Going to card shows in the 1970s

cardsagain74 · #1 12-23-2019, 12:53 AM

The "what if I bought all those for $5 each in the past" scenario happened in just a few years for me. I was an 80s kid and starting getting into the business in '88 (after somehow bumping into how much my "old" early-mid 80s cards had really started to go up.) It was during that very short period of time when the junk boom had just begun, but people didn't care about any sport but baseball quite yet.

Three or four years later those Michael Jordan rookies (that just gathered dust in the cases at that first show with $4 price tags) were selling for 400. Similar explosions with Montana ,Gretzky, Lemieux, and so on.

Not what I expected to already have a "what if" story like that by just age 18

geosluggo · #2 12-23-2019, 07:37 AM

I started collecting as an elementary schooler in the 1970s in the Washington, D.C., area. There were only a few shows a year that my other collector friends and I knew of. The Internet didn't exist and no one I knew subscribed to any hobby publications, so we must have heard about them from the one or two brick-and-mortar card shops in the area. The first show I went to was an hour's drive away at a Quality Inn or Best Western near Baltimore in 1975. After weeks of anticipation and begging of parents, someone's dad agreed to drive four of us. No cards were in sleeves or top loaders back then. One friend bought a 1954 Aaron for $5 or so, which seemed ridiculously high to me. I remember buying a 1959 Clemente and a 1960 Clemente and Aaron for less than $1 apiece because as a 5th grader the thought of spending $1 or more on a single card was incomprehensible.

MooseDog · #3 12-23-2019, 08:24 AM

This might be a weird perspective but my best memories of those shows from my teenage self was the way I was treated with kindness and respect by men such as Dick Dobbins, Steve Brunner, Will Davis, Doug McWilliams, Nick Peters, Richard Masson, Stan Marks, and dozens of others.

I can honestly say that my interactions with them helped me greatly in learning how to treat others.

On the other hand there were guys like Goodie Goldfadden...

Tony Gordon · #4 12-23-2019, 11:00 AM

In 1978 I was 12 years old and a card-carrying member of the Chicagoland Sports Collectors Association which put on three shows a year at the Hillside Holiday Inn. For reference, Hillside is southeast of Rosemont. Those Hillside shows were a frenzy. It was jam-packed with people and very difficult to get to the dealer tables. I never made it to each table because of the crowds. The majority of dealers had their cards in binders. There were no display cases, no top loaders or card savers.

Cards were CHEAP! I was initially fascinated with 1956 Topps and was able to purchase each star, except Mantle, for around $20 each. In March of 1979, I got my first job with the sole purpose to raise funds to buy sports cards. I bought a lot of stuff through SCD. There were also more shows in 1979 and me and my friends would take the train from the suburbs to Downtown Chicago for shows. As the 1980's hit, card shops started to open. The ones located up north where I lived were very expensive and I continued to buy out of SCD and go to shows. By the end of the 1980's there were five or six shows on each Saturday and Sunday in the Chicago area. Now you'll find just two or three a month in the Chicago area with the show in south suburban Orland Park coming the closest to those old Hillside shows.

oaks1912 · #5 12-23-2019, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MooseDog

This might be a weird perspective but my best memories of those shows from my teenage self was the way I was treated with kindness and respect by men such as Dick Dobbins, Steve Brunner, Will Davis, Doug McWilliams, Nick Peters, Richard Masson, Stan Marks, and dozens of others.

I can honestly say that my interactions with them helped me greatly in learning how to treat others.

On the other hand there were guys like Goodie Goldfadden...

To be fair on Goodie Goldfaden, he disliked ALL kids. HIs first wife, Esther, was a SAINT, in many ways. I would often wait for Goodie to leave the table and Esther would always knock off a little for me and she had a million dollar smile. In later years Goodie and I would talk at length over the phone. I suppose that I was no longer that nuisance of a kid from four decades earlier

akleinb611 · #6 12-23-2019, 06:54 PM

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...

TheBig6 · #7 12-24-2019, 12:21 AM

Exhibitman · #8 05-22-2020, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MooseDog

This might be a weird perspective but my best memories of those shows from my teenage self was the way I was treated with kindness and respect by men such as Dick Dobbins, Steve Brunner, Will Davis, Doug McWilliams, Nick Peters, Richard Masson, Stan Marks, and dozens of others.

I can honestly say that my interactions with them helped me greatly in learning how to treat others.

On the other hand there were guys like Goodie Goldfadden...

Me too! it was my first experience of being taken seriously by adults.

MooseDog · #9 05-22-2020, 10:09 AM

Troy -

Thanks so much for posting those pictures. Great memories. The photography has a great 1970s vibe, (Kodak Tri-X 400 if you know what I mean)...good stuff!

I am either in #8 (white tee shirt center) or on the right in #9. Not sure which. The person in #9 is wearing a real shirt with a collar, which means it likely isn't me, but the hair looks familar!

I had really bad hair

The gentleman in #9 is not Dobbins, unfortunately I don't see him in any of the pics. Dick was just an awesome person.

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