[Exhibitman]

I didn't bother with card stores much. In the late 1970s, the real action was beating the bushes at antique stores, secondhand stores, garage sales, etc., for cards. Stores were at best a place to get some current cards and learn about where the shows were (before SCD and Beckett had them listed). I got most of my new cards at local convenience stores and gas stations. In NYC, I used to go to a mom-and-pop corner store at 84th and Lexington, and there was also a drug store on 2nd avenue in between 74th and 75th that had current cards and a barrel of older packs that was fun to dig in. During the summer, I was in Mahopac, a town about an hour outside NYC and I used to get cards at the ice cream store in the Baldwin Place Mall and also at a market near our house. There was also an antique store that had a giant box of older cards that the owner would let me buy at 12 for a buck. I spent hours there digging through that box. The one I recall the most in LA was West Coast Cards. Nice owners who also ran the West Coast Card Club; I used to set up at their monthly meetings. Might make as much as $75, which was righteous bucks to a 13-year-old in 1978: I bought a 1952 Bowman Mantle at one of those shows for $3.25 and bought my first Aaron RC for $20, which puts it into perspective.