What Was The Hobby Like Back In The Day?

[lumberjack]

Tom Tuschak, a dealer who was associated with Charles Brooks always had a table at the Detroit shows. He had been around for a while.

On one occasion, someone knocked a Detroit Tigers gas station giveaway tumbler off of Tuschak's table to the floor. Tuschak never missed a beat, "Rare Aurelio Rodriguez puzzle glass, Aurelio Rodriguez puzzle glass right here."
lumberjack

[Tony Gordon]

Another 70's kid here. I first started collecting in 1975. Topps Wax packs were 15 cents at the pharmacy down the street. I also bought the Fleer Pioneers of Baseball. The Fleer had better tasting gum. Next to the pharmacy was a place called Convenient Food Mart, they sold cellos for a quarter and rack packs for 50 cents. The old couple that ran Convenient always kicked me out of the store when I tried to search the cellos and rack packs for George Brett rookies. I also collected Hostess cards but was terrible at cutting them out of the box.

The ultimate place for cards for me in the 1970's was the flea market at the Twin Drive In Movie Theater on Milwaukee Avenue in Wheeling, IL, long gone now. There were dozens of guys selling cards at the Twin. I picked up copious amounts of post-war cards there every Sunday from 10 cents to 50 cents each. In the winter, they moved the flea market to the Axle Roller Rink in Glenview (now a Salvation Army thrift store), just a few miles south of the Twin on Milwaukee Avenue, where I was able to find T205s and T206s for five bucks each. I also set up with my dad at both flea markets.

In 1978 I started subscribing to SCD. I used the ads in SCD to price my cards for the flea market. I bought tons of stuff from the SCD classifieds which were amazing. I also joined the Chicagoland Sports Collectors Association which put on three shows a year at the Hillside Holiday Inn. Those shows were amazing. You got a free auto with admission from a guy like Minnie Minoso or Orlando Cepeda. All the dealers sold their cards out of binders. It was fun leafing through pages and pages of Clemente and Koufax. You could get a mint '56 Clemente for 20 bucks.

There was just one card shop in the entire Chicago region -- the Sports Collectors Store on South Archer Avenue in Chicago. My dad was not too keen on driving me there from the north suburbs but he relented here and there. I think in 1980 or 1981 AU opened in Skokie, much closer to home. AU is still open in Skokie but with different owners and at a new location.

Every kid I knew collected cards in the 1970's. A lot of trading went on in the neighborhood and at school. I always tried to complete the sets. For the life of me I could not get a 1975 Topps Jim Willoughby of the Boston Red Sox.

In 1979, I got my first job as a janitor at a day camp with the sole purpose to earn money to buy cards. More and more shows and card shops started to open but the best place to buy cards remained the Twin flea market. Man, I miss that place!

[Leon]

This goes with the subject...

[Seven]

Hearing all of these stories is fascinating. I really appreciate everyone that's responded. I've only lived in a post Beckett Price Guide collecting world, which has definitely affected how the hobby has functioned. The early shows that went on, had to have been a sight. I'm sure it was hard to gauge for both buyers and sellers what exactly a card might have been worth.

For as crazy as some of the prices are nowadays, I'm glad to see the hobby is still thriving. People still want to go to shows. I'm very sour on the whole "investment culture" but it is what it is.

[Seven]

Originally Posted by Leon

This goes with the subject...

Leon, thanks for sharing this! What year is this from, if you don't mind me asking?

- James

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Seven

Leon, thanks for sharing this! What year is this from, if you don't mind me asking?

- James

The stamp is from 1945 and the postage rate increased in 1952, so that would put is sometime in that frame.

[lumberjack]

Conrad Anderson put small advertisements in Baseball Digest, this would have been in the late 1950s. George Husby, too. I believe I found ADCO Sports Book Exchange thru the Street & Smith baseball yearbooks; that was Goody Goldfadden. There were a couple of publications, but you would subscribe and just hope they would show up. Think essence of mimeograph machine. The Sport Hobbyist was probably the best looking hobby magazine at that time. Otherwise, I would have never been involved in collecting other than the cards I bought at the dime store.

I bought a handful of paper items from Goldfadden as a kid (thru the mail), but no cards. He was professional. I remember he accepted payment in British Sterling as well as US dollars.

John Stommen of SCD had an opportunity to buy Goldfadden's inventory; he decided to pass. Let me paraphrase John Stommen, "I was afraid that after I bought his store [which was just massive], he would be back in business a month later with even more stuff to sell."
lumberjack