Herb Ross is still collecting by the way! He and his wife Roberta moved to California years ago to be near family, but his passion for the hobby never left. The baseball card business was always a sideline - Herb was a high school principal by day - and one constant through all these years is his enthusiasm for the hobby and his great love of collecting all things Jackie Robinson.
​
Last year I made a deal with Herb (purchasing an extra item from him). Pictured below is the front and back of his business card with his note, which I include because it’s amazing to see his handwriting is exactly the same!  (I collect Jackie Robinson too so be sure to check with me first before offering anything good to him…) Herb is one of my favorites. Always a gentleman and a scholar. He and his wife (Hi Roberta!) were always the friendliest people. When they were at a convention with a table, which was often, it was like I had family in the room, and I knew I always had a homebase at the show. ​

Bill Zekus “The Autograph King”
 
There was no one whose name was more synonymous with advanced Hall of Fame autograph collecting than Bill Zekus. He had it all (just about anyway). I was not an “autograph guy” so our ability to deal was limited. I rarely had anything to sell him but always had interest in buying items that perhaps I could use for deals or were up my alley if he had any. This letter from July 2, 1976 is fascinating because Bill is listing off so many rare signed items for sale. He was first and foremost a collector, but had many duplicates from collections he bought, which he used for trade or resale. The prices may look cheap now (of course they do! These prices are 50 years old!) but they were not cheap then. Bill would much rather trade than sell. The only things I had interest in from him were rare cards or cabinet photos that were signed. In this letter he refers to enclosing a Harry Wright autographed cabinet card and he has it priced at $175. That was just way too much in my opinion and I was not buying it. In fact, I didn’t even care if it was autographed. I just liked cabinet cards and would have been happier if it was not autographed and much cheaper. I didn’t want to pay for autographs! That was not my area of interest. One the other hand, if it wasn’t autographed, Bill probably would not have had it to offer me. (Note: Today this would be worth many thousands).

I only wanted to pay $100 which he would not accept, but he had high hopes that I would be able to round up some rare signed items to trade him. After all, he knew how active I was with cards. Though I tried, at this time I just couldn’t get him signed items he wanted. He did want to sell me the Harry Wright and sure, I wanted it. But to me it was cabinet card. To him it was a signed rarity. Eventually we compromised in between my $100 offer as just a cabinet card (which was a lot at this time for a cabinet card!), and his $175 full retail-plus asking price. I agreed to pay $145. This process, as the date on the second letter shows, took forever! I sent him a check in August. I did eventually find some autographs of interest to him but could not get them for this deal. Bill was more than a just a collector of Hall of Fame autographs. I think of him as the First Super Collector of Hall of Fame autographs in an era where all baseball cards and memorabilia were just starting to be valuable. Looking at his list of extra autographs (which itself was just a tiny percentage of his extras) gives an idea of how advanced he was, how extensive his collection was, and what autographs were valued at by advanced collectors in 1976.       
 

Larry Fritsch​
There weren’t many collectors as sophisticated as Larry Fritsch. And fewer still who collected absolutely everything. Larry was a hard and aggressive negotiator, and make no mistake: he could be very gruff. This was an intimidating combination! I was able to navigate reasonably well, which is not surprising as I always tried to accommodate him and be a pleasure to deal with. Larry Fritsch was a larger-than-life personality, with a huge warehouse with more cards than anyone (literally tens of millions, most in unopened cases and boxes). He had an unbelievably large personal collection that spanned every era and every set, and had knowledge of the sets he was particularly interested in that was second to none. I never saw it but my understanding from him was that he lived on a gigantic farm. Everything about him was big.  Even Larry was big!  As is his legend in the hobby: He was the first fulltime card dealer. That alone is a big deal. And I believe he was the most successful card dealer of all time! He was incredibly smart, dedicated, and had a genuine enthusiasm for card collecting.  Larry was a legend in the hobby when he was active; he is a legend to this day. His contributions have helped shape the hobby as we know it.   

Larry was already a legend even when I first started dealing with him. He knew baseball cards like few others, and he appreciated that I did too. We would talk for hours at a time. I went out of my way to find cards for him. He seemed to have just about everything, yet there were always cards he needed. Probably because he collected everything!  

Below are a few letters from Larry Fritsch. These letters are just a small sample, but they certainly give a glimpse of how involved our deals could be. Larry always sent a letter when he mailed cards or a check. He loved to trade, often more than he loved to buy outright. The 1974 letter is typical - it references so many trades and deals that I have trouble following it all reading it today! 

The two 1976 letters are related to the same deal. In these letters Larry is sending me two checks totaling $400 for a rare T206 Magie error and nine 1951 Topps Team cards. A 1947 Tip-Top Bread card of Evers was also up in the air. Evers was a Detroit Tigers player, which in this era were revered for their extreme rarity (less so today because in the years that followed there were a few substantial finds of Tip-Top Bread Detroit Tigers). Larry was not sure he wanted the Evers for $75 and said he’d let me know. As I recall, he didn’t buy it but instead we worked it into a trade. Deals referenced in passing in just these letters involve cards from these issues: Bell Brand Potato Chips, M116 Sporting Life, T207 Brown Background, 1951 Topps Current All-Stars, 1958 Kahns meat, and 1933 DeLong gum. There aren’t many collectors today who collect (let alone have encyclopedic knowledge) of all of these sets. For Larry, as a collector, this was the tip of the iceberg! As a dealer, the rich tradition of Larry Fritsch Cards, with its roots as the very first fulltime card dealership in the hobby, continues on as a family business to this day.  

Dr. Lawrence Kurzrok
Dr. Kurzrok was a giant collector from an era way before my time. By the time I made his acquaintance by phone, he didn’t really collect anymore, but he had a massive collection and knew everything about cards. And he loved to talk with me about cards! He certainly didn’t need to sell anyone anything, but he enjoyed dealing with me. He would dig out whatever he thought would be interesting and offer cards to me. Everyone who knew of him – and there were many - wanted to buy cards from him, but in retrospect I think I was the only one he actually sold cards to. He just got a kick out of me and really enjoyed encouraging my learning about vintage cards and dealing. After Dr. Kurzrok passed away, his wife told me how much he loved my enthusiasm and talking cards with me. The Kurzroks were “high society” people. Dr. Kurzrok had been an extremely successful New York doctor before moving to Florida to retire. They were very well-to-do, did a lot of entertaining, and hosted a lot of fancy dinner parties. Mrs. Kurzrok explained to me that even when they were having a formal dinner with company, if I called (which was often), Dr. Kurzrok would stand up from the head of the table, apologize to his guests, and explain that he had to excuse himself to go speak about baseball cards with his “little friend.” I had no idea.   

Dr. Kurzrok was an extremely serious collector in the 1940s and 1950s and sometime in the 1960s, I believe, he slowed down. But when he was collecting, he bought everything. He liked it all! Nonsports and sports. And when he collected, I got the impression that money was no object. Which helps explain how he had so much “stuff.”   

I never met Dr. Kurzrok in person, but would speak to him regularly and he would also write frequently. On any given day I could get a postcard or letter from Dr. Kurzrok offering me some rare or obscure cards, sometimes in quantities to test me! I would always just call of course, and I always bought it all!  The letters and checks below are just a small sample. It is amusing to see that the letter and checks below represent my buying over thirty uncut sheets of 1925 W504 Universal Toy cards (each sheet representing a set of Dodgers, Giants, or Yankees). Individual cut W504 cards were well known and scarce, and for some reason almost all that collectors saw were individual Dodgers players (plus the larger team card at the top of the sheet). The Yankees and Giants players were much rarer, virtually unknown, and all team sets in uncut sheets were pretty much unknown. Every time you see an uncut sheet of W504 cards, it’s a virtually certain bet it came from Dr. Kurzrok. Interestingly, there was also a 1925 W504 Washington Senators team set. A very small handful of individual W504 Senators are known to exist. Dr. Kurzrok had no W504 Senators, and that is why they are the rarest of all, and why no uncut sheets of W504 Senators are known to exist.  
 

Stanley McClure
I thought this was an amusing find: In my earliest auctions, bids were placed by mail. Hard to believe! But that’s how it was done! This auction was in 1975 and the bidder was Stanley McClure, one of the great super old-time collectors. Everyone liked Stanley. He was old even in the 1970s (seriously old!) but enjoyed collecting like a kid. It was always fun to find a card that Stanley needed, allowing him to cross it off his ever-present want list (yes, in those advanced collectors had want lists). 

Robert Ball
Here's another auction bid letter..This one from 1973! The bidder was longtime collector Robert Ball, who in later years focused his attention on S81 Tobacco Silks and eventually had not only a perfect set, but the only known S81 uncut sheet!  

Bert Randolph Sugar
I also bid in auctions. I was the winning bidder on a couple of lots in a rare auction in 1978 held by my good friend Bert Sugar (1936-2012). Below is a rare letter/invoice from this important pioneer! A book could be written about Bert, who had an immense impact on many collecting fields. He was the driving force behind the ground-breaking Sports Collectors Bible in the 1970s, and countless other endeavors, many involving collectibles, as well as doing other things like earning a place in the Boxing Hall of Fame (for his monumental contributions as a preeminent boxing writer and historian), writing dozens of books, buying and running Ring Magazine, and acting in films (always as himself with his trademark hat and cigar). Here’s a link to a tribute to Bert:
Bert Sugar Had Impact on Cards, Collectibles Too

Mort Shanerman
Mort Shanerman was one of the few “big autograph guys” in the 1970s. Everyone knew Mort and had great dealings with him. He had various sub-collections, but his primary collecting interest was fascinating: he was determined to get an autograph of EVERY SINGLE Yankees player EVER. I don’t know if he ever completed the collection, but no one beat the bushes and networked more to assemble a world-class collection of this type than Mort.
Eventually he sold his entire Yankees collection in one shot to Barry Halper (which is not surprising because not only did Barry appreciate opportunity to buy truly great collections lock-stock-and-barrel, he loved the Yankees). I last heard from Mort about fifteen years ago. He still had great interest in collecting and still had items from his early collecting days. Always a pleasure, Mort is someone I remember fondly. I’m including this letter not because it documents some especially entertaining deal, but to give a shout to one of the good guys in the hobby who had such an unusual and ambitious collecting specialty, and who was so active in the collecting world decades ago.

T205 and T206 Tobacco Cards…25 Cents Each! 
This letter will be amusing to many as it shows how ridiculously cheap T205 and T206 Gold Border Tobacco cards could be in the 1970s. Twenty-five cents each? That was cheap even then…I was giving him a particularly good deal at the time because he was a young collector who called me (my kind of guy!)  

Larry Gladstone
Larry Gladstone has been one of the hobby’s most knowledgeable (and personable!)  collector/dealers since the 1970s. He is a pioneer from the earliest days of the hobby’s explosive growth and is still active to this day under his eBay handle “Painthistorian.” Larry is also one of my oldest and dearest friends for the past FIFTY YEARS and counting (that’s right: 50 years!) We practically grew up together in the hobby. I think of him like family (the crazy part of the family) and it has been a joy to share growing up and becoming adults over so many decades. Even our kids became friends. Larry has a beautiful family and is now a grandfather. His ping-pong and 500 gin-rummy skills are weak, but his integrity and character are strong. (Small note: Larry and I have a longstanding disagreement about who is the ping-pong and 500 gin-rummy champion between the two of us. I am. Don’t listen to him if he says otherwise.)
 
What is SO GREAT about this “letter on index cards” from Larry is that it was the VERY FIRST communication we ever had. Even better, he had no idea I was also a kid and called me “Mr. Lifson.” To me, this is extremely amusing (one 15-year-old kid calling another 15-year-old kid “Mr.”)  When I got this two-index-card “letter” with his mail-in auction bids, I thought, “Who the heck is this? Look at all these card types listed. And a handwritten ad to look for his future ads. Very unusual.” (Please note, as can be seen, that Larry, ever the salesman, was even kind enough to provide an arrow from the first index card directing me to the second index card). I called Larry the very day I received this, and we immediately became great friends - and have been ever since.   
(One final note...Larry, your bid of $8.28 for the 1949 Leaf of Jackie Robinson...really, that's just highway robbery!) 

I am still recovering from Larry’s letter above, but have to somehow wrap this post up, because I could go on forever and never actually post any of this…
 
So I close with a flyer I found among my old correspondence that somehow escaped getting thrown out. This flyer advertises the very first Philadelphia Baseball Card and Sports Memorabilia Show, which in its earliest days was held at Spring Garden College in Chestnut Hill, and within a couple of years moved to Willow Grove (which is why the show was known for decades as “The Willow Grove Show”). From the very first, this became one of the most exciting and important card conventions in the country. It played a huge role in the hobby’s growth in the 1970s and 1980s (and beyond) and provided a venue that helped make the  hobby more accessible and enjoyable to thousands of collectors.
​
That’s a wrap! I hope you have enjoyed reading this incredibly long post as much as I have enjoyed writing it!
Robert Lifson

“Sorry It Ain’t More…”

The first letter, from January 1976, is classic Mastro‑in‑debt. With a partial payment enclosed, he opens:

“Dear Shorty –
Sorry it ain’t more but I’m still waiting on money. I’ll keep sending checks as money comes in. I am definitely going to Indianapolis so we can get together there. You better be there you little rat so we can sling the shit. See ya later dumby.
Your Buddy,
Bill”

It’s all there in a few lines: he’s behind, he’s promising to make good, and at the same time he’s insulting me, planning the next show, and turning a debt into a joke. The subtext was always, “You know I’ll square up, so relax, and get ready for the next deal.”

I never minded that he owed me. In a way, that was part of the fun. I knew any current debt would be paid, and I knew that in the meantime I had a front‑row seat to one of the most energetic, inventive dealmakers in the hobby.
​

​A Three‑Page Want List And A $45 Lummis Hamner

The second letter is from October 1976, and the hobby of course is continuing to explode in this era. Regional and oddball issues were hot, companies were producing new stuff constantly, and no one really knew yet which cards or newly issued items were going to be tomorrow’s high‑value classics. In that uncertain environment Mastro wrote this three‑page letter that reads like a snapshot of an endless stream of small deals involving then‑modern regionally issued items that collectors were unsure if they were going to be common or rare, valuable or not.

The first page is an order list directed at me, and it totals exactly $123.50. It’s full of the kind of things people were speculating on at the time:

• Opening Night Hank Aaron program.
• “Magnavox Aaron Program – 1.00.”
• Phillies “Punch Out” set – 2.00.
• Valley Bank set – 2.00.
• “Set of Puzzles – ? (I still don’t know the fuckin price for a complete set).”
• “Placemats 5 diff. BB only – 1.00 (Don’t fold them asshole!).”
• “50 packs of bags – 36.50.”
• “Pee Wees (3 sets – 36 cards) – 6.00.”
And buried in the middle is an outlier that is a rare vintage card:
• “Lummis of Hamner – 45.00.”

That’s Granny Hamner from the 1949 Lummis Peanut Butter Phillies set, a regional issue that today advanced collectors recognize as extremely rare; even in Philadelphia where they were issued. In 1976 they were almost mythical in rarity. Forty‑five dollars for a single regional card in 1976 was serious money. This was obviously for his personal collection.

His extra notations are as good as the items. Next to some lines he’s still guessing at the prices, complaining he doesn’t know what a “complete set” should run, and underlining titles for emphasis, simultaneously planning, scheming, and “yelling” in handwritten text.
​

“Listen You Little Shit…”

The second page is where the real Mastro voice takes over. After more wants (“Mets Yearbooks,” “an Aaron program of his first night in Milwaukee or wherever”), he remembers that I had promised him one of those Aaron programs:

“I believe you said you’d hold one for me for 1.00 or was it 2.00, well, let’s be fair about it, make it a dollar!”

Only Bill could argue a price down in writing and call it being “fair.” And make you laugh at the same time.

Then he changes channels completely:

“Listen you little shit, all this stuff better be held for me or I’ll use you for table scraps to feed my dog.”

A paragraph later, it’s suddenly an accounting lecture:

“You owe me 4.00 for the 2 Chevy sets I got you from Gammon and 4.00 for the postage on Plank for Halper…”

The Chevy sets are an promotional premium set issued by Chevrolet that Wirt Gammon was selling, part of the wave of new issues the hobby could barely keep up with at this time. The Plank is a T206 Eddie Plank, one of the famous tobacco card rarities, which at that time we must have either gone in on together or I had bought through him and moved to Barry Halper, who had an insatiable appetite for having extra Wagners and Planks lying around.
He keeps toggling between bully and bookkeeper:

“Please make a box for me, it’s not all that difficult. Send Magie and Lummis of Hamner, damn it!”

The Magie is an example of the famous Sherry Magie T206 error, another big‑ticket card even back then. In a few sentences he’s calling me insulting names, barking orders, reminding me what I owe him, grabbing top‑shelf rarities, threatening to feed me to his dog, and still making me laugh.

​On the final page of that October 1976 letter he actually settles up. When you net out what I owed him for the Gammon Chevy sets and the Halper Plank postage against what he owes me for all the stuff I’m holding, he encloses a check for $115.50 and still owes me for the Aaron Opening Day program and the puzzles (which are probably the 1974 Topps Test puzzles, as I had lots of those back then). He even ribs me about my tendency to try to buy and sell big quantities of interesting new issues:

“Let me know the cost on the Isaly’s cases (2), I only want 2 cases, not 50! And make sure it’s 1 case of each series, don’t be your usual jerk off self!”
Then he closes by circling back to the same demand:

“Hold all that shit for me, I’ll send the Chevy sets when I get ’em. Please make a box for me, it’s not all that difficult.”

In later years our paths went in very different directions, but these letters are from a much earlier chapter, when the hobby was smaller, more innocent, and endlessly exciting. They’re a glimpse of how much fun it was to make deals nonstop in that era - and how Bill Mastro’s enthusiasm for collecting and outrageous sense of humor made an already incredibly great hobby and business all the more fun in those early days.

That's a wrap! I hope you have enjoyed reading this post as much as I have enjoyed writing it!

​Robert Lifson

​Ted Colzaretti’s letter to me dated December 1, 1973 opens with:
“Robert, you will find out when you are in this hobby awhile that sometimes you may have to wait a long time before completing some deals, you must be a bit patient, I know that you are young and are very anxious to acquire as many of these cards as fast as you can, but you will find out that this is not that simple….”

This well-intentioned advice absolutely 100% went in one ear and right out the other. I knew he meant well… but I also knew… that he didn’t understand!…There was no better time to communicate and make deals than NOW!  And nothing has changed to this day. I have always been rewarded by NOT waiting, by trying to be respectfully proactive and making things happen. (Note: Adult collectors sometimes called this “being a pain in the ass.”)
 
 
My impatience as a youngster was recognized – I should say EMBRACED - even by myself (how could it not) and worn like a badge of honor. In my eyes this was not a flaw at all..actually, it felt like a superpower! There were SO many deals to do, SO many collectors to track down, SO much to learn… All things being equal, I knew that impatience (combined with my sincere interest and enthusiasm) was a key ingredient to success, helping me to be more productive, learn more, and do more deals. With a phone I could cram what an old‑timer would call years of wheeling and dealing into a couple of weeks.

In time, as I bought collections that had taken decades to put together, I soaked up a lifetime of card knowledge with each collection in days. Then did it again with the next collection. And the next. I believe I was learning this stuff faster than anyone had before. It was a perfect storm: I was obsessed with old baseball cards, cards were finally starting to be worth real money, and there were more vintage collections sitting in closets and basements than ever. Once cards had value, every one of those collections had to go somewhere, and a lot of them ended up, in part or whole, being sold through me.

With Ted, every transaction crawled along at the speed of the mails. Or slower. He was old, “old school.” I understood and was respectful that not everyone wanted to move at my pace. So, though not my highest priority, I did still try to accommodate a few old-timers (and myself) and do deals by mail if I really HAD to, especially if there was some dealing excitement to the exchange.
  
Eventually (in 1983 I think, but it could have been 1984, after his passing) I bought the entire Colzaretti collection from the family with Bill Mastro. I put up all the money (as usual) because Bill just didn’t have the money for big deals in those days, in part because he was such a big collector. But he more than carried his weight with knowledge, negotiating skills, and selling to his customers to help recoup the cost. The collection cost an astounding $85,000 (which is a lot of money today but even more in 1983!) I should add, just in case it sounds like I was complaining about putting up all the money, that I never had a problem with this. It was a non-issue. I don’t remember how it came to be that he was in the deal but I think we both were aware of the collection and when it actually came to be available, it just made sense. Otherwise, one of us might have gotten the entire collection, and the other nothing. And having Mastro in the deal actually made it less risky, more fun, and more likely to be successful quickly because he brought so much to the table. As a bonus, he was even a customer for anything he wanted for his collection.

​Long before buying the collection, though, Ted Colzaretti and I did manage to do quite a few significant deals. When I ran across this hundred‑dollar check for a T207 Lowdermilk (see memo field), I could remember that purchase vividly and instantly. One hundred dollars was a big deal for a single card in 1974 and probably the most a T207 Loudermilk had ever sold for to date in the history of the hobby.
In 1974, Lowdermilk was universally recognized as one of the true hobby trophies—just a half‑step behind the famous “Big Three”: Wagner, Plank, and Lajoie. In the American Card Catalog, Jefferson Burdick usually gave every card in a given set the same price, but he broke this rule for a few giant rarities. Wagner was an eye‑popping $50 and Plank was $10, while T206 commons (which in those days included Ty Cobb and all the other stars) were just 10 cents each. In the T207 set, the ONLY card Burdick singled out for extra value was Lowdermilk. 

Lowdermilk’s legend is still recognized, but its price hasn’t kept up with the Big Three or even some other T207 rarities. If you look at grading‑company population reports from the last few decades, you can see more Lowdermilks have been graded than some other tough T207s. It’s still a rare card, just one whose reputation is a little bigger than the reality due to Burdick long ago citing it as the only higher value rarity in the T207 set. If Burdick had access to today’s grading population data, he probably would have identified a number of T207s along with Lowdermilk for rarity and higher value, not just Lowdermilk. But in the hobby’s imagination, Lowdermilk will always be the face of the T207 set. Planks, Wagners, Magie Error cards, Lowdermilks, W600s and cabinet cards and every rare card known to the collecting world passed through my hands, some countless times. This is how I learned about cards.
    
As long as I’m rambling freestyle…
​
Colzaretti had an immense collection. Far bigger than I could have ever known when I was dealing with him by mail. No one has everything, but he had an astounding collection and massive duplication in many “meat-and-potato” sets. Thousands of T206. Thousands of cards from virtually every regular Topps and Bowman set from 1948 up through the mid-1960s. He obviously bought a lot of his more recent cards when they came out. He also bought countless vintage card lots in Charles Bray’s card auctions, year after year, all the way back into the 1940s. Bray was the first card auctioneer and in the early days of the hobby, an institution. Ted’s old hobby papers included all of Bray’s old mimeographed mail auctions, with all of Ted’s original bidding notations and even all of his auction invoices (some of which I still have!)  

​Ted also had nonsport cards by the thousands (especially 1880s to 1910s) as Charles Bray regularly offered  these in big groups. T206 Wagner? Yes, he had a T206 Wagner.  The condition, frankly, was a little off. I can’t remember exactly every flaw, but something was unattractive about the bottom border with Wagner’s name and team - maybe a surface tear affecting a few letters that had been crudely “fixed” with a pen. I’m sure there were other problems but the bottom border had a serious issue. When I bought the Wagner it was basically a burden to purchase: the family wanted to sell everything and they were well aware Wagner was very valuable (unfortunately they were not as knowledgeable about condition, which was not anywhere near as important in the early 1980s as today, but if a card had serious enough issues, of course this would impact value).
 
I remember counting this Wagner at $4000 and just wanting to get my money back on it. I immediately called Barry Halper because he was always happy to buy trophy cards like T206 Wagners, Planks, Magie Error cards, and 1933 Goudey Lajoies in any condition. It didn’t matter how many he had. He got a kick out of having them. The more the merrier! I told him about the problems and that if he wanted it for $4000, it was his. Even though I’d pay more than a million dollars for this card today, at that time I was kind of relieved when he bought it! I just didn’t want it.
 
Where is that card today? What happened to it? I happen to know: Very shortly after Barry Halper bought it, he told me he gave it to the Hall of Fame as a gift because “they didn’t have one and they should have one.”  They still have it, of course, but many years later, before Barry sold his collection, he let the Hall of Fame buy various items they wanted, and they wanted his much nicer personal single T206 Wagner. I believe Barry said he priced it at $400,000 at the time. It was in very nice shape. Today that card would be worth well over TEN MILLION DOLLARS! Today they have both but for many years the Hall of Fame had only one T206 Wagner, and it was Ted Colzaretti’s Wagner.
​
I’m going to try to move on to the next post because the way this one is evolving it is barely staying on topic in any way!  I am grateful to have had the privilege of actually dealing with collecting pioneer Ted Colzaretti. Thinking back, I don’t recall anyone else ever telling me they ever dealt with him. It was clear from his hobby correspondence that in earlier years he communicated with collectors from his era – mostly by mail of course. One January 1955 letter from Charles Bray (pictured below) refers to a planned meeting at Walter Corson’s house; I have no idea if Ted went but Charles Bray’s letter left me with the impression Ted had gone to other card meetings in the past. 

I am also grateful to have actually spoken with him on the phone a few times about cards. I called him a hundred times or more! and actually got to speak to him maybe six times tops. I don’t know anyone else who ever told me they spoke to him on the phone even once. But even though he was so close geographically, I never got to meet Ted in person. I don’t know if any collectors of my era did. No one ever told me they met him. When I called, the phone would almost always just ring with no answer. On rare occasion a woman picked up (as I recall, his daughter) and all but a few times I remember she would tell me he was not home, and that he was out all day “riding the buses.”
 
I remember this very well because I thought “RIDING THE BUSES??? WHAT IN THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN? WHY?” and I imagined him, an elderly gentleman, just enjoying riding around as a passenger in a city bus all day. I never asked for any clarification because I thought it would be rude. She would say this like it was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe it was, for all I knew!
In fact, just as I am typing this, I researched online if “riding the buses all day” was a “thing” in Philadelphia that some elderly people were known to do in this era, and I was very surprised to read that it was! Here’s just one quote found on this well documented topic from a research project on the history of Philadelphia:
“There is no neat statistic on “all-day riders,” but the policy environment absolutely encouraged older Philadelphians (65+) in the early to mid-1970sto use buses frequently, including for socializing, staying out of the house, or “riding around” because it was free, climate-controlled, and relatively safe. Given that this was widely publicized as a benefit of the new lottery funded program, the image of older people riding SEPTA buses much of the day in that era is grounded in real conditions, not just folklore.”  
It’s kind of comforting to learn this because for over 50 years this was an unsolved mystery in the back of my mind. I know what I was told, but it just didn’t make any sense to me and I always wondered if somehow I misinterpreted something. I did not!

Thankfully he was not always on the bus. He had time to write and, armed with nothing but great perseverance and a phone, I actually got to talk to and deal with this legendary collector who was a contemporary and peer of Jefferson Burdick and Charles Bray and Walter Corson. I loved that.
 
I hope you have enjoyed reading this rambling and barely proofread post as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

Robert Lifson

​Here’s a postcard I received (one of many!) from Dr. Lawrence Kurzrok. I can’t read the exact date of the postmark but can see the year is 1974. In this postcard Dr Kurzrok, who was always very encouraging and kind to me, is offering me fifty T204 Ramly Tobacco cards for the princely sum of $480 plus $2 for insurance and registered mail postage. This was no doubt a good deal even then. Dr. Kurzrok was always very fair to me, encouraging my interest in knowledge of cards and business. I bought everything he ever offered me. EVERYTHING! And always did well. I really didn’t have any idea how much “stuff” Dr. Kurzrok had until after he had passed away. Let me put it this way: He could have sold me cards week in, week out at our active pace of dealing for hundreds of years! Really. He had that much! Dealing with him was as much an education in vintage cards as good business. He wanted me to do well, and wanted me to buy his cards and resell them and come back for more. I didn’t know I was the only one he did this with. I was just a little kid who loved learning about baseball cards, loved buying and selling cards, and had a phone. Dr Kurzrok took a shine to me, really as much a teacher as a supplier of cards for me to sell. He could have sold his cards to anyone. He didn’t even have to sell any cards. He was very wealthy. We were a great “team” for years before he passed away and looking back I certainly owe him a great debt for all he did for me. 

Usually when I happened to have a surviving old letter or check relating to a card purchase, I have no idea what happened to the cards. Who can remember? I’ve done tens of thousands of deals starting with older cards in the fourth grade. That’s over 50 years of dealing. But in this case in the same box with the postcard from Dr Kurzrok, I found the answer to what happened to these T204s. Here’s a letter from Don McPherson, one of the most respected and prominent vintage baseball card collectors of the 1960s through the 1980s, dated May 13, 1975, where he is sending me a check for $800 for 50 T204 Ramlys and 5 T207s:

​Don was a meteorologist, as I recall, when he wasn’t collecting cards. Many years later I did have the opportunity to purchase a few things from him that I specialized in. I know we discussed his Cracker Jack set (maybe he had 1914 and 1915 and was willing to sell one because I was offering so much). I can’t even remember buying it but I assume I did. I do remember making a deal with him for a big group of Goudey sheets. Don bought these direct from the big Goudey Files Find of 1969 and, like everything else, kept them. Some items like 1914-15 Cracker Jacks and Goudey sheets, enjoyed such a huge surge in value that I was able to make offers that made collectors take note. Don had no interest in selling his Goudey sheets or anything else but when I offered him a fortune for his sheets, he surprised me and himself when he said “I think that’s crazy but….OK, for that price, you can have them.”  I actually got on a plane and picked them up personally rather than risk them being hurt in packaging or the mail. From his perspective, he still had his Goudey sets so in a way these were duplicates. So he could “have his cake and eat it too.”   It was a perfect deal for everyone. Don had practically everything. Exhibit cars, PCL cards, the ‘meat and potato” Topps, Bowman, Goudey, Play Balls, as well as tobacco cards, 19th century cards, regionals…obscure W cards and caramel cards…it went on forever! In his ear cards weren’t so expensive. A collector could collect everything if he wanted to. And that’s what Don did! Don was an older gentleman when I dealt with him. He was a rarity in that he was an advanced collector who bridged the gap from when almost all vintage cards were literally worth pennies to when they were real money, an active buyer all along the way. Not “real money” by today’s standards now that everything is worth a fortune. But big money for the times. Even for 50 T204 Ramlys, $800 was a lot to spend in 1975!

When Don passed away his extremely advanced collection was handled for the family by legendary card scholar/dealer/auctioneer Lew Lipset. There was fierce competition for big collections “back in the day” and the few big dealers (it was a much smaller world in the old days) were always at each others throats. We all hated each other! Even though I was a competitor and would have loved to have handled the collection myself, frankly even I had to admit that Lew Lipset was the ideal person to do justice to this collection due to his encyclopedic knowledge of cards and every nuance of Don’s sophisticated collection. It's not a coincidence that Lipset wrote the self-published Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards three volume set, which is highly regarded to this day and which people who really know cards and hobby history credit with not just promoting interest in vintage cards, but elevating the scholarly approach to researching and documenting cards.     
 
I’ve rambled enough for this post, so I’ll wrap it up here and move on to finding the next letter, check, or story that might be interesting to write about. 
 
I hope you enjoyed reading this “old time hobby” post! I had fun writing it!
 
Robert Lifson
 

I am not an expert at how this website works. I thought I had an organized system. Somehow I missed several free cards for kids requests. They are months old and I am just seeing them. Human error. I just discovered this tonight. Literally about ten minutes ago.

If you are from Highland Park, IL, or Millngton, Tennessee, or East Troy, Wisconsin, I’m terribly sorry for the oversight and delay! I will be assembling an extra special package of old cards for each of you and they will go out this week!

UPDATE:
The missed requests went out within a day upon discovering! 

Letter 3 (an additional letter from Jay, obviously sent later) reads:

Dear Robert:
I got your letter and check today. You mention in it that we agreed on 3 Wilsons and I sent only 2. I believe thinking back that you are probably correct. I also believe that we agreed I was to get 9 Rodeos but you sent only 7. This was OK since I needed 4 of the 7 and wasn’t about to make an issue of it. But one of the 7 you sent was in Fair condition which was not what we agreed upon. Also it was not one I needed when I supplied you with a list of ones I would accept in trade. I am returning it and I believe we should call it even at this point in as much as you charged me $30 for the Rodeos and I only got $11 per Wilson card. At this point I’d rather keep the Wilsons and return the Rodeo.
Hope you will agree,
Jay Barry

 I saw my cancelled $60 check somewhere in the big box of old bank papers here so it must have been OK with me too!  

Rarely were there any errors in any dealings, but this must have been a very casual deal which evolved over some extended period of time, inviting chaos, perhaps even started at a show where Jay was running around like a madman, distracted by multiple people all at the same time every few minutes. Jay was a busy guy. I’m just glad he remembered anything at all about our deal! And not that there was any doubt, but of course it had a very successful conclusion.

These old letters are a very amusing "bonus to the deal" to me. It was fascinating to discover them among my old junk papers that escaped throwing out, and fun to read them as if it was the first time reading. I hope others also enjoy seeing them as a slice of life from early hobby days. 
 
Robert Lifson
 
PS Jay Barry, its been over 40 years but I’m sure you are out there somewhere...Thanks for treating me with such respect like an adult in our dealings even though I was so young! My head is still spinning from the deal above and I'm really not sure about this but... you might owe me a Wilson card. (Just kidding) 

Over the years I’ve been involved with the purchase and sale of approximately 50 T206 Eddie Planks. Some of these may be double counted as the same card was bought and sold more than once.  But for whatever reason, I have always been a “magnet” for Planks.  This cancelled 1974 check to Pat Quinn for $230 (pictured above) which I recently found was the VERY FIRST! And such a “prize find” that I thought I’d give it its own post rather than throw it in a longer post with many others. 
 
I remember the thrill of buying this card like it was yesterday. The seller was legendary Chicago dealer Pat Quinn. He was from a different generation than me. I was, after all, literally a kid in 1974 (I was in the 7th grade!) Pat Quinn was an adult. In my very earliest organized hobby days I’m not sure he took me totally seriously as a dealer (because when I first encountered Pat, at my age, how could he?) I was sort of a curiosity. I remember the first time I met Pat and Frank Nagy, around 1973 at a District Center 65 show in New York, talking with both of them near the entrance of the show about what vintage cards I was looking to buy. They were both humoring me is the best way I can put it, looking at each other as if to say “what the heck is going on here?” because they were really bewildered. But still being very respectful and giving me feedback to my questions, explaining to me that they had mail auctions, and sometimes joking with each other slightly above my head. I appreciated the interaction. I learned from everything they said (that I could understand!) And just a few years later, while I was still a kid, I was a slightly older kid, and I think fair to say a peer as a dealer.
 
I soon came to see that Pat was one of just several prominent hobbyists that “owned” Chicago, and one of the most well-known and established dealers in the country. I got the impression that he actually did this for a living even at this early date (which in retrospect was no small feat), but he probably had some regular job at some time, at least in earlier years. I remember that his close associate and future partner Don Steinbach, a very affable man with an infectious laugh who was impossible not to like, worked at a bank before going full time into sports cards. As the hobby exploded in the 1970s, the transition from “real jobs” to full time hobbyist was made by a handful of collector/dealers who just fell into it. They loved collecting, loved cards, enjoyed the “action,” and found themselves making more money playing with their cards and memorabilia than at their “boring bank jobs” (or whatever jobs they had). And, at the same time, building a great collection. Because these early 1970s dealers, almost to a person, were first and foremost true collectors. They wanted to make a living but wouldn’t have even been involved were it not for their sincere interest in collecting.

Chicago was a hotbed of hobby/collecting activity. Pat Quinn was one of the Kings. As I continue rambling here, literally typing “freestyle” as I am thinking, with no outline or structure, I should add that Pat and Don (along with Mike Keasler, who as I recall was a high school basketball coach, and Roger Marth, who may have joined a year or two later and I’m not sure but I think he was a teacher), opened The Sports Collectors Store in Chicago in 1976. This was a huge store that eventually had MILLIONS of cards in inventory! It was a big deal to have a retail establishment like this. They were kind of like “professionals” who sold only sports cards and memorabilia, and this was very new at this early date.

Don and Pat were like sitcom TV characters to me: Don was always laughing and fun; he could transition to being serious at any time, especially when negotiating a big deal, and then he’d go back to joking and laughing and just having fun. His low voice would even get lower when he was being serious. And after the deal or serious discussion, he would just as quickly transition to joking and merriment. His laugh was infectious. Which brings me to Pat…Pat was the perfect foil for Don. Handsome and kind of swashbuckling, Pat was the muscle of the duo, ready to scare away problem customers and appear to be ready to snap when someone was being unreasonable or cheat them.    
 
 
In my mind, as a tag-team, Don played the “good guy” and Pat played the “bad guy.” Roles that naturally suited them. After all, at all of 5 feet 4 inches tall on a good day, balding, overweight, and laughing like a loveable hyena, Don was not very intimidating. Pat had to take up the slack and he was always very prepared. I should make clear that Pat was (and still is) a great guy. Nothing but good things to say about him! But he could be aggressive, intimidating, and just give the impression he had a short fuse (even if he didn’t), like a hockey player ready to throw down on a moment’s notice. Pat cursed like crazy and could be confrontational, even if it was an act, and he had a heavy Chicago accent that made him seem like he was a gown-up Chicago version of one of the Dead End Kids or the Bowery Boys from the 1940s movies about wayward kids who were tough and got in trouble. Which he sort of was. At least I think he was. No one’s that good an actor! But make no mistake: he was brilliant, and with good reason loved by those who dealt with him and knew him. With his sometimes rougher and more easily annoyed exterior in comparison to Don’s jovial demeanor, he was also amusing to his many friends, who knew Pat’s occasional expletive-infused explosions of discontent were just his way of communicating. And when Pat would yell at something or someone, Don’s shoulders were usually going up and down a little as he laughed. He could not contain his amusement. Are my early impressions of them accurate? I really don’t know. A young kid sees things through his or her young eyes. Right or wrong, these are just some fun impressions of how I remember these two giants of the hobby in the early days. There’s obviously much more to them!
 
Don unfortunately passed away very young in the 1990s. Pat is still out there somewhere (Hi Pat!) and while he’s got to be getting up there in years, I trust he is still cursing up a storm (Warning: Don’t cross this man!)  Their impact on the hobby has been enormous and incredibly positive.
 
 
Back to Plank (I have a rambling style sometimes, by design, as where else could I possibly write this stuff). Pat advertised this Plank in The Trader Speaks, the premier hobby publication of the day. The Trader Speaks was a monthly publication. When I found the check I went digging around for the issue of the “Trader,” armed with the date of the check to help me as I went through a pile of old issues. And there it was! 

I won the auction. This was March 1974. I’m sure Pat was probably thinking “What the hell is this kid doing? How old is this kid anyway?” Followed by a declaration of amazement disguised as a string of expletives. 
 
 $230 was a lot of money for a Plank in 1974. It was a lot of money for any card. Frankly, the ONLY card in the entire field worth more than a T206 Plank or 1933 Goudey Lajoie was a T206 Wagner. And this card was in rough shape. Not just a little rough, but REALLY rough! In my mind I called it “the card with 1000 creases.” It didn’t really have 1000 creases but did seem to have so many I could not begin to count them. I thought it might be the most beat up T206 in the world and just happened to be Plank. But I loved this card! Though condition was nowhere near as important to collectors back then as now, this card was so beat up that its condition no doubt made it more affordable. Condition may not have mattered much back then but collectors weren’t blind. There were limits. This card was in poor condition. 
 
I’d love to show a picture of the card but looking online I just can’t find a Plank that I am certain is the card. I think I know exactly what it looked like. It may be that a picture of the card is just not online anywhere to reference. So, rather than potentially identify the wrong Plank as the 1974 Pat Quinn auction Plank, I’m picturing an example in somewhat similar condition that I know is NOT the card. This is Lionel Carter’s T206 Plank:

Actually, Lionel’s card is probably in better shape than the 1974 Pat Quinn auction Plank. But at least it gives some idea of what the card looked like. Yes, it was wrecked. But it was still beautiful! 

I hope you have enjoyed reading these scattershot memories of the hobby in the early 1970s. I’ve enjoyed writing them!
 
Robert Lifson
 
 
PS What happened to the Plank? I wish I could say I still have it but within a couple of years I had sold it. I can’t even remember who I sold (or traded) it to. Which is kind of incredible to me as it was such a thrill to get. But I've handled so many Planks. And it has been over 50 years. It's out there somewhere.  

What I’m doing wrong Mike Aronstein a check for in 1974…I have no idea! What can one get for $7 anyway? Well, in 1974, a lot by today’s standards! This could have been for a purchase of cards…a convention table…a lot in the Yankee Stadium auction (I’m not sure exactly when this was but several collectors including Mike had an auction of Yankee Stadium memorabilia, including all kinds of fascinating paper items, when the stadium was being refurbished around this time). Who knows. 
 
Mike Aronstein was one of the giants of the collecting world at this time (and for decades after). I was a 12 year old kid that had infinite enthusiasm for learning and collecting, infinite persistence, and, due to my young age, was still in the early stages of learning what was OK in the adult world and when I was just being a pain in the butt. (Yes, I know, I’m still learning! But back then I was really clueless!) 
 
When Mike’s son Andrew Aronstein joined the HIGHLY respected (and very much worthy of this respect) Love Of The Game Auctions full time, I sent him this business card his father gave me (see below) and this letter which I provide here as it really captures my longstanding admiration for his father. Mike…thanks for putting up with me even though I KNOW I really was a pain in the butt! 

What can I say? Bruce Yeko’s mail order catalog was the greatest source of cards in the UNIVERSE that one could always count on. Especially for a young kid who with few exceptions could only deal with people by mail (12 year olds don’t drive). It seemed like Bruce Yeko's Wholesale Card Company had everything from the early 1950s up, plus some earlier cards including from the 1910s and 1930s (even though that was not the focus of the catalog and I did not get the impression that quantities of earlier cards were available), and perhaps most amazing, a smattering of extremely unusual sets and issues that it seemed like ONLY Bruce Yeko had.

Apparently, when certain issues came out, Bruce was the only one to get quantities. I remember asking him about a couple of issues. He said he contacted the card issuing companies and bought their entire leftover card stock. This made sense for everyone. These were the most exciting offerings to me. Sets of 1958 Hires Root Beer cards ($19.95 a set), seemingly endless quantities of 1954 Red Heart Dog Food cards (Mantles were a quarter as I recall, but were eventually raised to a $1. All were MINT. He had HUNDREDS), Bazooka sets in flattened unassembled box form, 1967 Topps "Roger Maris with the Yankees" unissued proof cards (these were $1 each and he would only let me buy one per order as he had so few; eventually I would call before sending orders to make sure he had one available and it was OK for me to include a Maris proof card with my order), 1960 Topps “Baseball Bucks” (I never saw anyone else with this unusual Topps issue and was fascinated with it! Apparently I was the only one at this time that was so enamored. Eventually he let me buy them all. I forget if they were 5 cents or 10 cents each. But they were something like that.), dozens of 1963 Topps insert sticker sets…And many other unusual 1950s to 1970s issues including and especially rare Topps test and insert issues.
 
Interesting note that anyone still around who ordered from Bruce Yeko will appreciate: when he didn’t have whatever you ordered, you did not actually get a refund. You got a little slip of paper that he filled out that could be sent in for a credit toward a future order. I would get these with every order: sometimes filled out for as little as 25 cents, sometimes $1. It was peanuts. I personally just never sent them in. But was always amused by his credit slip system. 

Ted Hake:

I don’t know what I bought from Ted for $28 in 1977 (it was probably a baseball auction lot) but this was far from our first deal. This is a random check. I have others earlier. The Hake catalog addressed to me above is from 1973.

After 50 years…I’m STILL buying items from Ted Hake regularly! For those who do not know Ted, because his primary areas of dealing for so many years were areas other than baseball (such as political memorabilia, character collectibles, radio premiums, pinback buttons, etc), Ted is well known as the "King of Pinback Buttons" and is one one the true Hall of Famers of Political Memorabilia collecting. He has also been involved in a big way in collectibles of many other types Basically…EVERYTHING! Everything Americana anyway. He has published many important collecting reference books and been an active dealer and auctioneer…longer than anyone. Really. Ted is on my Mount Rushmore of Americana Collectibles scholars and dealers. I have to say that my great interest in many areas of Americana has been greatly influenced by my exposure to Ted’s auctions dating back to the early 1970s. I was looking to bid on baseball items, of course, but Ted didn’t have a lot of baseball items in the early days (he has much more today). In the process, I was exposed to pinback collecting, political collecting, early comic characters, and, frankly, just about every area of Americana collecting that exists. It had a huge impact. Both on my future collecting and dealing interests, and my knowledge of (and interest in) American culture in general. Ted Hake’s catalogs were like a correspondence course in Popular Culture! A subscription was just a few dollars but I learned more about the world reading all his early catalogs than I did at school (I really mean that!)
 
There were several other auctions that were similarly eclectic and educational with which I was very active as a bidder. Most notably, off the top of my head, George Rinsland’s Historicana auctions and Bob Coup’s Americana auctions.

George Rinsland ran one of the earliest auctions of its type (starting in 1965 continuously through 1983) and influenced all similarly eclectic auctions that  followed. The 1969 catalog pictured above (addressed to a pioneer collector Ted Colzaretti) is before my time, but only by a few years, When I first saw George’s auction catalog, it was like looking through a window into a world I never knew existed. Overwhelming. Fascinating. So much to learn. Both by reading the text and looking at the pictures. Nothing was out of reach to buy or sell. Baseball cards were my specialty, but just being aware of other areas, what manufacturing processes were available when, and American history that gave context to cards and when they were issued had great value. George Rinsland’s auction catalogs were probably the first of this type I ever saw. 

Bob Coup was also a true LEGEND in the political, pinback. and all Americana collectibles fields. I don't have a check illustration handy but no discussion of important Americana auctions would be complete without Bob Coup. I always called Bob “my top rare button finder.” Bob Coup’s Americana auctions in the 1970s and 1980s were a gift to collectors and scholars. Bob was one of the pillars of the collecting world. He passed way in 2024 and his wife Jeannine still edits and publishes the Political Bandwagon for the APIC, the premier political memorabilia collectors organization. Bob’s memory looms large over the collectibles world he helped build. 

Collectors and dealers represented by the 1970s bank records I found are a “Who’s Who” of active hobbyists of the era.  Here are just a few checks that jumped out as I looked through batches of old checks. There's no rhyme or reason for their order or why I picked these. There are many more and I will add more in future posts.

Don Lepore
Don Lepore (“Looking For That Superstar, Try L & R”), one of the most influential and beloved dealers from the 1970s on, Don practically invented the superstar card market in the 1970s with his partner Herb Ross, went on to run the Card Collectors Company in its heyday as the hobby exploded in popularity, ran his own mail order catalog, ran shows and autograph signings, worked extensively on the famous Halper auction at Sothebys, worked at Mastro Auctions for a couple of years, and too much else to possibly list. He basically influenced everything that the hobby is today in some way or another. In fact, he’s still out there! A little older but as great and knowledgeable as ever, selling on eBay. With this particular check, I appear to be buying ten W560 strip cards of Ruth and Gehrig. 

George Lyons
George Lyons was crazy. I say that only in a kidding way. He had an incredibly fascinating and entertaining personality and was very outspoken. I was so young I didn’t really know how adults were expected to conduct themselves in all situations but even I realized right away that George was unusual. Not in a bad way. Just very different. Aggressive. Loud. Frequently joking but not everyone always knew he was joking. Writing articles in hobby papers. Feuding with people. Often criticizing some collectors and dealers. Being outrageous in a way that took people by surprise. Even joking about people’s weight problems, or really anything that one would think is off limits, when these just weren’t things that adults were supposed to do. I should add that he had great comedic timing and much of the time he was just trying to be funny. Which he was. He made some people laugh. He made some people mad. He was like an out-of-control baseball-card-dealing Groucho Marx with too much coffee that somehow had an office and a phone. He had strong opinions about everything and was not shy about sharing. Sometimes he was right. Sometimes he was wrong. But he was always stirring the pot.

As a dealer, he bought and sold everything that was not nailed down. In the 1970s through the 1980s he was a big fish in a small pond, specializing in everything rare and unusual. Everyone knew George Lyons. He was actually a stockbroker but I really don’t know how he had time to do anything with stocks. He was on the phone talking baseball collecting, buying and selling all the time. Seriously, his stock brokerage office at a prestigious firm was really a baseball card and memorabilia dealership. It was like he snuck in there and no one knew what he was doing. My guess is his clients did a lot of buying and holding. Which was not a bad strategy. And as far as the hobby went, George did seem to have a lot of fun. Interesting phone note: as I recall, his workplace had a “Watts line,” which was some type of phone service some businesses in the "old days" had whereby he could make unlimited long distance calls at work and not be charged. Eventually he somehow switched to dealing in rings and jerseys, areas having nothing to do with cards and ephemera, but for quite a few years George was one of the most prominent and influential high profile baseball dealers in the country.

Above: George and his family appeared on the cover of this prestigious magazine in 1978 (Mrs. Lyons was a saint by the way, and the kids were all extremely sharp and gifted. I'm sure all grew up to be great and very successful adults).  

Crazy phone footnote: George knew my basic school schedule and knew approximately when the bus let me off near home (because naturally there had to be some school bus schedule). At some point George started calling my home precisely when I entered the house, so as I stepped inside the phone would be ringing and I’d pick up (the phone was a just two steps from the back door where I entered), and there would be George, welcoming me home from school and wanting to know what I had to sell or sometimes offering me something. Of course, I thought this was nuts. And so did my family. But that was George (and really, who was I to tell anyone their calling at any time was crazy. I was the KING of calling people at crazy times, just not timing their arrival home. (Except maybe calling Charlie Burkhardt on Sundays; sometimes I just couldn’t wait for him to get home from the Renninger’s Antique Market and this required multiple phone calls until he arrived home, often with great new finds to sell).

Doug Palmeiri
One of many super knowledgeable advanced collectors of the era, Doug is also still out there somewhere collecting today! It was the sincere interest of hobbyists like Doug that created a community of advanced collectors interested in early baseball - everything from cabinet card photos to sheet musics to programs and advertising items - everything that was great but not necessarily cards. The entire area of baseball ephemera came into its own in the 1970s as collectors together learned what existed, what was interesting to collect, and what had historical merit, much of which was not really on the radar of collectors previously. Every early baseball item that surfaced was a learning experience in these early days, unlike today where most everything that exists has been documented. Those interested in turn-of-the century baseball or earlier, communicated among themselves not through auctions at this time, but by networking and at shows. No one knew what memorabilia was worth in these early days. Everyone was “driving blind!” Everything good that was available for sale tended to gravitate to Barry Halper (no one had deeper pockets and loved to buy everything more than Barry), but many true collectors like Doug and Franklin Steele (of Perez-Steele fame) and Jerry Smolin (THE connoisseur of early baseball programs, especially pre-1900) and Dr. Mark Cooper (the undisputed "King of Baseball Board Games") sold only extra material or enough to pay for new purchases. These were exciting times for collectors. With enthusiasm and with dedication one could “beat the bushes” and make new discoveries on a regular basis, buying, selling, and, for many, at the same time building a collection.

I have often mentioned how my phone bills calling collectors and looking for material were astronomical. The phone was my tool. It was my connection to the outside world and no one that could be reached by phone was out of reach to me. And remember, I couldn’t drive. I HAD to use the phone. Which in retrospect was a great advantage. Instead of only the surrounding driving area being accessible, the entire county (and Canada!) was “my neighborhood.” Back then, calling "Information" allowed you to find the telephone numbers of most people. When you called, you were put on the phone with a telephone company information operator who did their best to help me find the numbers of various old time collectors (or whoever I wanted to track down to speak to) armed with the information I had. It was expensive, but very successful. Callers were supposed to get three searches per call, but many times the operator really worked with me and provided the equivalent of many more. If I was looking for someone with an uncommon name, and there were 3, or 4, or 5 possible matches, they would give me all the numbers and count that inquiry as one search. (I would then call them all if need be and almost always be successful reaching the right number).  
 
 
Above is a check for a phone bill payment I found (reimbursing my Dad for that month’s typical astronomical phone bill): $277 for October 1975. That sounds like a lot for a phone bill even today (and this is just for long distance phone calls, not also paying for a phone), but imagine how much that was 50 years ago. It was crazy. To put this bill in proper perspective, a $277 bill in 1975 was the equivalent to $1684 in 2025 dollars, just adjusting for inflation. (The calculation is based on average annual inflation of 3.68% over this period). I don’t think anyone in the baseball collecting world racked up phone bills close to what I did (and did every month, year in, year out). The biggest bill I remember was $787 in the 8th grade. Even I was shocked. But that was the cost of doing business and it my only big monthly expense. Still…At times my parents were a little concerned. The phone was under their name and they weren’t going to pay my phone bills! But that was never an issue. The more calls I made, the better I did.    

More checks:

Jay Barry
This $28 check to Jay Barry was for five WG1 1888 playing cards. In 1979, that’s all they were worth! 19th century cards were of very little interest to most collectors in this era, and those that were interested were not big spenders. This was great for me as I was happy to pay pretty much whatever anyone wanted for nineteenth century cards and items! So when people had things to sell, they often sought me out, not so much to help me out (though many were happy to do exactly that), but because I was always willing to pay a fair or even too high price.

Jay Barry had a permanent 5:00 shadow and, as George Lyons liked to say, the appearance of a sad clown. Not saying that’s really accurate but after an exhausting weekend of running a show he did sort of look like a little like the Brooklyn Dodgers clown Emmet Kelly. (In addition to being a HUGE collector, Jay was involved in promoting the greatest show of the Midwest in Detroit.It was sort of like the unofficial National Convention before there was a formal National Convention.) In the span of just a few years, Jay assembled one of the hobby’s most advanced card collections. It was a shock when out of the blue I learned he sold his entire collection in one transaction. Things like that just didn’t happen in the hobby. Jay Barry was a true and extremely dedicated collector with a ravenous appetite for cards. My understanding, what I overheard in hushed tones, was that he sold his collection for $25,000 to buy a house. 
 

Bert Sugar, the famous “Boxing Guy” 

Bert Sugar was really a great guy who could tell a story like no one else (and some of his stories were actually true!) I was lucky to know him well for over 35 years and count Bert as one of (maybe the) most colorful characters I have ever known. 
 
In the 1970s I served as one of the Senior Editors of the Sports Collectors Bible (which was just one of Bert’s countless book projects). This was very exciting to me to help with such an important project (after all, what was more important than baseball cards). Today with the Internet, we take so much for granted as far as checklists and values, but back then (in the mid-to-late 1970s) it was really hard to get a handle on what even existed, let alone what it was worth. Bert Sugar saw this void and created The Sports Collectors Bible, which really helped collectors, providing a much richer foundation of knowledge than had existed before, and promoted the entire field. 
  
Bert was a visionary. He was one of the most important figures of his day not only in the baseball collectibles field, but in many other fields as well. He was really one of the pioneers and great promoters of the entire nostalgia craze in America. 
 
Bert was was an advanced collector of pinback buttons, political campaign memorabilia, and autographs. This, of course, is in addition to... boxing memorabilia, Babe Ruth items, Yankee Stadium items (he famously bought all the "junk" from Yankee Stadium in the early 1970s), press pins, baseball cards, and really just about every kind of item that collectors have come to appreciate over the years as Americana. I had the privilege of having countless dealings with him over the years. I think more than anyone else. I was his “go-to guy” whenever he wanted to downsize his massive collection. Because I was always up for buying whatever he had. I had learned that everything he collected was special in some way, even if I didn’t know anything about the items when he offered them to me. He never steered me wrong and buying from him always came with an added bonus: an education. 
 
Bert had a great sense of humor about himself, and when I’d point out how he knew everything, he would always respond that he made up what he didn’t know. But the scope of his knowledge and experience was truly remarkable, and hearing him speak was mesmerizing. He had a way with words. He could write a book faster than I could read one. Just being around him one could not help but learn about the world of collectibles and American culture. He was a genius. And endlessly entertaining. Everyone that ever dealt with Bert got more than a deal. They got stories. They got jokes. They learned ideas. They even learned words!
  
In addition to all our baseball dealings, which were many and always fun (everything was fun with Bert), he personally got me started with collecting pinbacks and political campaign items as he decided to downsize in those areas. I am active in both of these areas to this day. As I told Bert often, I have him to thank for expanding my interests. He had the same enormous impact on thousands of others. 
 
 

Goodie Goldfadden
 
If you look up the word “Curmudgeon” in the dictionary, you will find a picture of legendary early dealer Goodwin “Goodie” Goldfadden pictured. This guy was a piece of work. Hated kids! Ok…he didn’t really hate kids….but he pretty much made everyone feel like they were bothering the heck out of him. W.C. Fields had nothing on Goodie Goldfadden!

I almost felt sorry for the local collectors who actually went to his store in person and got shooed away…or worse, stayed and felt like they were overstaying their welcome before both feet were even in the store. This was all part of his glorious charm…but did make dealing with him extra challenging. He did, at one time or another, apparently have just about everything. I was dealing with him just on the phone and while that gave me some disadvantages of course (the shop was 3000 miles away in California), I was able to get his undivided attention on the phone and managed to have a number of successful dealings. I considered every deal practically a miracle. He definitely preferred to deal with adults. But if he wasn't busy he was willing to let me spend what I could on whatever it was he described on the phone. Remember, there’s no Internet back in the 1970s. I had to buy items basically sight unseen! Sure, I could have returned something if I didn’t like it, I guess, but that’s not how things really worked and that would have probably been my last deal with him. He wasn’t exactly thrilled to even pack up items to send to a kid in the first place! 

One interesting group of items he offered me that I did NOT buy has never been mentioned in print anywhere and deserves documenting somewhere. This seems like as good a place as any. On the phone Goodie Goldfadden offered me the complete file of 1910 era contracts signed by boxers giving their permission to appear on boxing cards issued by The American Tobacco Company. I think there were sixty or seventy contracts (I cant remember the exact number) and they were for the T218 and related sets. Incredibly, I had absolutely no interest in them because I didn't deal in boxing and boxing just wasn't worth anything at this time. Well, almost nothing. I remember being excited about the prospect of getting tobacco card contracts for baseball players (where there's one file of contracts from the tobacco company, I naturally thought, maybe there are more). But Goodie made clear that NO, this was all he had. I never forgot about him offering me these contracts, all of which he said were signed. As years rolled by I thought "wow, they weren't baseball, but they sure did sound neat." And as more years went by, they got better and better. I always thought they would turn up somewhere and I would say "There they are! Those are the boxing tobacco card contracts Goodie Goldfadden offered me!" But they never did show up. I am certain that he had them. If he offered me anything that he said he was holding in his hands, of course he had it. They are out there somewhere. 

Frank Stallone (sticking with the boxing theme here a little...)

Here’s a check with a story that spans from 1977 to 2025! I met Frank Stallone at a convention in New Jersey in 1977 and sold him a stack of boxing cards (Frank loves boxing) and he gave me a check. The check bounced - and I should add that it was probably my fault in that I didn’t deposit the check right away. Looking at the date stamps on the check, for whatever reason (probably I misplaced it), I didn’t get around to depositing it for months. It was only $8 and just no big deal, but when I recently found the returned check in the pile of old bank records I am using here, of course I remembered it. So just for fun, I looked up how to email Frank and sent him a letter good-naturedly complaining and a copy of his old check. He wrote back within hours and was extremely amused (as intended). He literally said that this made his day! A week later a replacement check and beautifully inscribed photo arrived in the mail. I don’t know if there’s any Guinness world record to submit here, but I thought this was a fun story to share. So here is the replacement check and photo that arrived, which combined with his original 1977 check tell a great story. Thank you Frank Stallone! You are (as my Dad would say) a gentleman and a scholar! 

 In addition to phone calls and the mails and any time I could rope my mom or dad (or even my grandmother - I had no shame!) into driving me somewhere, I placed ads in newspapers and magazines all over the country seeking to buy old baseball cards. What better way to have people contact me with cards to sell? Some ads did great, some got no response. I tried to use reason to decide where to advertise as the options were endless and it was just such a pain to jump through all the hoops to place ads. Also, I was impatient. Once I placed  an ad, if it was a magazine, it could be  two or three months between when I sent the ad in, and when readers saw it. I placed ads in Canada to get 1952 Topps high numbers because I realized they were sold in quantities there. I advertised in local papers of cities where certain regional sets were issued. If I found a reasonably priced national publication, I’d try that. There were quite a few. I looked at circulations and cost and geography and make the best decisions I could. This was enormously successful. People actually read ads in newspapers and magazines back then, cards were worth enough that I could pay real money that made selling very interesting to many, and I was the only one advertising to buy old cards in these publications. Though any specific ad was hit or miss. I even advertised in the famous “Yellow Pages” telephone book. The delay for the Yellow Pages was incredibly long because they only published once a year. They were very expensive but I thought it would be worth it as Yellow Pages books were in every household and had a very long lifespan. In our house, we kept the same old Yellow Pages books for countless years. Most numbers didn’t change and most businesses remained in business. Unfortunately, the Yellow Pages turned out to be a terrible mistake. For whatever reason, every single call from this ad was worthless. And there were a lot of them. I didn’t advertise there again and couldn’t wait for the ad to become obsolete and stop generating junk calls. But…this took years! The calls eventually petered off but the Yellow Pages really did have a long lifespan. I would get calls for years. None of them with interesting cards to sell. Not even close. Ever. But, like with Thomas Edison and his lightbulb filament research, I still considered it a success. I learned what did not work! And concentrated my advertising efforts on what did work. 

This last story for this post does have a check to represent it. But this check above made me think of it. 
 
By the late 1970s, The Sports Collectors Digest was THE publication for buying and selling. This publication was the lifeblood of the hobby. It allowed collectors to network, gave dealers a timely publication in which to advertise, and was teeming with offers to buy and sell vintage material. It came out every two weeks, and there were so many ads that eventually it had to go to a weekly schedule. The hobby was on fire! And SCD was huge part of this explosive growth. The day SCD arrived in the mail was a big deal for anyone interested in vintage cards. Both dealers and collectors. Competition was fierce as most subscribers received their issue on the same day, or within a day or so, depending on the quirks of the mail system and how far they lived from Iola, Wisconsin where SCD was located. Every time there was a special deal to be had - which was often - collectors and dealers knew there was 50/50 they were going to be too late. 
 
I had been advertising in newspapers all over the place to unearth cards so it was a natural extension that I came up with the idea of advertising in Iola to find someone who, in exchange for compensation, would pick up a copy of SCD for me on the very day it was published (copies were available if you were right there, and all the more easily if you worked at SCD) and overnight the just-published issue to me so that I would have it days before anyone else. Someone from the area called in response to the ad and said they could absolutely do this but I would have to send them payment - in cash - in advance. And they wouldn’t even give me their name. Apparently (I'm just guessing) they worked at SCD, or at the printer in Iola, and while they always had the issue right away, they didn’t want anyone to know they were doing this out of concern it could somehow cause them problems. I don’t remember what I paid for each issue, but i think it was probably something like $20 or $25 over the postage cost for overnight delivery.

I sent the money as requested for numerous issues in advance - to a PO Box, and before I knew it, I was getting SCD like lightning, receiving it literally the very day after it was printed, waaaay before anyone else. I immediately “devoured” all the pages and called on every great deal or super important item that was advertised, easily beating all competitors to any ad where time was a factor. This went on week after week for months. Every advanced collector and dealer who received their SCD and made a call to buy a great deal or a pursue a sensational item was too late. Over and over again they heard the words “I’m sorry that’s gone. I sold (or traded) it to Rob Lifson two days ago.”  No one knew what the heck was going on or how I was doing it. Eventually SCD started getting complaints. It was bad enough that people closer to Iola often got their issues a day or so earlier than subscribers on the coasts. That all alone sometimes caused general complaints. But this was next level.  I can only imagine the discussions they had trying to address the delivery issues. They finally figured it out of course . It’s not like there were a million explanations. I have no idea if they knew who was my overnight mailing contact. I know I didn’t! To this day I have no idea who this person was. Because issues were readily available in town, there was no way to close this overnight delivery loophole. It was all perfectly legal, just a little crazy. The solution they finally came up with was to formally introduce the option of overnight delivery for all subscribers if they wanted to pay for it. The purpose was to level the playing field which it absolutely did (overnight!) and it ended the ridiculous advantage I had for a few months over everybody else in the county. That was fine by me. All in a day’s “work.” I had a good run! 
 
So that’s how SCD came to offer overnight delivery, which became a VERY popular option among extremely active collectors and dealers. I remember speaking with one of the most high ranking SCD employees about this after the change was instituted. I was fascinated by the developments. He indicated it was a real problem for a while because SCD  always wanted to be over-and-above fair to all and make everyone happy, and the complaints about unfairness had merit. But that they appreciated my industriousness. 
 
That’s it for this post. More in the future. I hope you have enjoyed these admittedly pretty random early hobby stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them! 
 
Robert Lifson