How hard was it to find new Topps series in 1950s, '60s and early '70s?

[betafolio2]

These questions are for all of you veteran collectors out there -- and by veteran, I mean anyone who bought packs of Topps cards anytime before 1974.

My questions are as follows:

How difficult was it to find the new series of cards in your local candy store, drug store, etc., during the baseball season? Were they as readily available as, say, the current issue of any weekly or monthly magazine, or did you sometimes have a hard time finding them (because, perhaps, a candy shop owner had overstocked a given series and then refused to buy later series until he had sold out of the earlier packs)?

Also, looking back, what can you recall thinking, good or bad, about the limited availability of different cards at any given time? I personally would think it'd be relatively easy -- and enjoyable -- to assemble a set of 1963 Topps 1st series cards (or whatever), because you wouldn't have to buy a ridiculous number of wax packs to find them all. It sure wouldn't have been like the mid-1980s, when it would take an absolute minimum of 52 wax packs to find all 792 Topps cards in the current set, and in reality many, many more.

Lastly, do you recall the difficulty of finding the last series of cards, and the corresponding disappointment in not being able to finish your set if you couldn't?

Please, wax nostalgic for me!

[ALR-bishop]

I started buying packs in 1957 and 1958 ( actually my parents for me). I continued to do that through 1962 and never finished any of those sets in that time, and had to finish them all later, as well as work on the pre 57 sets. Not sure if I gave out, or the local drug/grocery store I used at the end of our block gave out first in that time frame, either way complicated by long summer vacations

Starting in 1963 I bought my cards in full series from the Card Collector's Company in NY which sent them to me as issued by Topps. I did that through 1971. After that I bought whole sets when when became available

[Brianruns10]

My Dad and I know a fellow who collected Topps and Bowmans from 51 for the next two decades, including assembling a complete '52 Topps on its original release. And he lived in the suburbs of Kansas City, on the Kansas side. this would seem to confirm that the high series made it west of the Mississippi. He did note that he had EXCEPTIONAL trouble finding the high series 52s, before finally locating a lone drug store in the KC area that stocked the new series. It seems that either penultimate series did not sell so well that most did not restock when the sixth and final series came out, or they mostly all concluded that the high series would sell poorly because the season was winding down.

My Dad came into collecting a little later, starting with Bowman 55s which were lost along the way, then starting in earnest with Topps 57-63 (which he still has). He described getting cards as something of a scavenger hunt, with all the neighborhood kids trading info on which stores had the new series in stock. The information was evidently pretty good, because he managed to assemble on their original release a complete run of sets 57-63, and all but ten cards from a second 57.

[bradmar48]

Growing up in a small East Texas town there was only one store Perry Brothers
5 and 10 that ever had baseball cards. I purchased packs there from 1956 through 1962 but looking back I see they only sold the 1st three series each year except for 1959 and 1960 when it was only the 1st two series. Since I only had checklists for the series they sold I really never knew that there were more cards in the sets until I begin collecting again in the mid 70's.

[Tomman1961]

I too, filled in a lot of holes through Card Collectors Company back in 1973. If they sold commons at 5 cents, cards that ended in a "5" or a "0" were 10 cents. So regardless of player, you had to shell out 10 cents each for a 1970 Seaver, Mays, Aaron, or Clemente.
In 1973 I bought only cello. Not sure if my local candy store(Bloomingdale, NJ) sold both wax and cello, but I bet I went after the cello based on the players showing.Opening day 1973 I bought about 8 cellos. As the season went on, I bet I only bought cello with players showing I did not have.
The last series for me was impossible. I had a cousin about 15 miles away who was buying wax with high numbers.I talked my parents into giving me $ to go to the store in Elmwood Park,NJ. I bought as many wax as I could and opened them up to find some 5th and some 6th series.
Back at home, my candy shop no longer had BB. There was a town over (Pompton Lakes) that had a Kressgee's that had a bin of cello. They must have been store returns, that were repackaged, or some Topps rejects. 10 cello packs got me 40 Fred Kendalls.
So for me, high numbers in 1973 did not exist in my local store, but were 15 miles away.

[Tomman1961]

BTW-talking about 1973 cello. I never forget when my Dad told me to buy 4 cellos at 25 cents each and never open them. What are their value now? Always listen to your parents.

[spec]

You certainly had to work at keeping up with Topps' new series in the 50s and 60s. I began collecting in 1957 in Warrington, a suburb of Pensacola, Fla., and rode my bike all around town to find the latest series. I found only one store that had the tough 4th series and could only afford a few packs, so wound up trading the chemicals in my chemistry set to fill in the gaps when we moved out into the country that winter. All series of 58s were rather easy to find in a couple of stores near my elementary school, but the next year when I was in junior high I had to wait until my mother drove into town every other week to feed my appetite for cards. She'd stop at stores along the way until I'd found the latest series, and, thanks to having nothing to spend my allowance on out in the country, I quickly learned to save up enough for a full box (24 5-cent packs, $1.20) when I found the series I wanted. You usually got most, if not all, of the cards in a series in a box, but I remember one day in 1959 when the box I purchased included only 20-30 different cards (I recall having 15 Bob Giallombardos). By 1963, I'd tired of the biweekly quests, so I bought sets by mail from Card Collectors Co., Bruce Yeko's Wholesale Cards or Gordon B. Taylor. I resumed collecting piecemeal in 1967 when I was in college in Winter Park, Fla., and had a car to scour the Orlando area for the latest series. I continued the quest until 1973 when Topps issued all the series at once in Boston, where I moved after college. In short, finding the tough series cards (including football issues) was a challenge, but one I look back on fondly.
Bob Richardson

[bigtrain]

I bought Topps packs from 1962 to 1968. There was a little candy store across from our elementary school and I had a nickel a day to spend there. When we were anticipating release of a new series, my friends and I would take turns buying a pack a day so we wouldn't all be buying the old series every day. Then when one kids opened a new series pack we would all rush back to the store to buy a pack or two. It was exciting stuff. There was always a player or two who seemed to be in every pack. I think it was '67 when my brother and I must have had 50 Phil Roof cards. So much card flipping occurred before school that our principal banned it as a safety hazard. Great memories.

[chris6net]

1970-1973 were my big years as far as buying packs. I remember 1972 the best and remember being sick for a week in probably March and missing out on buying the 1st series cards right away. That year the 1st series was only out about 2 weeks when the next series came out. After that we would go to the local pharmacy and when each series came out it felt like we were in heaven. Finally when the tough last series came out most of my friends were tired of buying cards and I wasn,t so I ended up with more than my normal share of the last series. I always had trouble finishing my 1st series because of my week late start. Great Memories

[obcbobd]

I collected from 67 (age 5) till 74 (age 12), after that I bought complete sets. I was not the brightest bulb I guess as I don't think I got the whole series stuff until about 1972. I know that in 71 I really wanted a Yaz but never could find him nor did I know anyone who did. Wasn't till a few years later that I noticed that neither me nor my friends had any 5th series 71s.

Likewise I had no 72 last series, but my friend Mark did (I didn't notice this till a few years later). I have since moved back into my old home town and ran into Mark a month ago and he mentioned that his Dad always bought him packs of cards at "Peter Pan's Superette". I always went two one of the five and dimes up the street.

[ALR-bishop]

Tomman--I still have one of their 1967 Catalogs offering the 52 Mantle for $ 25 and the high series 52 cards for $ 1 each

[darkhorse9]

When I was a kid I didn't even realize what a "series" was. I just bought whatever cards were in front of me. My financial situation made any pretense of completing sets a non-starter.

I started worrying about series when Wacky Packages came out in the early 70's. Then it became a bigger deal when a new series came out.

I lived outside of Chicago, so looking back on the cards of my youth I don't recall any trouble getting cards of later series. I had plenty of high number 69's and 70's from those days. I recall finding a weird pack of cards as a kid with some kind of canvass border on them (1968) but one pack was all I needed of those old cards before I went back to the new cards. I hated them.

[Rickyy]

1972 the last series...I didn't know it existed until I visited my friend who moved to the other side of the county out here in N. Calif Bay Area....needless to say I was mad and envious of him... .... it took me another 13 years or so to complete it...

1973 I had no problem finding the last series... a bunch came out mixed with other series in rack packs I found at a toy store...the weird thing...all the kids in my hood must have conspired to hoard the 4th series...I couldn't find any.... so I ended up ordering from Larry Fritsch cards...I remember when the box came in after school...ran in and ripped open the vendor fresh cards...I still have them...and they have that fresh quality to them...ahhh..nice memories...

Ricky Y

[Troy Kirk]

I was actively buying packs from 1967 through 1973 when the cards were issued in series. I never knew high number cards were tougher until 1972 when I started getting card collector magazines. In 1972 I knew high number cards were tougher and actively sought out the high numbers but never found any at my local stores for either of the last 2 series. None of my friends had any either, so they were not easily found where I lived.

In 1973 I didn't find any high number cards until late in the year when I was in a neighborhood not near where I lived and I went into a store and there was a huge display of 1973 high number boxes at the front of the store at half off, 5 cents for a pack of 10 cards, as many as you wanted. They also had some wacky packs for sale that I hadn't seen. I only had a few bucks with me but spent all my money on those high number 1973s and some wackys and convinced a non-collecting friend that was with me that he should spend all his money on those 1973 high numbers because they were sure to go up in value. I remember wishing at the time that I had more money with me so I could buy more of those cards, but I never went back, though I did buy enough to get the complete series with plenty of doubles. I asked my friend many years later if he still had those 1973 high numbers and he was sure he did have them somewhere but had no idea where they were.

From the time I bought packs from 1967 to 1973, I did get high numbers in packs for all years except 1970 and 1972. When I started trying to complete those sets later, I had to buy those in the mail in complete series from an early card seller, I think it was Merv Williams.

I was kind of bummed in 1974 when Topps started issuing cards all at once since I was a bit older then and felt I could have found the high numbers that year and stored a bunch away for later.

Looking back at it, I think if I was older during the years when cards were issued in packs, I could have probably found the high numbers. The problem was that I was too young to drive, so was limited to biking around to a few local stores to search for them. If they didn't have them, I was out of luck.

[ALR-bishop]

There are a couple of great prior threads in here on whether it was 1973 or 1974 when Topps first started selling all the cards at one time

[carney22]

Nearly four years since the last post, but this is a pretty timeless topic . . .

Collecting by series, for me, was what collecting was all about. It's what made it fun, and what made it a challenge. Remember, there was only one card company in the game, one major set each year, and the experience of collecting that set over the course of the season was both exhilarating and frustrating.

My first year as a collector was 1967 (so, not surprisingly, it ended up being my favorite set of all time). I was 10 that summer, and I had a mentor, another kid at school who'd been collecting for a couple of years and helped explain the concept of series . . . so unlike a lot of the posters here, I knew what that was all about.

Living in several different locations in the far south suburbs of Chicago over the course of my youth, I was always able to find a drug store or 5&10 that carried baseball cards; fortunately, the places I used as primary sources never seemed to have a problem with putting out the new series when they arrived, no matter how much of the previous series remained. But you never knew just when it was going to happen. It seemed like it was every three or four weeks, and in my area it always seemed to happen at the end of the week, a Thursday or a Friday. Inevitably, my thirst for the next series would mean I'd optimistically go looking for the new cards a week before they were released. You bought a pack and hoped it would be something you hadn't seen, but usually I'd go home disappointed, knowing I had another week or two to wait.

And remember, most kids in the '60s or '70s had a nickel or a dime or maybe a quarter in their pockets. A full box of cards could be bought for less than $2, but no one had $2. So it wasn't instant gratification. You'd open your packs, play the "got-'em-got-'em-need-'em-got-'em" game and then walk or bicycle home, until you could scrape up a few more coins. Each series took awhile to put together. But one of the cards in each series was the checklist for the next series, a tantalizing look at what was to come in a few weeks. Who would be on the rookie cards? What did the combo card titles mean? It was all a part of a six-month journey from one series to the next until . . . completion.

I did, at some point, understand that later series were less available than the first few, but what I never understood until years later was the concept of the double-printed card. It all made sense later, of course, but at the time, no one could understand why you got so many cards of one guy and no one could find a card of someone else.

In the summer of '67, I can remember buying pack after pack of fifth series cards before finally getting a Dave McNally. I remember doing the same with the sixth series, seeking a Juan Marichal, until after walking out of a local pharmacy following another fruitless purchase I ran into another kid who'd just gotten a Marichal in a pack he'd bought. I offered him everything in my hands for that card, and since he wasn't really a collector, he agreed. He probably would have just given it to me.

After suffering a 10-year-old's angst over completing those two late series, I mad a key decision: responding to an ad in Baseball Digest, I saved up a few dollars and ordered a complete set of the seventh series cards, from Bruce Yeko, one of the early mail-order dealers. Now, the 1967 seventh series is one of the legendary "hard-to-find" sets of the baby boomer era. I don't think I ever saw any seventh-series wax packs in my local stores (although I probably wasn't looking too hard). I completed my 1967 set, and still collect the annual Topps set to this day.

Would I have continued to be a collector if I'd suffered week after week of disappointment in trying to find seventh series cards at the drug store? That's a question I can't answer. From then on I did frequently lean on ordering sets from Yeko and, later, Renata Galasso . . . and yet I continued to buy wax packs. As a later-year boomer, those simple experiences always invoke the most blissful of summer memories.

[sox1903wschamp]

Originally Posted by spec

I continued the quest until 1973 when Topps issued all the series at once in Boston, where I moved after college.

I grew up in Boston and purchased packs from 65-74 and I do remember not having to worry about the series format in 73. I thought that was the way for the whole country until I later found out it was a test.

[gman]

I started buying with the 1971 cards. I had a paper route which insured that I had money for the cards. I would frequent the local 7-11 here in southeast Houston. I always looked forward to football season, because there was less competition for the baseball cards, others had started buying the football cards. So never any challenge for the last series. In fact, I didn't know that they were more challenging and thus would be worth more $$ until years later.

I enjoyed the challenge of completing the 7-11 Slurpee (sp?) cups that also had baseball player faces on them.

A few years later, when collecting baseball cards was no longer "cool" and you didn't want the girls to think you were "uncool", I would just purchase the complete sets throught the mail, but I would still got my fix eating a lot of twinkies and Kellogg's Raison Bran, and drinking RC cola. Not for the baseball players, of course, but because I liked the taste.

[blackandgold]

Well, growing up in a very small town in central PA. we had one mom and pop store to buy from. They usually kept a good supply of wax through the spring and summer (it seemed every kid in town collected), but the last couple series' were very hit and miss. Once in a while we would get to Clearfield and look for cello packs at the G.C. Murphy's, and then the search was on for any Pirate on the top or the bottom.
Also, on Sundays my uncle would go to a little store called the Whispering Pines a couple miles away to buy a Pittsburgh newspaper. If I was allowed to go, I always walked out with some wax packs.
One thing that strikes me as funny, is that I have a bunch of the 1967 Topps Pirates stickers. It's hard to believe that our little town was part of the "Test Issue" release area.
Great memories !

[GoldenAge50s]

It appears I'm a little older than those that have replied so will add my thoughts & remembrances to the thread.

Started opening packs in 1948, but the 1st set I really went after to complete was the 1949 Bowman NS set called "Wild West" w/ a very unusual numbering system, A thru H and a varied number of cards in each letter group. On top of that they were issued in 5 Series!

I have cards I bought back then in all 5 Series, but never completed the set.

Starting in 1950 I have complete sets of Bowman 1950-51-52-53 & 54, all completed in the given year. So obviously all series were available in my little towns in WNY State.

Topps was a bit different--Had complete sets of '51 Red Backs but only a partial Blue-Back & partial CMAS issues. In 1952 baseball I only had cards up to 250 and thought for many yrs that's all there were---I never saw or knew 251-407 cards existed!!

I have complete sets of 1953 & '54 Topps & partial '55's & '56's, altho cards from all series are there, so they were available.

By 1955 my attention turned from cards to girls & other things that usually take over by the time a guy turns 15-16!

I also have complete Bowman FB sets from 1950-51 & '52 so I imagine at some point the stores in my area had both BB & FB on the counter at the same time.