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

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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!