The hobby pioneers articles in the Jan. 1 and Feb. 1 issues of Sports Collectors Digest generated several nice responses from readers about long-time collectors.
When collectors look at cards they collected as kids, it brings back memories of the enjoyable, relatively brief days of our youth when we were opening packs, trading cards and trying to find cards of our favorites on a meager budget. Likewise, when the names and faces of longtime collectors are published, it brings back memories of the early days of collecting as an adult, when we discovered there was a hobby with other collectors, dealers and eventually card shows and the internet. We might even think nostalgically about the prices from the early days of the hobby and whatever budget we may have had.
I invited readers to let me know about their experiences with other longtime hobbyists and hobby pioneers. Here are some of their stories.
NOWELL’S EARLY SHOWS
Ken Willey of Southern California attended the third show run by Jim Nowell in 1971 and wrote:
“I doubt most collectors of today realize how difficult it was to locate the established hobby in the decades before the 1980s. I was a typical baseball card collector as a young teen around 1969. I would walk a few blocks to a liquor store to buy some packs of cards every now and then. I usually found some glass bottles along the way and turned them in for their deposits. That gave me money to buy even more cards.
“I was getting too
