This is my story of going to my first Baseball Card Convention 30 Years ago.
I had spent several days working for my grandfather in the hay fields that summer and I had earned a whopping total of $60.00. Wow, I was sixteen and I had $60.00 to spend! An older friend of mine that was my "mentor for collecting baseball cards" said, they were having a big collectors convention in Kansas City and he asked me if I would like to go along with him and his wife? Excitedly I replied, Yeah! as I had never been to anything like that before. So, I took my $60.00 and we headed towards Kansas City. I was excited! The card show was at a hotel located across from KC Royals Stadium on I-70. I remember as we walked into the convention room I said, "Wow! there were row after row and table after table full of Tobacco, Gum, & Candy Cards. You have to know that at this time before the show, the oldest cards I had seen was two 1952 Topps. I thought the 1952 Topps were ancient but they were nothing compared to what I was seeing here for the very first time. I was like a kid in a candy shop! So, anyway I was so out of my league I had no idea what to buy. I looked for cards that I was familiar with but there wasn't to much. I found two Topps that had been autographed, they were a 1973 Sal Bando and a 1974 Randy Jones. I then found a 50 card lot of 1973 Topps with a Pete Rose on top. I bought a 1975 and 1977 complete sets of Topps. I did not have one penny of my hard earned $60.00 left. Well, as I made my way back to the car and the couple I had rode up there with, I hadn't given any thought to keeping enough money back to eat on. The wife of my friend says, I am glad you had fun but man I am hungry. My friend said, I am sorry dear but I spent all my money in there. She turned aournd and looked at me in the backseat and said, Bart, do you have any money? I replied, "No! I spent it all on cards." She was so nice she bought us pizza anyway. When I returned home, my family could not believe I had spent the whole $60.00 on baseball cards. They all replied, you worked so hard for all that money in the hayfields. Anyway I guess my story is, that now when I go to card shows or card shops, it is still hard not to spend every penny I have. But I know that my wife wouldn't buy me pizza if I did. Never the less, in todays world, $60.00 wouldn't even break open most hobby boxes.
I would like to hear more stories like mine from other collectors about when they first started out. So if you have a story you want to share email me at mhtml:%7B38160ACE-BE85-48F2-8483-A2A063EFBF90%7Dmid://00000010/!x-usc:mailto:bartm@ckt.net
I had spent several days working for my grandfather in the hay fields that summer and I had earned a whopping total of $60.00. Wow, I was sixteen and I had $60.00 to spend! An older friend of mine that was my "mentor for collecting baseball cards" said, they were having a big collectors convention in Kansas City and he asked me if I would like to go along with him and his wife? Excitedly I replied, Yeah! as I had never been to anything like that before. So, I took my $60.00 and we headed towards Kansas City. I was excited! The card show was at a hotel located across from KC Royals Stadium on I-70. I remember as we walked into the convention room I said, "Wow! there were row after row and table after table full of Tobacco, Gum, & Candy Cards. You have to know that at this time before the show, the oldest cards I had seen was two 1952 Topps. I thought the 1952 Topps were ancient but they were nothing compared to what I was seeing here for the very first time. I was like a kid in a candy shop! So, anyway I was so out of my league I had no idea what to buy. I looked for cards that I was familiar with but there wasn't to much. I found two Topps that had been autographed, they were a 1973 Sal Bando and a 1974 Randy Jones. I then found a 50 card lot of 1973 Topps with a Pete Rose on top. I bought a 1975 and 1977 complete sets of Topps. I did not have one penny of my hard earned $60.00 left. Well, as I made my way back to the car and the couple I had rode up there with, I hadn't given any thought to keeping enough money back to eat on. The wife of my friend says, I am glad you had fun but man I am hungry. My friend said, I am sorry dear but I spent all my money in there. She turned aournd and looked at me in the backseat and said, Bart, do you have any money? I replied, "No! I spent it all on cards." She was so nice she bought us pizza anyway. When I returned home, my family could not believe I had spent the whole $60.00 on baseball cards. They all replied, you worked so hard for all that money in the hayfields. Anyway I guess my story is, that now when I go to card shows or card shops, it is still hard not to spend every penny I have. But I know that my wife wouldn't buy me pizza if I did. Never the less, in todays world, $60.00 wouldn't even break open most hobby boxes.
I would like to hear more stories like mine from other collectors about when they first started out. So if you have a story you want to share email me at mhtml:%7B38160ACE-BE85-48F2-8483-A2A063EFBF90%7Dmid://00000010/!x-usc:mailto:bartm@ckt.net
2 comments:
At my first card show I bought a 1985 Topps USA Team set, wrapped in cellophane, for $0.25. I later got the complete set but I still have that team set. My other exciting purchase was a Juaqin Andujar RC! Enos Slaughter and Roman Gabriel were there signing for free but I did not know who they were then. I remember really wanting to buy a Dale Murphy RC but it was way out of my price range. I must have spent more than $1 but maybe that was all I had. Good fun!
I purposely would hide a $20 in my shoe for emergencies, just so I would not blow everything!!
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