I was probably 12 or 13 when I discovered the hobby in the early 70's.
I know I requested a catalog from some of the early sellers with ads in the Sporting News and somehow got a book that had Topps and Bowman checklists. I remember having my mom write a check so I could get some cards from some of the neat old sets I saw.
I'm not sure what got me "subscribed" to some of the early newsletters of the day - most likely a response to an advertisement in the Sporting News, Baseball Digest or Street and Smith's.
I grew up in a suburb of Youngstown Ohio. Somewhere along the line I placed a classified in one of those newsletters and shortly thereafter received a letter from Bill MacTaggart, inviting me to a baseball card show he was having at his house in Grove City, Pennsylvania, about an hour away. My dad agreed to drive my brother and I over and we had a wonderful time.
Bill eventually moved the show to a hall in Grove City then to a larger place in town. My brother and I started setting up at the shows to sell some of our duplicates and my parents would drive us over. Bill and Jean and their kids were great hosts. I still correspond with Bill all these years later and received a letter from him earlier this week. Made good friends with dealers Ray and Joyce Lingard, their son Dale from Ontario, George Sebo from Youngstown and collector Glenn Vasbinder from the Pittsburgh area. I've lost touch with all of them, although my brother ran in to George last year at a show. Pretty sure Ray and Joyce have passed away.
We would set up and those shows and be thrilled to sell $40 or $50 of stuff. I guess at the time my brother and I were "modern" dealers - we had nothing older than 4 or 5 years. We spent more time walking around buying things than at our tables. And spending time talking to our friends. I lost track of how many different card issues that I couldn't get in Youngstown, that Dale or Bill would buy for me and ship to us. I know Dale sent us all kinds of OPC hockey issues and pretty sure Bill got us some of the 1973 Topps candy lids and some Topps hockey that we didn't get.
One of my favorite things to buy at that time at shows were "bricks" of older cards. 25 or 50 or 100 different cards from an older set, wrapped in Saran wrap or some other cling wrap. The cards would usually be different conditions but as whole would be very cheap.
Sometime in the mid 70's we talked my parents in to driving us to one of the shows at the Troy Hilton. I had never seen so many baseball cards in my life. I distinctly recall being talked in to buying a brick of 1958 Topps by a dealer. I think it was 50 different cards for I'm sure either $10 or $20. Hank Aaron was on top. Yeah I had to be talked in to that. I often wonder which of the hobby legends sold me that brick.
Other shows started to pop up in our area. Jim Borgen started a show at the McKinley Memorial in Niles Ohio. We set up at Jim's show for several years as well. Bill's show in Grove City was in June each year and Jim's show in Niles was in July. Jim added autograph guests with the first one being - who else in NE Ohio? - Bob Feller.
Bill's show eventually died off as we had more and more shows in Cleveland and Pittsburgh to go to and occasionally set up. Jim's show couldn't compete either after awhile.
The hobby as whole was never as condition conscious as it has become. The grading scale was poor - fair - good - very good - excellent and mint. I think we were all generally happy with very good or better. Centering? As long as the card didn't look cut off we never worried about. Much more concerned about corners and creases.
The first "big" card I remember. No, not Mickey Mantle. I remember when the prices of the 1967 Brooks Robinson high number went to $20 and I thought that was absolutely absurd.
Eventually I had subscriptions to Sports Collectors Digest and Traders Speaks. Used to devour those when they arrived to get my orders out quickly and hopefully get what I wanted. I ran in to John Stommen of SCD fame at a show after I moved to Indiana. I introduced myself as Dave Carson of Poland Ohio and he told me my street address. Guess I was a long time subscriber.
Somewhere along the line Frank Nagy sent me his auction catalog and I was hooked. Oh how I could not wait for that package to arrive in the mail, wrapped in white butcher paper and tied together with a string. With my "winnings" on approval. The first time they arrived with me having to send a check I was amazed. I always made to sure to pay Frank as soon as I could.
As I've read since then about the vast quantity of cards Frank had, I've often wonder how many "winners" there were for certain cards. I seemingly won a lot of bids. I do have a 1963-64 Parkhurst hockey set, completely assembled through Frank's auctions.
Sorry for rambling on - I know I've posted much of this in other threads on the board. I was more or less on a hobby hiatus from I got married until my son went off to college. I've gotten back in over the past five years with vintage stuff and have made several good friends in the hobby in the Indy area.
My son is an absolute sports freak but never got in to collecting. We look at my cards occasionally but the time is coming to get my stuff in order and start paring down the collection. I'm hopefully 2 - 2.5 years out from retiring from work on my terms (if I can be so lucky) and then its time to start selling stuff off, starting with all the duplicates including some of those card bricks sitting in the basement that I put together for the last shows I did as a dealer nearly 30 years ago.
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