Just thinking about the old days before E Bay.I have just found a card that i had forgot about .
I purchased it before E Bay times
Star wars SOTE # 5 Bobba Fett signed by both Hilderbrand Bros.
I had to buy it from an advertisement in NSU
I asked for the SOTE # 5 promo card that was advertised.
When I received the card it actually had been signed by both the brothers with an apology from the seller that he did not have the actual card but would this do instead no xtra charge.
Of course I accepted.
But would this happen today

I remember the days before Ebay, which in my case was prior to 1998.

I recall vividly sets like The Valiant Era II (Upper Deck) with the 8 different, 1 per box toppers. Had to run to many comic stores trying in vain to find them all, and of course, those that had them were all duplicates.

In those days you had to rely upon catalogues like those by Barrington Square Cards and Paul & Judy's. Do those places still exist ?

And FORGET about the rare chase card that came 1 per 10 boxes, or up. If you didn't pull those from the pack yourself, odds are you weren't going to find them !

That was life back in 1994-1995, from what I recall.

The fun thing about that was that at the time at least in my area there were a lot of comic shops that carried cards.

Barrington Square Cards is still around -- although they have a different name now, and they are online only. Barrington Square itself (which was the name of the shopping plaza the store was in) also no longer exists.

Looking on the internet, I think Paul & Judy's just does coins and baseball cards now.

Doesn't look like they have their own website.

I used to buy from Marchant Cards in St. Louis, I think. They had a few oddball promos and lots of base sets. I might still have a catalogue/price list from them somewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
The fun thing about that was that at the time at least in my area there were a lot of comic shops that carried cards.

Barrington Square Cards is still around -- although they have a different name now, and they are online only. Barrington Square itself (which was the name of the shopping plaza the store was in) also no longer exists.

Yeah, interesting topic... I remember those days prior to eBay. I have a bunch of handwritten promo card lists from Glenn Leonard and a card shop in Las Vegas. At that time I didn't have a visa card so it was a bank cheque and the cost of shipping which made things exxy. but it was very well worth it as some of my promo cards just don't come up for sale, maybe for years.

Those were magical days. There were shops with cards everywhere around here. I found Barrington Square quite by accident, we stopped at the mall just to look around and here's a shop that's half comics and non-sports cards, and half sportscards. Don't think I ever made it to the other half in my dozens of visits. Found my first Non Sport Update and Wrapper here too. Remember sitting out in the parking lot opening loose packs before I started for home.

I also remember calling Endless World in CA to buy Star Wars and X Files cards. They ran ads in NSU for many years in the 1990s

Endless World had a sidewalk stand in San Francisco - I forget the street. I bought something from them there and would've bought more but their prices were at the high end of the market. I know other collectors thought they were too high but then they did have pretty much every Star Wars or X-Files promo that was known at the time. They seemed like nice guys when you talked to them.

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
I also remember calling Endless World in CA to buy Star Wars and X Files cards. They ran ads in NSU for many years in the 1990s

As instigator of this post
I also in the day purchased cards off most of these sites through NSU advertising and other magazine Wizard Collect Star wars Galaxy mags
I recall that these magazines were quiet expensive here in NZ over $13 to 15 each but still purchased them still have some of them somewere
Actually I purchased most of my Star Wars X Files promos off Endless world also i think a canadian company Warp9 and Wandring Rebel
Yes Endless world at the time was expensive but then most promos seemed costly
Must look up some of the ads and try to compare prices to todays prices
Every one you dealt with was civil and actually tried to help you
With no Pay Pal I had to go to the bank and purchase an international money order to send as payment but i think that was all a part of the fun in having to be able to purchase the cards that I wanted, also shipping times seemed to be faster
Nowdays with the internet and pay pal there is no seller customer relationship and it seems pretty clinical

I was lucky to find a lot of Star Wars and X-Files promos when some dealers were selling them cheap. I had to pay up/trade high for the X-Files P1 (comic promo that most collectors kept with their Season 1 cards) but I found P2 for just a couple of bucks at a local show. It was a little faded but acceptable especially for the price. At the time (late 90's) it was going for $15-25 when you could find it.

I remember finding the X-Files Season 2 P2 and P5 cheap and local too. I even had extras of P5 to trade.

The last time I checked prices on X-Files promos then and a few years ago, values had dropped - even on the ones noted above. Bill DeFranzo commented on that in one of his last NSU columns. It might be worth checking on again.

In the early days there were advantages that eBay brought to a collector. Mainly that you could find basically anything, and it also became very obvious how rare certain cards were (or, more likely weren't). In those early days everything was an auction so it was a true market and sometimes you could find a deal.

Sadly, I think eBay was one of the things that ultimately killed a big part of the hobby. Fewer dealers would be at shows since it was easier and cheaper to sell from home.

Before eBay 'collecting' was more of an activity. You had to go to shows, you had to go to shops, you had to meet people and perhaps build friendships.

I used to enjoy just going to a new town or a new part of a city and stopping in random comic shops just to see what cards they had. It seemed like most shops actually carried cards, and many of them actually opened packs and sold singles.

Sports card shops around me rarely had any non-sport cards. I think that really shaped the difference in collectors who focused on sports cards vs entertainment cards.

Over time most of my comic shops closed, and the remaining ones stopped carrying cards. Now virtually all of the cards I buy are online. While I still enjoy collecting the adventure aspect of it has been removed.

As an adult most of my card collecting emerged after I joined the London Branch of the Cartophilic Society of GB which occurred some in the eighties. Club meetings provided a place to trade and swop cards with the occasional purchase from a an attending dealer or the club auction. I also went to other card auctions held by a couple of dealers who also published their own annual catalogues. Eventually an American style fair was held which various American card products became available. I cannot remember when it happened but a card importer also arrived on the scene and he travelled around the country with a stand at various card fairs. I won't name drop but he was well known to a lot of "card talkers". For some years, we here in the UK had an abundance of American product which does not exist these days.

Personally I stopped attending the card club when the venue was moved which made it more difficult for me to attend form where I was working at the time. I still managed to meet up with some of my fellow collectors and fairs and the occasional auction but alas that has also ended due to the their passing and the cessation of the fairs.

I started collecting promo cards available in comics following being asked by an older club member obtain for some of the comics which were unknown to me at the time.

These days a lot my card purchases are from Kickstarter with eBay purchases usually restricted to UK only due to postal costs.

regards

John

I remember calling either Barrington Square or Paul & Judy's and being placed on a "waiting list" for certain hard to find chase cards. One of them was the MAXX (Sam Keith comic) foil #5 which I ended up finding later in the 1990s, though I can't recall where.

I remember seeing Mike from Barrington Square at the Midwest Card Collectors Show in the Chicago area. The show was promoted by Steve Gold from AU Sports. AU Sports had vast collections and inventory for both Sport and Non-Sport cards. I worked on Saturdays for Steve. He would let me go into his 2 stock rooms. I was able to complete many Beatles card collections from that inventory at great prices. I think AU Sports is still around under different management.

Thank goodness for NSU and The Wrapper. They were the only outposts in the desert of NonSports (before eBay replaced personal relationships with computer bidding).