Going to card shows in the 1970s

[akleinb611]

I guess I'm old enough to go way back...I transitioned from a kid collector to a "serious" collector around 1971, when I subscribed to the Sport Hobbyist, a publication that's generally been forgotten, whereas others, such as The Trader Speaks and the Ballcard Collector are fondly remembered. Anyway, I lived in Queens back then, just starting college, and I was frustrated by the lack of any card shows in the New York area. They all seemed to be going on around Detroit.

There were comic conventions, of course, and I was a regular at the big July 4th Show every year - that was the equivalent of what ComicCon would be today. Except comic shows were all about buying and trading comics - this was a full generation before ebay.

The bigger comic shows would usually have one or two dealers who also carried cards, often selling them very cheaply. Two such dealers were the Gallagher brothers, Bob and Paul, near-identical burly, bald middle aged men (Paul eventually grew a beard, which helped tell them apart). They specialized in selling comic original artwork - they had unearthed a warehouse full of art from the old Fiction House line, and were well known in the comic hobby for that. But they also sold some cards.

Around 1973, I believe they were among the dealers showing up at the old District 65 shows, the first card shows in New York. These were two hour shows held in the evening, once a month, held in the basement of an American Legion hall in Greenwich Village. Those shows were an eye-opener. Dealers like Scott and Bruce Oran, who had thousands of mint common singles from the late Fifties to the early Seventies, selling them for a nickel each, helped me fill in a lot of holes in my collection. Mantle, Mays and such were extra even then, but anyone short of HOF level was a common.

There was no internet, of course, and even Beckett was still years in the future. The only way collectors could see photos of cards from sets they didn't own was in the better dealer catalogues, like Woody Gelman's Card Collectors Co., or Bruce Yeko's Wholesale Cards. I remember once evening, I walked in and one dealer (possibly Bruce Yeko) had an entire set of 1941 Goudey on display - not for sale, of course. Nobody in the room had even SEEN a 1941 Goudey before.

Anyway, by 1974 the Gallagher brothers were running a semi-annual show, usually located in the basement of Powers Memorial High School in midtown Manhattan. They advertised each show on the cover of TCMA's quarterly flyer, distributed by mail to anyone who had ever purchased anything at all from Mike Aronstein. I recall one such show - it must have been around 1976. Bruce Yeko was there, selling 1964 Topps Giants - out of a 1964 Topps Giants wax pack box. One of the Gallaghers was selling M114 Baseball Magazine premiums. He had a stack on his table that must have been two feet high. The price? A dollar each, three dollars for DiMaggio.

I could go on about the prices, but you can guess. Since I was a poor college student who never brought more than twenty dollars to any one show, I guess I wasn't in a position to buy everything I wanted. But it was sure fun looking forward to the next show...