $45 to enable me to buy the 1952-1953 cards. My mother nearly killed my father when she found out he’d allowed me to spend that much on two baseball cards; several years later I sold the 1953 Mays for $350. In Los Angeles I went to the shows in Anaheim that became the National. I bought my first T206--a Johnson ready to pitch--from Mike Berkus at one of those shows. Set me back $12. As a kid with limited funds my thing was the discount boxes. I still have a 1953 Musial I pulled out of one of them for a buck. I filled in most of a run of Mantle cards from those boxes. Not a 1952...

When we moved to LA in 1977, I ended up finding a card club, the West Coast Card Club, in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. This was when I was 12-15. We had monthly meetings at a church basement in Northridge. For ten bucks you could rent a 6’ table and sell. If I made $50 in a night I was thrilled. No one gave a crap about sales tax, business licenses, etc. It was just a silly thing we did. My parents would just shake their heads and let me loose for an evening at the church. Every meeting there was an auction. I remember paying $3.25 for a 1952 Bowman Mantle at one auction, about a buck a card for a group of signed 1953 Bowman cards in another.

There were a few hobby shops but they were odd places run by even odder people. The first one in LA was run by Goody Goldfadden. He was a pioneer and legend of the hobby but also a legendary jerk, especially to kids. I went to his store once and it was enough.

The collecting made you into a little businessman. When you found a good source of cards you’d use the extras to trade your friends for more cards. The usual ratio was one ‘old’ card for anywhere from 10-30 new cards. That was how you could quickly fill out your newer sets. Since there was a dearth of information on old cards, if you knew something you quickly learned to keep it secret and use it to your advantage in a deal. I once spotted a very rare regional card in another kid’s stash and got it as a ‘throw-in’ on a deal because he had no idea what it was. On the other side of the coin, since there was so little easily gotten data, you would often think something was amazing when it really was pretty common. A trading buddy had a Callahan HOF Carl Hubbell and thought it was the greatest thing ever. It wasn’t.

Collecting also gave you invaluable experience interacting with adults. If you knew your cards you were treated with respect as a colleague, not as a dumbass kid. I remember ‘talking cards’ with a variety of guys as old as my grandfather.

I worked with a gentleman and once a month beginning in 1978 we used to drive out to the valley to work at a show that I believe was organized by All-Star Cards, but it was in. We were coming from Norwalk, so as soon as I got home from high school it was off to the meeting. Occasionally we would go to All-Star Cards or to Max Himmelstein's store before the meeting. Most of the shops are gone, I think Porky's from back then is still in the retail business. I knew Goody, definitely an interesting character.

[drcy]

It may (or may not have) been more wholesome back then, but the cards are the same and there is more widespread knowledge about them today.

The collecting and enjoying of the cards should be no different than 40, 50, 70 years ago.

Things are more complicated and commoditized these days in ways I guess, but fakes, scammers, trimmers, auctions, deals have been around a long time.

Trading was a common and widespread practice and culture back then, including through the mail and including at the start of the internet age. That is one big differernce.

[Seven]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

I got my first cards in 1970 when I was 5, then a lot more in 1971. I don’t really date my ‘serious’ collecting until about 1974-1975. With a brief detour in HS I have been at it ever since. So, some reflections on the OP question:

In the middle to late 1970s there was virtually no hobby, at least not as we think of it today. The publications were amateur labors of love that mostly consisted of a few articles and mail order ads. You literally had to know of the publications to even know to get them, because they were not retailed. My first ‘break’ in terms of card knowledge was seeing The Complete Book Of Baseball Cards by Steve Clark in a bookstore in 1975 and pestering my parents to buy it for me. I read it over and over, gleaning what I could from it and drooling over the images of T and R cards I dreamed of owning. I also found listings for hobby publications and organizations in there.

There were no price guides, so you pretty much winged it. A card might be worth a lot more from day to day depending on who it was who you dealt with. Also, no one gave a damn about condition. It was all about completion and amassing more, not what condition it was in.

You got cards from wherever you could. I lived in NYC the first few years I collected and my friends and I had free run of the streets after school and on weekends (at like 9-10-11 years old; very different times) so we ended up going to antique stores, old book stores, junk stores, mom and pop candy stores, drug stores, basically anywhere we thought we might find cards. When you found a “honey hole” (as the American Pickers guys would call it), you would try to keep it secret from your friends and clear it out as fast as your allowance would let you. Corner candy stores were also good places to go because they would put out old remnant wax packs for sale. I remember one store near my house that had a barrel of mixed wax dating back several years that I dove into frequently, and another one where I cleaned out a half box of 1971 Topps 2nd series football in February 1977.

People generally had no idea that cards were collected or had value--this was before the news stories on Mr. Mint and so forth--so when you told someone you were a collector, they’d often just hand you their grown kids’ old cards. I had neighbors whose father was a professor at a local college and he’d ask around campus for cards for them, so they had the greatest collection. My greatest ‘find’ ever was when I was 12 and newly arrived in Los Angeles. My parents took me to someone’s house. The hostess asked me what I liked to do, I said collect cards, and she handed me a 2’ square box filled to the brim with her kids’ old cards. Thousands and thousands of them. I had the greatest sorting party on the floor of my bedroom that evening, culminating in finding a 1955 Ted Williams.

Card shows were practically non-existent, though there were card clubs that were starting up and they started to have annual or bi-annual shows usually clustered around a holiday. My first show was the American Sports Card Collectors Association show the Saturday morning of Thanksgiving weekend 1976 at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC, thanks to discovering the ASCCA from either the Clark book or some publication I found through the Clark book. I finished my Topps run of Willie Mays cards there, with a loan against my allowance of $45 to enable me to buy the 1952-1953 cards. My mother nearly killed my father when she found out he’d allowed me to spend that much on two baseball cards; several years later I sold the 1953 Mays for $350. In Los Angeles I went to the shows in Anaheim that became the National. I bought my first T206--a Johnson ready to pitch--from Mike Berkus at one of those shows. Set me back $12. As a kid with limited funds my thing was the discount boxes. I still have a 1953 Musial I pulled out of one of them for a buck. I filled in most of a run of Mantle cards from those boxes. Not a 1952...

When we moved to LA in 1977, I ended up finding a card club, the West Coast Card Club, in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. This was when I was 12-15. We had monthly meetings at a church basement in Northridge. For ten bucks you could rent a 6’ table and sell. If I made $50 in a night I was thrilled. No one gave a crap about sales tax, business licenses, etc. It was just a silly thing we did. My parents would just shake their heads and let me loose for an evening at the church. Every meeting there was an auction. I remember paying $3.25 for a 1952 Bowman Mantle at one auction, about a buck a card for a group of signed 1953 Bowman cards in another.

There were a few hobby shops but they were odd places run by even odder people. The first one in LA was run by Goody Goldfadden. He was a pioneer and legend of the hobby but also a legendary jerk, especially to kids. I went to his store once and it was enough.

The collecting made you into a little businessman. When you found a good source of cards you’d use the extras to trade your friends for more cards. The usual ratio was one ‘old’ card for anywhere from 10-30 new cards. That was how you could quickly fill out your newer sets. Since there was a dearth of information on old cards, if you knew something you quickly learned to keep it secret and use it to your advantage in a deal. I once spotted a very rare regional card in another kid’s stash and got it as a ‘throw-in’ on a deal because he had no idea what it was. We were ruthless little sharks. On the other side of the coin, since there was so little easily gotten data, you would often think something was amazing when it really was pretty common. A trading buddy had a Callahan HOF Carl Hubbell and thought it was the greatest thing ever. It wasn’t.

Collecting also gave you invaluable experience interacting with adults. If you knew your cards you were treated with respect as a colleague, not as a dumbass kid. I remember ‘talking cards’ with a variety of guys as old as my grandfather, as an equal.

Adam,

Thank you for such a well detailed rundown. I find one striking similarity between collecting today and collecting many years ago; the treatment from adults in the community. One of my fondest collecting memories from when I was younger, was going to the small card show run in the Cooperstown VA by Ted, and interacting with people 30-40 years my senior, and their willingness ot engage in conversation concerning cards. I was fascinated by Lou Gehirg's #61 in the 34 Goudey set and probably prattled on about it for nearly 10 minutes. That's the one thing I'm very glad to see hasn't changed.

The deals to have been had before the commoditization of the hobby are quite frankly, insane. What I wouldn't kill to spend $325 on a 52 Bowman Mantle let alone win one for $3.25! Or a Walter Johnson for $12? Talk about a steal! Though I'd imagine back when you were a kid that was a good chunk of your funds.

I'm noticing a distinct lack of hobby shops today. I live in the NY area, and there aren't many. The ones that exist, don't have nearly as many vintage offerings as I would hope, I'll have to stick to the boards, Ebay, Auctions and shows. I will say one thing though, concerning ones near the Hall of Fame, I absolutely love Baseball Nostalgia. I wish it was a little bit closer than a four hour drive, but it's probably better off, on my wallet at least, that it isn't.

Originally Posted by NiceDocter

Ah the good old days. I was an active collector as a kid between 1966 and 1972..... saved those cards (THANKS MOM !!! rip) and got back into it again in a big way in 1980. I bought collections as a kid from other kids.... a shopping bag full for 5 or 10 bucks! Dealers and collectors were very much overlapping in those days as a lot of the shows had regular guys buy tables and set up. Fees were low (maybe 20-25) a table.... condition was not so important as the card itself. There was a lot of trust in those days.... lots of times I would buy a pile at a guys table and then say "Hold this for me please" after paying and just pick the pile up on my way out the door later on. Once I saw a guy in The Trader Speaks ( one of the greatest old time sports collecting digests) advertise Ty Cobb checks for $20..... I sent the guy a check for $20 plus postage, he sent me 6 checks (!!!!!) and said pick the one you want and send the rest back! And I did! It was a better time in a lot of ways although to tell you the truth I still get some of that same spirit in dealing with many of the guys here on this board and at the fewer and smaller shows I go to. Lets all remember its more about the stories and the relationships than the stuff..... although we all sure like that stuff!!! Rocky

The stories and the relationships is defintely what it's still all about. I love the honor system that you spoke about in the story with the Ty Cobb checks. I'd imagine you have many similar stories. While I pride myself as a Card Collector first, and Autographs second, I would love to own a Cobb signature one day.

Originally Posted by drcy

It may (or may not have) been more wholesome back then, but the cards are the same and there is more widespread knowledge about them today.

The collecting and enjoying of the cards should be no different than 40, 50, 70 years ago.

Things are more complicated and commoditized these days in ways I guess, but fakes, scammers, trimmers, auctions, deals have been around a long time.

Trading was common and widespread thought before.

David,

I would defintely agree that things are more complicated and commodity based these days. I Know 30, 40, 50 years ago there certainly wasn't scandals from PSA concerning vintage cards being trimmed and younger collectors defintely wouldn't have had as much of an issue buying into the vintage side of the hobby. As I mentioned above, collecting premier cards of your favorite player from the past was certainly easier back then, financially at least. Thank you for the response.

[cardsagain74]

One thing rarely talked about (and not mentioned here either) in the history of the hobby was when football, basketball, and hockey cards became relevant.

I was 14 when I went to my first show in 1988. By then, baseball card prices were starting to flourish (but the other major sports were still practically worthless). I remember seeing Jordan and Montana rookies for about 4 bucks each at that show. They stayed in the displays, cause no one cared yet.

In the next year, that started to change. Then once the '90s began and the junk wax boom was in full force, those cards became permanently just as marketable as baseball cards.

Anyone who put away a ton of quality basketball, football, and hockey material in the late 80s quickly found gold at the end of a rainbow

[LuckyLarry]

I was born in Southern California in 1953 and the sweet spot for my collecting was 1963-1967 Topps baseball cards and 1962 Topps Civil War News. I remember the Philadelphia football cards from that era too. That's me in 1966 my last year in Little League (United California Bank Tigers) holding an Ed Mathews bat.

We played baseball in the street from sunup to sundown. All the other kids on our street collected cards too, and we were always trading. We never flipped cards, and I don't remember bringing cards to school either. I had a paper route delivering the Los Angeles Hearld Examiner so I had money, and I usually bought my cards at the Little League field which was just around the corner. I'd take my packs up in the grandstands to watch the game and I remember loving the gum. The wax wrapper went on the ground under the seats. I sorted my cards by teams and never even once thought about completing a set. After a while we would always get the same cards at the snack bar as I suppose they were working through a box. Once we heard that this liquor store across town had a different batch of players (I knew nothing about different series of cards) so I rode my blue Schwinn sting-ray across town and was happy to get some different players. I remember once the Kreminliff brothers Dad bought them a whole box!

During 7th or 8th grade cards didn't seem so important, and I sold them to one of the neighborhood kids Joey Feller for enough money to buy lunch at Fosters Freeze. My mother was a collector too (matchbook covers) and I know if I wouldn't have sold them she would never have thrown them out.

My mom died in 2004 and while we were cleaning out the house, I made a sweep of the attic to see if I could find any of my cards. These cards had slipped between the floorboards of the attic in between the floor joists. I guess I needed some pictures of ball players for some project and the 1962 Post Cereal cards were the victims lol. Also a bent and water stained 1967 Topps Vic Roznovsky second series card which proudly holds it's place in my set.

Larry