Herpolsheimer's and Xmas - do you remember any of the old bb card brands?

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Posted By: Joann

My Christmas and baseball cards, connected.

When I was a kid there were three main downtown department stores in Grand Rapids - Wurzburg's, Steketee's and Herpolsheimer's. Every fall we'd go down there and visit all three for back-to-school clothes, shoes, etc for my older sister. Although the cards say "Boys Clothing", at least by the early- to mid-60's they were full service stores. If you needed anything in GR, it was Wurzburg's, Stek's or Herp's.

But the big thing with these stores was Christmas. Every year all three would dedicate all of their sidewalk windows (and there were many of them) to animated displays of Christmas scenes. That's one of my earliest Christmas memories - as much as the gifts and everything else on Xmas mornings.

Once each season my mom and dad would bundle up all of us kids, put us in the car and head for downtown. It was cold, and it took a long time to see all of the windows. But there was nothing like standing out there in a soft snow with all of the other kids and parents going from window to window trying to pick your favorite. Of the three, Herp's may have been the biggest. I don't remember for sure - just that of the three stores Herp's sticks out most as a name. All three are gone now - done in by the suburban malls.

I have two Herp's cards in my collection. I got one of the M101-4's about 7 years ago. I got one of the 1920ish cards from the recent find from Leon earlier this year. Neither are Detroit players, but I'm happy to have them both. When I show anyone around here my cards, they are fascinated by the Cobb, Ruth and 19th Century items. But they light right up when they see my two Herp's cards. Probably for the same reason they lit me up - those stores are long since gone and the cards spark childhood memories in people my age.

The "find" of the later cards was about 3 miles or so from where I live - they were right down on the west side by Richmond Park. I've toyed with the idea of buying as many of these as I can find and seeing how many of the original 69 I can reunite. For now I'm more than happy, though, to have my two.

Now I'm just waiting for the Stek's find!

Joann

Edited to revise title