Oldtimers on this board?

[mark evans]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

Did that People's drug store have an old fashioned soda fountain or luncheonette counter?

Yes, good for cherry Cokes and french fries.

[Hankphenom]

I'm a leading-edge boomer, so it was Topps cards of the late 1950s for me, but not in any methodical way or thinking of my cards as a "collection." We did trade them, put them in the spokes of our bikes, and flipped them against the wall. I just liked seeing pictures of and learning about the ballplayers I heard about on the radio or saw in the occasional game on TV, along with the stats, cartoon, trivia questions, etc. The gum wasn't bad, either, though not my favorite. I also had some pennants, pins, scorecards (we always kept score) and other things bought at the ballpark. I got into collecting memorabilia of my team in the late 1970s, then became a dealer in the 1990s. It's been a lot of fun.

[1880nonsports]

my dad was in the navy with "uncle eddie" and "uncle arthur" of Shorin/Topps fame - close friends their whole lives. I think it was 1964(?) they sent me a 500 card vending box and the next year as well when I was at camp. Never thought about making a collection - they were much more valuable for flipping, leaners, and color games. Now wait for it - never owned another card until in 1992(?) I bought a set of Stadium Club unfinished cards that had made it's way out the back door of topps! An Alan Haeger undertaking :-).
I actually brought up a question about the set maybe a year or two later to one of the brothers (CRS) when they visited my father in the hospital (I went ostensibly to ask the question). No response. Ha! I still have it.
All I remember before that was funny valentines.....

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

Did that People's drug store have an old fashioned soda fountain or luncheonette counter?

I'm guessing they all did back in the day, also Drug Fairs and other chain and most mom-and-pop drug stores. And I remember them as uniformly wonderful, with great soups, grilled cheese sandwiches, open turkey platters, etc., to go with the soda fountain favorites like brown cows, sundaes, banana splits, etc. You couldn't beat the price for what you got. What memories! When CVS bought Peoples, I couldn't understand why you would want the name of your store to be "CVS" rather than "Peoples." That was probably my first clue as to what corporate conformity was all about. They didn't care what anyone thought about the name or about making every one of them exactly the same, in fact that was the goal. If they could wave a wand and make each of us consumers exactly the same, too, they would do it in a heartbeat.

[kmac32]

1970Topps cards for me as I wanted cards for my 1969 Chicago Cubs. I was addicted for life.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

I'm guessing they all did back in the day, also Drug Fairs and other chain and most mom-and-pop drug stores.

Well a lot of them did anyway!

Does anyone know of any drug store soda fountains still in operation?

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

Well a lot of them did anyway! Does anyone know of any drug store soda fountains still in operation?

Here's a town with two of them!
https://abyss.davidmlawrence.com/dru...oda-fountains/

[GeoPoto]

As soon as I was 16 in 1969, I started working as a Jerk on the Fountain at the People's in Montgomery Mall Bethesda, MD. Minimum wage was $1.60, but working the Fountain got you in a tips pool that added 10 or 20 cents. I eventually moved to working more generally throughout the store. I was reminded of those days on Thursday as John Madden received special recognition/tribute. Behind the drug counter at that People's was where I watched the Immaculate Reception, along with the store's assistant manager, a huge Pittsburgh fan. "If it wasn't a catch before the huddle, how did it become a catch during the huddle?"

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[Mike Eisenbath]

In St Charles, Mo., you got your nickel packs from Standard Drug in 1969 (my first year, I was 8). Next to that was Hawthorne Hardware. The Mattingly's dime store was next to that, and they had cello packs. A&P was the last store in that strip. It was four blocks from our house. Mom would grocery shop and I'd buy cards at Standard, then wait on the curb opening my packs (with allowance, birthday and soda bottle return money) while shoving all the gum in my mouth at once.

Starting the next year, when I began mowing lawns, she let me ride my bike up there way buddy, Wayne. We'd buy some cards, meet the guys at Jaycee Park for a pickup game for a few hours, trade cards, then go home and sort them into our shoebox. A set builder from the get-go.

This has been an awesome thread.


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[RayW]

My earliest memory of card collecting was buying packs of 1962 Mars Attacks at the now long gone Garfield Market in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood on the way to school. The cards featured violent events of a Martian invasion. For a seven year old, there was nothing like it. After getting a large portion of the set, I lost my entire collection, running around on the playground. The cards were only available for a short period, due to the violent nature of cards and subsequently pulled from store shelves.

In the early seventies, I discovered Baseball Digest and The Sporting News. I found a mail order company named Wholesale Cards that had most of the Mars Attacks cards. I was finally able to build a complete set through The Trader Speaks and found the final card at King’s Cards located in Berkeley in 1977. The original Mars Attacks is still my favorite card set of all time.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by Yoda

This post reminds me of the loss we suffered this year with the passing of Teddy Z.

+1

[todeen]

Originally Posted by raulus

Used to ride my bike down to Safeway after school. Rip some wax and watch the kids with serious cash play pac man. 1987 Topps was pretty fly!

Originally Posted by KJA

I remember turning 8 and getting into cards thanks to 86 Topps football, Jim McMahon card in particular, my favorite player at the time. Didn't really start collecting baseball until 88 Topps. Those set designs really bring back lots of fond memories.

Goodness, don't we all feel young. You're the only two in the 80s! But I'm the first to admit my first pack of cards was 1991 Topps at just 5 years old. I didn't know nothing about nothing! A couple years later I learned the name Ken Griffey Jr, and Lord have mercy, I owned a couple! And then I was hooked!

Going back to the present conversation, I believe my mother worked at a drugstore soda fountain: Newberrys. It was either in Walla Walla, or Spokane. I would need to look into that a bit more. Eventually she went to work at JCPenneys, and she met my father selling tires at the Penneys auto store. He set up a kegger just so that he could invite her.

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[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Yoda

This post reminds me of the loss we suffered this year with the passing of Teddy Z.

+1. The knowledge and memories that went with him are unimaginable.

[nickedson]

Got my first pack of cards, albeit non-sports, with the 1958 Zorro cards. Then in 1959 - at age 6 - purchased my first Topps baseball pack. My folks made such a fuss over the fact I got a Detroit Tiger (Red Wilson) that I became a collector for life. Set up at the Troy Hilton for my first show in 1973.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by RayW

My earliest memory of card collecting was buying packs of 1962 Mars Attacks at the now long gone Garfield Market in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood on the way to school. The cards featured violent events of a Martian invasion. For a seven year old, there was nothing like it. After getting a large portion of the set, I lost my entire collection, running around on the playground. The cards were only available for a short period, due to the violent nature of cards and subsequently pulled from store shelves.

In the early seventies, I discovered Baseball Digest and The Sporting News. I found a mail order company named Wholesale Cards that had most of the Mars Attacks cards. I was finally able to build a complete set through The Trader Speaks and found the final card at King’s Cards located in Berkeley in 1977. The original Mars Attacks is still my favorite card set of all time.

The Mars Attacks cards were not to my knowledge sold in Canada back when they were first released. I did though manage to score the "Hairy Fiend" card in a generic wrapper while trick or treating in 1963 or 1964:

(Not mine.)

It was the wildest card my buddies and I had ever seen but without the wrapper we didn’t even know it was part of a set called Mars Attacks. Nonetheless, it became our favourite card.

But since Mars Attacks cards had not been distributed in Canada, I just never saw any more for over two decades. It wasn't until I bought the first edition of Christopher Benjamin’s Non-Sport Price Guide in the mid-1980’s that I realized that the “Hairy Fiend” card we’d had twenty years ago belonged to the fabled Mars Attacks set.

With the notoriety within popular culture that the cards gained when the Mars Attacks movie hit screens nationwide in 1996, the cards have become demand scarce and thus egregiously expensive. As a result, I still have only these nine in my present day collection:

[BioCRN]

Originally Posted by todeen

Goodness, don't we all feel young. You're the only two in the 80s! But I'm the first to admit my first pack of cards was 1991 Topps at just 5 years old.

1982/83 is when I first started to collect, and I got up to speed with hobby knowledge by 1985.

The amount and types of pills in my daily day/night medication pill box says loud and clear I'm no longer young, but given most of the talk on this thread I don't think I'm part of the old timers club yet.

That's fine. I can wait.

[John1941]

I bought my first packs in 2016 if y'all want some perspective.

[MikeGarcia]

Originally Posted by John1941

I bought my first packs in 2016 if y'all want some perspective.

.. how much did a nickel pack of 6 cards ( with bubblegum ) cost in 2016 ? It's okay , we're sitting down.

[John1941]

Originally Posted by MikeGarcia

.. how much did a nickel pack of 6 cards ( with bubblegum ) cost in 2016 ? It's okay , we're sitting down.

$2 + tax for 12 bubble gum-less cards, which increased to $3 + tax for 16 cards after a few years - which is one reason why I quit buying packs in 2019. (That and an increased focus on vintage.)

[jchcollins]

1986 for me, (yawn...) down at the Cashion's grocery and some I think at the 7-11 the town over.

But within a year I had found the shops, and was immediately hooked by everything "old cards" after convincing my mom to plunk down I think $15 for a sharp 1966 Topps Sandy Koufax. With each passing year, I became more interested in cards like that and less interested in the current wax.

[hank_jp]

At the age of 8 the 1952 Topps baseball cards came out and boy did I love those big cards. I bought the 5 cent packs and can still remember the chewing the pink gum. We would flip for cards, place them high up on a wall and let them spiral down - if your card landed on any other card on the floor you got to keep them all. But, the cards we didn't take chances with were for the team we rooted for. I wanted those Brooklyn Dodger players and would without thinking trade a Mantle for a Duke Snider, just as any Giant fan would do the same for one of Mays. I also bought the 1953's and 1954's, but it wasn't all baseball cards for me by a long shot.
I wanted to get as many Frank Buck Bring 'em Back Alive cards featuring wild animals from Africa as possible. The same goes for Look 'n See, Rails and Sails, Wings and later on Flags of All Nations and the President set. The artwork was in glorious color and on the card back one could learn about as much as an 8 year old brain could absorb.
These days I still enjoy collecting with my son, Scott and we are focusing mainly on the signed 1933 Goudey set (over 75% complete) and the signed 1952 Topps master set (over 92% complete and yes, I would trade a signed Snider for a Mantle now).
Also I thank Scott for gifting me that Look 'n See set I so enjoyed all those years ago.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by hank_jp

I wanted to get as many Frank Buck Bring 'em Back Alive cards featuring wild animals from Africa as possible.

Coincidentally in August I just bought a nice 66 card lot of the Topps Animals of the Zoo World cards including these:



The wrapper I've already had for nearly twenty years:



I really like both the artwork and the animal selection in this set of 100 cards. While it doesn't quite make my dozen favourite Topps non-Sport card sets of all time, it easily makes my top twenty!

Originally Posted by hank_jp

(yes, I would trade a signed Snider for a Mantle now).

Sell out!

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

Here's a town with two of them!

https://abyss.davidmlawrence.com/dru...oda-fountains/

The closest extant one I can find to my neck of the woods is the Saugatuck Drug Store in Saugatuck on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan just a few miles southwest of Grand Rapids, Michigan along I196:

[MikeGarcia]

.. " The camera adds ten pounds ".

[ALBB]

Lol

[stlcardsfan]

Originally Posted by MikeGarcia

.. " The camera adds ten pounds ".

To quote Chandler in Friends, "how many cameras were on you?"

[Balticfox]

We foxes are more than active enough to avoid such outcomes!

[Topnotchsy]

I've been collecting since the 90's and approaching 30 years in the hobby. When I'm on Facebook or other places I have started to feel like one of the elder statesmen (if not by age since I started collecting pretty young) than at least years in the hobby.

It's good to be reminded that I am still wet behind the ears compared to many. Which I am glad about, since there is so much more to know and explore.

[frohme]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

Well a lot of them did anyway!

Does anyone know of any drug store soda fountains still in operation?

The local one in my previous location was in operation till 2023 - we left Corydon in 2021, but I go back occasionally as my PCP is still there. It was a pretty cool place.

https://www.wdrb.com/news/business/s...02d9a59f9.html

--
Mike

[gairwin]

I bought my first cards from Johnny's grocery store around the corner in 1952. My sister and I played games with the cards and at the time I could name the player when only about a quarter inch on top was showing. Unfortunately, the high numbers never came to our town. The candy distributor who distributed the cards lived next door to us and when I was 11 I began working in his warehouse (garage) stacking boxes. When I was 12 my parents allowed me to buy two store boxes of 1954 cards. I collected some in 1955 and 1956, but stopped until I started collecting again in 1980. I finally completed my 1952 (ex Mantle), 1953, 1954, 1955, and 1956 sets.

[darwinbulldog]

This is one of the few remaining online sites where I don't feel like an oldtimer. My first pack was 1986 Donruss at a Holiday Inn card show around opening day of the '86 season.

[Balticfox]

Did you then just happen to be at the Holiday Inn? Because it would be strange to attend a card show if you'd not already been buying cards.

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

Did you then just happen to be at the Holiday Inn? Because it would be strange to attend a card show if you'd not already been buying cards.

No

[Yoda]

Earliest memory is ripping packs of '51 Bowmans along side my like pals, all of us with with greasy dirty hands. No Mickey's but one kid got a Mays and we were all over him to see it. All of this took place under a Sycamore tree by the drug store where we had invested our hard earned allowances (child exploitation), which probably varied from .50 to 1$. Trading was the only way to go: There were no shows, breakers, magazines, e-commerce, dealers and, most of all, no grading companies.
Little did we know the next year the neighborhood would be rocked by those beautiful '52 Topps cards. Interest in the '52 Bowmans wained, and I remember the druggist offered his surplus at the end of the season for .01 a pack.
The next year came those beautiful '53 Bowman photographs to challenge Topps but they cost so much to produce it put Bowman into a declining spiral.











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