Would Have, Could Have, Should Have. (What If?)

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Posted By: warshawlaw

When I was about 10 my friends and I were in fierce competition over cards at local antique stores. One weekend my mother took me with her to an antique store in a neighboring town that she was told about by 2 of my friends' mother. The dealer told me he'd sold a whole box of cards to them the previous weekend. I saw the cards and they were all 1950's Topps and Bowman cards in great shape. I know because the Dorsky boys lorded it over me all summer.

My biggest fish of all involves another antique dealer who became friendly with my parents and who made frequent buying runs to the South. She and my mother were talking and my mother remarked that I was a card collector. The dealer then told me about a collection she'd seen with another dealer in the South. We quickly pinned down that it was T206 she saw. Since she was planning another buying run the next week, she offered to pick up the cards for me (the guy wanted well under a buck a card). I was thrilled. She came back empty-handed, though, and told me that the dealer had sold them earlier in the week. The kicker is that years later I was reading an old hobby publication and ran across a story about the collection (I recognized the description of the dealer, the pricing and the way the cards were stored); damned thing had a Wagner in it.