Renata is alive and lives in Brooklyn with her Aunt, "Anna" who is pictured further down in this thread.
I had dinner a few years ago with Renata.
She has been divorced from Bill since 1990 or so.
The divorce is what destroyed their business.
The company was most likely the biggest in the industry for most of its existence.
This was due to they having a super close relationship with Phil Carter who ran Topps for awhile and also their very close longtime relationship with Richard Gelman / Joe Pasternack / Don Lepore of Card Collectors Co.
I can't make you grasp the magnitude of what RGI actually had.
I CAN'T imagine anyone outside of Card Collectors Co. had anything remotely close.
RGI bought truckloads of 1950s, 60s and 70s cards from them.
You have to remember that Topps was based out of the Park Slope area in Brooklyn, about 1.5 miles away from RGI.
Richard Gelmans father, Woody founded Topps with Sy Berger in the late 1940s.
Soooo, somehow massive quantities of cards found their way to Card Collectors Co.
Then subsequently they would find their final resting place at RGI (Bill).
The sheer ridiculousness of the quantity and quality of what they had at any given time is unfathomable except I saw it and was surrounded by it for 5 years (1984-89).
When you think about it like this it makes more sense.
In 1985, 1955 cards were only 30 years old, thats the same as 1993 today.
That's the only way you can rationalize it.
There were thousands of metal index card file card drawers stacked to the ceiling on a few floors in 3 different buildings on the same block (10th Avenue).
ALL their cards were straight out of Vending boxes and cut card cases.
ALL NR MT - MINT.
I remember in 1982, I "almost" bought all of their 1975 Brett rookies.
They had (900) of them, ALL touched one time.
GORGEOUS STUFF.
They wanted ($7.00) each, so ($6,300)
I passed...as I didn't have that kinda money at 16, and either wanted them all or none.
Lololol...
That happened before I started to work their.
Draw full of Mint 1971 Garvey rookies...ALL BLACK BORDERS !!!!
Draw full of Mint 1975 Yount rookies...PERFECT looking
Draw full of 1968 Topps Mantle, Mays and Killebrew combo card...ALL MINT and like ($2) a card in 1985...lolol
So many stories, memories and visuals of ungodly amounts of legendary cards.
I'm glad to have actually seen it all.
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