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

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Growing up in Arkansas the stores carrying cards were few and far between although I must also say that in the late 50's and early 60's I didn't venture too far from my neighborhood.

About three blocks away I had the perfect store for a young boy, Mohr's Variety store. When you entered there were two isles, to the right was tropical fish and hamsters, to the left was candy and model airplanes and cars.

I never bought enough packs from 1959-61 to think about a set but in 1962 I was all in on baseball because of Mantle and Maris. I looked at my hoard when I got back into collecting in 1975 and found that I had not only no last series but no series two from 1962.

I continued to buy through 1965 on baseball but by 1962 most of us had turned out interest to football. After all we were in the south and had no pro teams close to us so we were huge college football fans. Buying football cards at least was football and the first thing we did was check the backs to see where they played college football. My last football purchases were in 1967 and that was just a few packs.

Besides Mohr's I had to small stores a block away in different directions, at one I bought a lot of 1960 Nu-Card football and later some Topps football and the other I bought 1962 and 1963 baseball. I can still remember walking up the street opening packs when I pulled my first Mantle, it was a 1962 All-Star.

By the way I put together a 1963 Fleer baseball set by feeding nickels into a vending machine at a laundromat close to my grade school. I think I stopped in to see what candy they had in the machine and found the Fleer packs.

I was a very lucky boy whose Mom never threw away a card or a toy.