I recently realized that I have been collecting baseball cards for 50 years. Crazy! I have been spending a lot of time lately reflecting on my card collecting journey, especially my early years in the mid- to late- 1970s. For me, those were the days!
As I have stated before, I first purchased baseball cards in 1975 at the pharmacy located a few blocks from my house in suburban Chicago. Soon, I started to accumulate older cards from 1968 through 1974 by purchasing them from my friends and their older brothers. By 1977, I had a huge collection of cards, all sports.
I knew card shows existed but did not know how to find out where they were located and when they occurred. I first learned about card shows in 1976 when I watched the 5 p.m. Chicago news on TV with my mom and we saw a feature story on a card show that had occurred that day. I remember being angry that my mom did not take me there. Her response was that she did not know about it. I was determined to learn where and when card shows occurred.
Until I could learn the locations of card shows, the pharmacy remained my main source for obtaining cards. I collected all four major sports.
I soon discovered that cards were available for purchase at the Twin Drive-in Movie Theater's Sunday Flea Market in nearby Wheeling, Illinois. My dad was a flea market junky and we went there just about every Sunday in the summer. My main focus at the flea market was to find toys, comic books and sports cards then convince my dad to buy them for me -- which was very difficult. Dad did not like spending money on me. He usually ended up buying me a few pairs of socks at the flea market that would fall apart shortly after bringing them home. He also filled up our house with all sorts of junk from the flea market like old TVs, radios, furniture, knick knacks and stuff. If you needed something in my house, say a baseball bat, a mitt, a bike, a bed, Dad got it at the flea market.
He had this mantra to never pay retail which I think he learned as a kid on Maxwell Street in Chicago. The Maxwell Street Market opened in the mid-1800's on Chicago's near West Side. It was an open-air market, created by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and reflected the markets from the motherland. I suspect sometime in the 1940's, my dad regularly attended the Maxwell Street Market. By the 1950's, he was setting up there every Sunday, selling odds and ends from his grandfather's electrical supply shop located on the near Northwest Side of Chicago.
As a child of the Depression, he grew up frugal and remained very tight with his money when I was growing up. Me, on the other hand, did not understand money and wanted to buy anything and everything -- especially sports cards.
I know I talked about this before, but I'll tell it again. The first time I ever saw a card older than 1968 was at the Twin Flea Market -- this was around the year 1977. An old man was selling 1955 Topps for 50-cents each. I wanted them like I never wanted anything else in my young life. I begged my dad to buy me some.
For dad, buying anything at the flea market was a game, even a 50-cent sports card. The game began as I stood nervously by. Dad explained to the old man that the cards were worth only 10 cents and he was extremely overpriced at 50 cents. I worried I would not get one of those 1955 Topps. It was so painful to watch the game. I just wanted some cards!
Eventually, dad got me two cards; I think a Ron Jackson and a Jim Finigan. I don't remember what he paid but I am sure it was less than one dollar. However, before he handed me the cards, he demanded that the old man give me a plastic page to store them. I had to wait even longer to receive the cards as dad and the old man argued over the plastic page. I think I lost a few pounds during this painfully long negotiation for what I considered the holy grail. Once in my hands, I quickly forgot about the torturous process of obtaining the cards. On that warm summer day in 1977, I held, what I believed was the coolest thing known to mankind -- two 1955 Topps common cards. I was determined to get more!
As 11-year-old me walked the dusty rows of the old Twin Flea Market, the answer to my money woes stared me right in the face. I am pretty sure even a lightbulb popped over my head.
I convinced dad to let me set up at the Twin Drive-in Flea Market so I could earn some money to buy sports cards. It really did not take much convincing; he was on board the minute I made the suggestion. Before long, we were reliving his days on Maxwell Street. We found a bunch of old card tables around the house and went through the masses of junk we had in the basement and garage, priced it all, loaded it into the station wagon and began setting up at the flea market every Sunday.
I just wanted to make some money to buy baseball cards. For my dad, it was a reawakening of his inner self. It was like he was back on Maxwell Street circa 1952. He taught me all sorts of stuff about selling at the flea market. We priced everything. He came up with the prices. Then he had a specific way he wanted to load the station wagon. Once we set up the tables, he had a specific way he wanted everything to be displayed.
Once we were set up and the masses walked the gravel aisle in front of our tables, he shouted at everyone like he was back on Maxwell Street, lured them over and convinced them they needed our junk. It was remarkable, really. We sold all sorts of broken, filthy, outdated junk. We soon ran out of inventory, so, he started setting me up in the morning, left me at the table alone, then walked the flea market to buy us more stuff. He was a phenomenal salesman and an even better negotiator. He'd come back every hour or so with a box of stuff for me to sell at more than double for what he purchased it for.
The best part of setting up at the flea market with dad was to witness what I call "the trumpet hustle." As a kid, dad learned to play trumpet from famed Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. Dad was a brilliant trumpet player but as Dizzy told him, he couldn't riff, but still technically great.
Back at the flea market, dad would buy a broken trumpet for a few bucks, take it home, fix it up, replace all the major parts, and bring it back to the flea market the following Sunday. Often these trumpets did not look like much. They were dinged and discolored. He would put one out each Sunday on the table and I would wait for the show to begin.
The curtains opened when someone would ask him if the trumpet worked.
"Yes, it works. Let me show you," he would say like he was Ray Charles in the "Blues Brothers" movie.
He would walk around to the front of the table, pick up the trumpet, dramatically shake out his arms, loudly press the valves that he recently oiled, then put that thing to his lips and the most beautiful sound would appear. Everyone around stopped in their tracks. Before long, a crowd would gather around our table and listen to dad play. He would then sell that trumpet he purchased for five bucks for a good fifty to a 100-dollar profit. He'd take the money from the customer. Give me a wink then go off to find another broken trumpet. He did this every Sunday. It was a sight to behold.
He would explain to me that you gotta buy low and sell high. Sure, all great in theory but he had this gift, I did not. Besides, I just wanted to earn a little money to go buy some cards!
Luckily for me, there were a dozen or so guys selling vintage cards each Sunday at the Twin Flea Market in the 1970's. With money in my pockets, I purchased a ton of cards each Sunday. I went back to the old man with the 1955 Topps and bought a ton of stuff from him. We soon became friendly and he taught me how to sell cards at the flea market. By age 12, I had procured a large inventory of vintage cards but had no idea how to price them -- there was no Beckett, no internet, no way to price cards, or so I thought.
The old man pulled out a copy of Sports Collectors Digest and handed it to me. I marveled at all the ads for cards. In those days, Sports Collectors Digest was like a thick book filled with treasure. The old man would pick up a card from his table, say a 1958 Topps Willie Mays, then show me all the ads in SCD for 1958 Topps Willie Mays. The old man priced his cards through the ads. The old man gave me a copy of SCD. I quickly subscribed.
With SCD in hand, I started to fill up photo albums of cards and priced them through the ads in SCD.
I continued to marvel at dad when he would put on his trumpet show but before long, dad marveled at me, as I started taking over the tables and filling them with photo albums of sports cards and drew my own crowds. Soon we were competing as to who would make more money. Dad with his broken junk or me with my sports cards. I started making more money than he did. He then stopped hanging out at the flea market and would drop me off in the morning, set me up, then come get me in the afternoon and take me home. I loved showing him the wad of cash I took in from selling sports cards.
The best part of all this was that I learned about SCD where there was a calendar for sports card shows! Woot! I quickly joined the Chicagoland Sports Collectors Association, a group that put on three shows a year at the Holiday Inn in Hillside, Illinois.
New problem. Dad was still not on board with the sports cards, even though he saw the cash I earned each Sunday at the flea market. He would not take me to the card shows nor the card shop I discovered through SCD that was located on South Archer Avenue, in Chicago, a long way from the northern burbs where we lived.
Well, I could be an annoying %$#@ as a kid and annoyed dad to death until he relented. First he took me to one of the card shows in Hillside -- a glorious affair. I felt like I found Valhalla. Dad was just annoyed.
We would be at the show for about 15 minutes before he would ask if I was ready to go. Of course not! Once we did leave the show, he would take me to his office in Downtown Chicago and I would have to sit there and look at my cards for hours until we finally went home where I would place my new cards in their rightful spot in my photo album. The album was filled with plastic pages specifically made for sports cards that I purchased at the shows and through ads in SCD. I still have that old photo album. It holds 1978 Topps football cards these days.
Eventually, dad would drop me off at the card show in the morning, go to work, then come back for me in the afternoon. Those were some of the best days of my life. I'd find myself talking to Minnie Minoso or Billy Williams who were signing autographs for free! I became friendly with tons of kids at the shows. No one had brief cases, like the kids today at shows. We all had shoe boxes.
But just like the kids today, we would sit amongst ourselves and buy and trade cards. I still have a Joe DiMaggio autograph I bought from one of those kids for $10 in 1978. I had it authenticated at a show in the 1990's. I was surprised when it came back legit.
Man, this hobby has been fun. I still have as much fun at age 58 with cards as I did at age 12. Dad has even come around. At age 87, he still goes to flea markets, he still buys trumpets, and even buys cards -- though, he buys the worst stuff known to man. He won't take my advice on buying cards. There probably isn't a person alive with more crap cards in his garage than dad. Oh well. I am thankful for the time spent with him in the 1970's at the Twin Flea Market and those old Hillside Holiday Inn card shows. Eventually, I even convinced him to take me to the card shop on Archer Avenue in Chicago.
I really miss those days. At least I have card shows to attend today but flea markets are not the same. There is nothing like the old Twin Flea Market. I absolutely loved that place.
The Twin flea market was huge. I loved wandering around there. Most sellers sold stuff they had stored away for years in their basements or attics. You could dig through boxes and pull out absolute treasures. There was no antique and collectible industry like there is today. No price guides. No "comps." No You-Tube videos telling you how to invest in sports cards. It was a raw and real time that was incredibly fun.
That winter, 1978, dad found an indoor flea market at the Axle Roller Rink in nearby Niles, Illinois. We started to set up there. I recognized many of the people from the Twin. More treasures were to be had at the Axle Roller Rink. It was there that I purchased my first T206 card, a John McGraw, for just five bucks!
I still live in the same area where I grew up and regularly drive by the land where the Twin once stood and lament its demise. When it closed in the early 1990s, I figured some developer purchased it. As I was getting ready to write this blog, I did some google research on the Twin and learned that the Palwaukee Airport, which was adjacent to the Twin, purchased the land to build some drainage ditches to keep the runways free of water which explains why a lot of that land is still empty -- why can't a smaller version of the Twin come back?!! There is plenty of room!!
The old Axle Roller rink is long gone. The building remains and now houses a Salvation Army thrift store. I sure would love to see that old indoor flea market come back. I don't know of any indoor flea markets in the area any more. I sure would love to find one. My outdoor flea market of choice these days is at the Kenosha County Fairgrounds in Wilmot, Wisconsin. The Wilmot flea market is the closest thing to the old Twin Flea Market I have found. A lot of people I know like Wolf's Flea Market at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. I don't like that one at all. Booth fees are too high. Most of the sellers there are "professionals." You won't find anyone dumping stuff from their attic. You got a better shot at the Wilmot flea market. There is a lot of old junk at the Wilmot Flea Market and it has a better old timey vibe than Wolf's. I set up in Wilmot every summer. I still love it! Fifty years collecting baseball cards. Oh my! I am still a card junky, a card show junky, and a flea market junky. Some things for me will never change. Man, if I could do dad's trumpet hustle, that would be something!
Here's some photos I found online of the Twin:
I knew card shows existed but did not know how to find out where they were located and when they occurred. I first learned about card shows in 1976 when I watched the 5 p.m. Chicago news on TV with my mom and we saw a feature story on a card show that had occurred that day. I remember being angry that my mom did not take me there. Her response was that she did not know about it. I was determined to learn where and when card shows occurred.
Until I could learn the locations of card shows, the pharmacy remained my main source for obtaining cards. I collected all four major sports.
I soon discovered that cards were available for purchase at the Twin Drive-in Movie Theater's Sunday Flea Market in nearby Wheeling, Illinois. My dad was a flea market junky and we went there just about every Sunday in the summer. My main focus at the flea market was to find toys, comic books and sports cards then convince my dad to buy them for me -- which was very difficult. Dad did not like spending money on me. He usually ended up buying me a few pairs of socks at the flea market that would fall apart shortly after bringing them home. He also filled up our house with all sorts of junk from the flea market like old TVs, radios, furniture, knick knacks and stuff. If you needed something in my house, say a baseball bat, a mitt, a bike, a bed, Dad got it at the flea market.
He had this mantra to never pay retail which I think he learned as a kid on Maxwell Street in Chicago. The Maxwell Street Market opened in the mid-1800's on Chicago's near West Side. It was an open-air market, created by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and reflected the markets from the motherland. I suspect sometime in the 1940's, my dad regularly attended the Maxwell Street Market. By the 1950's, he was setting up there every Sunday, selling odds and ends from his grandfather's electrical supply shop located on the near Northwest Side of Chicago.
As a child of the Depression, he grew up frugal and remained very tight with his money when I was growing up. Me, on the other hand, did not understand money and wanted to buy anything and everything -- especially sports cards.
I know I talked about this before, but I'll tell it again. The first time I ever saw a card older than 1968 was at the Twin Flea Market -- this was around the year 1977. An old man was selling 1955 Topps for 50-cents each. I wanted them like I never wanted anything else in my young life. I begged my dad to buy me some.
For dad, buying anything at the flea market was a game, even a 50-cent sports card. The game began as I stood nervously by. Dad explained to the old man that the cards were worth only 10 cents and he was extremely overpriced at 50 cents. I worried I would not get one of those 1955 Topps. It was so painful to watch the game. I just wanted some cards!
Eventually, dad got me two cards; I think a Ron Jackson and a Jim Finigan. I don't remember what he paid but I am sure it was less than one dollar. However, before he handed me the cards, he demanded that the old man give me a plastic page to store them. I had to wait even longer to receive the cards as dad and the old man argued over the plastic page. I think I lost a few pounds during this painfully long negotiation for what I considered the holy grail. Once in my hands, I quickly forgot about the torturous process of obtaining the cards. On that warm summer day in 1977, I held, what I believed was the coolest thing known to mankind -- two 1955 Topps common cards. I was determined to get more!
As 11-year-old me walked the dusty rows of the old Twin Flea Market, the answer to my money woes stared me right in the face. I am pretty sure even a lightbulb popped over my head.
I convinced dad to let me set up at the Twin Drive-in Flea Market so I could earn some money to buy sports cards. It really did not take much convincing; he was on board the minute I made the suggestion. Before long, we were reliving his days on Maxwell Street. We found a bunch of old card tables around the house and went through the masses of junk we had in the basement and garage, priced it all, loaded it into the station wagon and began setting up at the flea market every Sunday.
I just wanted to make some money to buy baseball cards. For my dad, it was a reawakening of his inner self. It was like he was back on Maxwell Street circa 1952. He taught me all sorts of stuff about selling at the flea market. We priced everything. He came up with the prices. Then he had a specific way he wanted to load the station wagon. Once we set up the tables, he had a specific way he wanted everything to be displayed.
Once we were set up and the masses walked the gravel aisle in front of our tables, he shouted at everyone like he was back on Maxwell Street, lured them over and convinced them they needed our junk. It was remarkable, really. We sold all sorts of broken, filthy, outdated junk. We soon ran out of inventory, so, he started setting me up in the morning, left me at the table alone, then walked the flea market to buy us more stuff. He was a phenomenal salesman and an even better negotiator. He'd come back every hour or so with a box of stuff for me to sell at more than double for what he purchased it for.
The best part of setting up at the flea market with dad was to witness what I call "the trumpet hustle." As a kid, dad learned to play trumpet from famed Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. Dad was a brilliant trumpet player but as Dizzy told him, he couldn't riff, but still technically great.
Back at the flea market, dad would buy a broken trumpet for a few bucks, take it home, fix it up, replace all the major parts, and bring it back to the flea market the following Sunday. Often these trumpets did not look like much. They were dinged and discolored. He would put one out each Sunday on the table and I would wait for the show to begin.
The curtains opened when someone would ask him if the trumpet worked.
"Yes, it works. Let me show you," he would say like he was Ray Charles in the "Blues Brothers" movie.
He would walk around to the front of the table, pick up the trumpet, dramatically shake out his arms, loudly press the valves that he recently oiled, then put that thing to his lips and the most beautiful sound would appear. Everyone around stopped in their tracks. Before long, a crowd would gather around our table and listen to dad play. He would then sell that trumpet he purchased for five bucks for a good fifty to a 100-dollar profit. He'd take the money from the customer. Give me a wink then go off to find another broken trumpet. He did this every Sunday. It was a sight to behold.
He would explain to me that you gotta buy low and sell high. Sure, all great in theory but he had this gift, I did not. Besides, I just wanted to earn a little money to go buy some cards!
Luckily for me, there were a dozen or so guys selling vintage cards each Sunday at the Twin Flea Market in the 1970's. With money in my pockets, I purchased a ton of cards each Sunday. I went back to the old man with the 1955 Topps and bought a ton of stuff from him. We soon became friendly and he taught me how to sell cards at the flea market. By age 12, I had procured a large inventory of vintage cards but had no idea how to price them -- there was no Beckett, no internet, no way to price cards, or so I thought.
The old man pulled out a copy of Sports Collectors Digest and handed it to me. I marveled at all the ads for cards. In those days, Sports Collectors Digest was like a thick book filled with treasure. The old man would pick up a card from his table, say a 1958 Topps Willie Mays, then show me all the ads in SCD for 1958 Topps Willie Mays. The old man priced his cards through the ads. The old man gave me a copy of SCD. I quickly subscribed.
With SCD in hand, I started to fill up photo albums of cards and priced them through the ads in SCD.
I continued to marvel at dad when he would put on his trumpet show but before long, dad marveled at me, as I started taking over the tables and filling them with photo albums of sports cards and drew my own crowds. Soon we were competing as to who would make more money. Dad with his broken junk or me with my sports cards. I started making more money than he did. He then stopped hanging out at the flea market and would drop me off in the morning, set me up, then come get me in the afternoon and take me home. I loved showing him the wad of cash I took in from selling sports cards.
The best part of all this was that I learned about SCD where there was a calendar for sports card shows! Woot! I quickly joined the Chicagoland Sports Collectors Association, a group that put on three shows a year at the Holiday Inn in Hillside, Illinois.
New problem. Dad was still not on board with the sports cards, even though he saw the cash I earned each Sunday at the flea market. He would not take me to the card shows nor the card shop I discovered through SCD that was located on South Archer Avenue, in Chicago, a long way from the northern burbs where we lived.
Well, I could be an annoying %$#@ as a kid and annoyed dad to death until he relented. First he took me to one of the card shows in Hillside -- a glorious affair. I felt like I found Valhalla. Dad was just annoyed.
We would be at the show for about 15 minutes before he would ask if I was ready to go. Of course not! Once we did leave the show, he would take me to his office in Downtown Chicago and I would have to sit there and look at my cards for hours until we finally went home where I would place my new cards in their rightful spot in my photo album. The album was filled with plastic pages specifically made for sports cards that I purchased at the shows and through ads in SCD. I still have that old photo album. It holds 1978 Topps football cards these days.
Eventually, dad would drop me off at the card show in the morning, go to work, then come back for me in the afternoon. Those were some of the best days of my life. I'd find myself talking to Minnie Minoso or Billy Williams who were signing autographs for free! I became friendly with tons of kids at the shows. No one had brief cases, like the kids today at shows. We all had shoe boxes.
But just like the kids today, we would sit amongst ourselves and buy and trade cards. I still have a Joe DiMaggio autograph I bought from one of those kids for $10 in 1978. I had it authenticated at a show in the 1990's. I was surprised when it came back legit.
Man, this hobby has been fun. I still have as much fun at age 58 with cards as I did at age 12. Dad has even come around. At age 87, he still goes to flea markets, he still buys trumpets, and even buys cards -- though, he buys the worst stuff known to man. He won't take my advice on buying cards. There probably isn't a person alive with more crap cards in his garage than dad. Oh well. I am thankful for the time spent with him in the 1970's at the Twin Flea Market and those old Hillside Holiday Inn card shows. Eventually, I even convinced him to take me to the card shop on Archer Avenue in Chicago.
I really miss those days. At least I have card shows to attend today but flea markets are not the same. There is nothing like the old Twin Flea Market. I absolutely loved that place.
The Twin flea market was huge. I loved wandering around there. Most sellers sold stuff they had stored away for years in their basements or attics. You could dig through boxes and pull out absolute treasures. There was no antique and collectible industry like there is today. No price guides. No "comps." No You-Tube videos telling you how to invest in sports cards. It was a raw and real time that was incredibly fun.
That winter, 1978, dad found an indoor flea market at the Axle Roller Rink in nearby Niles, Illinois. We started to set up there. I recognized many of the people from the Twin. More treasures were to be had at the Axle Roller Rink. It was there that I purchased my first T206 card, a John McGraw, for just five bucks!
I still live in the same area where I grew up and regularly drive by the land where the Twin once stood and lament its demise. When it closed in the early 1990s, I figured some developer purchased it. As I was getting ready to write this blog, I did some google research on the Twin and learned that the Palwaukee Airport, which was adjacent to the Twin, purchased the land to build some drainage ditches to keep the runways free of water which explains why a lot of that land is still empty -- why can't a smaller version of the Twin come back?!! There is plenty of room!!
The old Axle Roller rink is long gone. The building remains and now houses a Salvation Army thrift store. I sure would love to see that old indoor flea market come back. I don't know of any indoor flea markets in the area any more. I sure would love to find one. My outdoor flea market of choice these days is at the Kenosha County Fairgrounds in Wilmot, Wisconsin. The Wilmot flea market is the closest thing to the old Twin Flea Market I have found. A lot of people I know like Wolf's Flea Market at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. I don't like that one at all. Booth fees are too high. Most of the sellers there are "professionals." You won't find anyone dumping stuff from their attic. You got a better shot at the Wilmot flea market. There is a lot of old junk at the Wilmot Flea Market and it has a better old timey vibe than Wolf's. I set up in Wilmot every summer. I still love it! Fifty years collecting baseball cards. Oh my! I am still a card junky, a card show junky, and a flea market junky. Some things for me will never change. Man, if I could do dad's trumpet hustle, that would be something!
Here's some photos I found online of the Twin:
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