Now that another National is in the books, I thought it might be fun to look back at another card show, a show that, dare I say, would've been much more interesting to attend. Okay, I know them's is fightin' words, so I'll just say that given the choice, I would choose the one in today's post over a modern National every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
I found this article while doing research for the other blog, and thought it might of some interest to a few people. So yeah, if you fall into that category, let's grab our towels, and take a little trip to the not so distant past, shall we?
The year: 1978
The place: Fair Lawn, NJ
The article: Courtesy of The Record (Hackensack, NJ) 4/3/78
- The photo that's accompanying the article is really fantastic. How may sets can you identify?
- "Judy Juanita" is obviously a pen name, but I'm fairly certain that it's not, Judy Juanita, the former Black Panther. [Edit: Maybe it was?]
- The days of high school seniors organizing card shows are never coming back.
- Tables were $12.50; that's a shade over $52 in today's money. Those were some expensive tables!
- Collectors hoping to alleviate unsuspecting civilians of their treasures for pennies on the dollar, isn't a new phenomena.
- Treating sports cards like stocks isn't a new phenomena.
- New blood trying to strike it big with sports cards isn't a new phenomena.
- Plastic pages have been around for longer than I thought. I had always been under the impression that plastic sheets came into existence sometime during the mid 80's, turns out I was wrong. Also, I hope no one out there is still using pages from 1978 😓.
- I would love to know what the contents of Mr. Ross' starter kits were.
- Card collecting started getting big in 1974... allegedly!
- Joe Kunigonis was selling old Yankee Stadium scoreboard letters for $3 ($12.50 today) a pop. A letter from that same scoreboard sold for $529.24 in 2017.
- Old Yankee Stadium seats are estimated to be worth $750 apiece in 2021.
- Printing errors were more desirable in 1978 than they are in 2021. I'm guessing that grading companies have a little bit to do with the decline.
- Kids aren't being taught history anymore. Does this have something to do with their lack of interest in card collecting (or anything else for that matter)?
Bonus Round...
• Hank Aaron's 1954 Topps rookie was valued at $40 ($166 in today's money) in 1978. For the same card in 2021 you'd be looking at $300 and up for an unauthenticated copy, and $1,000 and up for an authenticated copy.
• A complete 1948 Bowman baseball set could be had for $150 ($625 today) in 1978. One with all kinds of problems sold on eBay back on May 29th of this year for $2,100.
• Not surprisingly, old All-Star press pins haven't jumped in price all that much. One of those $40 ($166 today) 1956 press pins sold for $195 back in 2015.
• Authenticated 1948 Leaf Satchel Paige's can fetch well over $10,000 today, which is a far cry from that $50 ($208 with inflation) estimate back in '78.
• I think we all know that if you wanted a '52 Topps Mantle, then you should've bought it for $400 ($1,666 with inflation) back in '78. PSA 1's routinely bring in over $30,000 in 2021.
Hopefully you all enjoyed this trip back in time as much as I did. If so, whatta you say, same time next year?
Nice trip in the way back machine! We all wish we would have picked up Mantles back then! Card shows are making a comeback for sure!
ReplyDeleteThey certainly are. And it'll be interesting to see what kind of staying power they have this time.
DeleteI love old articles about baseball cards. It would be fun to shop for cards at yesteryear's prices with today's money. I could buy 1 Mantle rookie for $400 or 10 Hank Aaron rookies for the same $400. If only we could go back.....
ReplyDeleteI know that a lot of people wish they could go back and buy various things when they were cheaper, and while that would be nice, I'd be just as content to go back as just a spectator. I'd really like to see what was available, and for how much. And see the people, and hear how they talked about collecting. That sort of thing.
Delete$12.50 for a Yankee Stadium scoreboard letter. Dang.
ReplyDeleteIt's not my kind of collectible, but I can understand the appeal of it to others... especially for those prices!
DeleteVery cool article. In the picture, 1967 Topps and 1962 Topps are both obvious, while I believe I see 1959 Topps football and 1960 Topps football.
ReplyDeleteI'm very lucky because my dad collected in the first half of the '70s, before the boom, so he built a nice collection as a kid. And his mom didn't throw them out. Now if there only had been the internet.
So, you know vintage football, too!
DeleteNot having the internet back then was a good thing. If it had been around by '78, that would've meant that I would've had to grow up with it too, and I wouldn't have liked that. I'm grateful more and more with each passing day that I got to grow up in the pre internet/smartphone era.
Love old articles about card collecting.
ReplyDeleteThe pages thing wasn't news to me, I probably had pages around 1980 and I remember them being a "new thing" in the late '70s in collecting ads.
Happy to see I have some of the cards in the photo.
That's good, because I have a few more to share at some point.
DeleteI wasn't around yet, and had never really sought out info on the origins of card sheets, so I found this "revelation" to be of some interest.
With all of those 67's up front, I'm sure you do :)
- I'd love to go time traveling back to 1978, even if it meant going to Fair Lawn, NJ.
ReplyDelete- It's amazing how cheaply NY history could be had in the 1970s. Pieces of the Stadium could be had for peanuts, if you hadn't walked out with whatever could be pried loose after the last game like a lot of people did. The famous humpback street signs from the first half of the 20th century could be had for a couple of bucks each from the NYC Department of Transportation. You can't get any for under $100 now, and for more prominent streets quite a bit more than that.
- Looks like Judy Juanita the Black Panther did live in that area of NJ in the 80's and 90's, so maybe in '78 too.
- I had never even heard of Fair Lawn, but would have no problem visiting there if it meant I could go back to 1978.
Delete- Those old signs are really neat. And to be honest, I'm kind of surprised that any could be had as low as $100.
- Thanks for the info, I'll update the post. It's kind of funny though to think of some radical turned "poet" covering a card show just for the sake of a buck.
Someone needs to invent a time machine already so I can go back to these old card shows.
ReplyDeleteEvery collectors sentiments, exactly!
DeleteMy favorite line from the article: "The 38-year-old said he also hordes press guides, matchbook covers, and glasses in addition to some 100,000 cards 'all over the house. My wife hates them.'"
ReplyDeleteNice work with all the research, Jon. Like others have mentioned here in the comments, I'd love to grab some of those other items, like scoreboard letters. Let us know if you find a time machine.
Yeah, I'm sure that she was pleasant to live with.
DeleteI'm gonna leave the finding of a time machine to someone else. I already don't have enough time to do everything that I want do on any given day, trying to find a time machine will just mean that I have to give up yet another thing :)
I ask for a time machine every day, no such luck yet
ReplyDeleteIt's probably a good thing they don't exist, otherwise the past would be teeming with time travelers.
DeleteI'm reading an old issue of Baseball Cards from 1991 and they have a couple of card show advertisements that I would definitely rather attend than the National. Mainly because you could meet and get signatures from some big time legends for the price of a blaster or two.
ReplyDeleteAs for this show... that's pretty cool that they had card shows in the 70's. I think I first became aware of them in the late 80's. Oh how I wish I could grab one of those Aarons for $40.
Yeah, I've come across a few of those ads where it's like "Come meet so-and-so, and get their autograph for $20", and it's just amazing to see some of the names.
DeleteI've heard people talk about 70's card shows before, but never in this much detail. I found an earlier card show article as well, and while still interesting, it didn't go into this many specifics.
Got it. Thanks.
ReplyDelete