This post about Revco box sets over at Squeezeplay cards got me all nostalgic. Revco was one of the places I first bought all my cards from when I was a kid. In the summer I'd hang out at my grandparents place a lot and I'd tag along when they went on their errands. They went to a small grocery store, Matthew's Supermarket, to get meat. Matthews had the wax box of Topps for 35 cents each, which was a pain when you wanted three packs and only had a dollar. Grandma would usually chip in the extra dime though. For regular shopping they went to Winn Dixie, which had the huge display of '83 Donruss rack packs. Next door was Revco, the home of Fleer cello packs and the ubiquitous box sets. Eckerds was also good for a few packs here and there. Occasionally we'd go to the mall which had McCrory's who had the huge spread of rack packs, wax and oddball stuff like stickers and albums. the real deal though was Atlanta Sports Cards over on Green's Corners shopping center. That was the place to get old cards. They had a bunch of cases of star cards but I always liked the bricks of old 50's, 60's and 70's cards. Fifty to a hundred old ratty no name cards for just a couple of bucks, awesome! A huge chunk of my vintage Topps collection came out of those packs. These are all the places I became a collector.
Revco is now CVS. The Winn Dixie shopping center we used to go to went downhill and it's now a discount store. I think McCrory's filed for bankrupcy in the early 90's. Matthew's is looooong gone. It's now a Napa auto parts store. Atlanta Sports Cards relocated to a Kroger shopping center on Pleasant Hill in Gwinnett, but it moved/disappeared again and I don't know if it's still around. I still had Eckerd though as a link to my card collecting past, well, until they all turned into Rite-Aids a couple months ago. So now all the places that I bought cards from as a kid are gone.
That's how things go. Things change and you have to deal with it. I'm actually in as good a card collecting place as I have ever been in my life now. The drug and grocery stores have been replaced by a Super Target and two, yes, TWO Wal-Marts within a 5 mile radius of my house. There's a flea market a little way down the road that has one full time dealer who has been selling cards since the 50's, and two others who show up once or twice a month. Down the interstate is a great hobby store, Champion Sports Cards, and there's another one up a couple exits in Kennesaw. There's two more down in Marietta too. I read a lot of comments on how a lot of collectors don't have a single hobby shop anywhere near them, and the one they do have sucks, so I'm pretty dang lucky. Plus I can find stuff that I could never find in shops on the internet.
So do I wish that I could still get packs of 15 cards for 35 cents at the grocery store? Sure. Do I wish I could buy bricks of vintage cards at the hobby shop? Sure. So I wish the hobby was a little more about collecting and less about gambling for the big hit? Yeah. The state of the hobby could be a lot better, but overall it's in a decent place right now. There are definitely problems, but it's not all that bad really. You just have to have some fun and not take things so seriously.
6 comments:
Well said!
Holy hell, I remember Revco. When I started collecting in 1993, that was my go-to. I occasionally went to McCrory's as well. Blast from the past.
Wow. Blast from the past. I think I drove you to most of those places at one point or another. I got into scuba diving one day after school when we went to Titan Games and Comics back in 1990. I'd exhausted the titles and cards I was looking for, and wandered a few doors down to the dive shop where I eventually learned to dive and made it all the way to assistant instructor.
Aaahhhhh... the good ole' days. I am jealous with all the shopping choices you have around you. Reading this post reminded me of when I first got married and the grocery store we shopped at at a big display of Topps cello packs down by the bread section. Even my wife would pick up some packs for me when she shopped there alone. Now thats love.
The Titan Comics is closed too... as is the awesome Greek diner that was in between the Revco and Titan Comics which is probably the biggest tragedy of all.
Great Post. I remember some grocery store, it was either a Winn-Dixie or Piggly Wiggly going as far as to selling Complete sets for $29.95 back in 1990. Where I live 15-20 years ago their were 5 card shops in the area and now there is only 1. Being the only one around it does fairly well for itself.
Unfortunately one of the shops went out of business this past year. The guy that ran it told me that the biggest thing people expect is full book value for their cards (no matter what the condition is). It was a good shop although some of the pricing was a little steep, $3 for a Jimmy Dean Roger Clemens card!!
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