Sport Fan 25th anniversary issue, March-April 1976

[trdcrdkid]

Here are eight pages from the March-April 1976 issue of Sport Fan, containing three articles, all by editor Bob Jaspersen. The first of these is a look back at the early days of Sport Fan, written to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its founding in 1951 (though not its 25th year of publication, since it was not published from 1960 to 1970). It's interesting that Jaspersen was proposing a national sports collectors convention way back in 1954, 26 years before the first National actually happened. Some of the articles sound pretty interesting, but I haven't read any of them, since my earliest Sport Fan is from 1957.

The second article, which also started on the front page and continued for two more pages, is Jaspersen's detailed account of the second annual Nashua, New Hampshire Sports Collectors Convention. I love these meandering accounts of shows that give you a sense of what it was like there.

The last article is Jaspersen's "Touching All Bases" column, four pages of hobby news and gossip. Nothing too exciting, just a way to see what people in the hobby were interested in in 1976 (the year I started seriously collecting cards). Pat Quinn and Jay Barry had recently been in Jaspersen's hometown of Philadelphia on a hotel buying trip (of the type described in this thread: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=216420), but they were so busy that Jaspersen couldn't get through to them.

[Leon]

I never knew there was an autograph collector hall of fame.

[toppcat]

I have one of those Babe Ruth bronze medals around here somewhere.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by Leon

I never knew there was an autograph collector hall of fame.

There was also a Card Collectors Hall of Fame that Irv Lerner started in the late '60s and continued into the early '70s, but as far as I know it eventually became moribund. I think it was tied to Lerner's "Who's Who in Card Collecting" that he put out for a few years. Burdick was the first inductee, of course, and Woody Gelman and John Wagner were also early inductees. Somewhere I have some issues of Ballcard Collector from 1970 or 1971 that discuss the most recent nominees and inductees. I'll try to find and post it.