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?
