It's been raining all day today. (By this time of year in Chicago, I'm surprised that it's not snowing yet.) To pass the time on days like these, I like to just flip through a random binder and admire my collection.
However, I took a bit of a different approach today. Some of my best vintage cards are framed and displayed on my wall in my room. I decided to take some of them down and try to remember where I got them. This was the first card I looked at.
My 1965 Topps Ernie Banks. As far as baseball cards go, the above card is my earliest memory. I remember bringing it to school in 3rd grade to show my teacher and all my friends. (I brought it along with my stack of Yu-gi-oh cards.)
I got it from a local card shop called Graf's. Some of my best childhood memories are tied to that store. Whenever my dad had a day off of work, we'd take the two buses up and spend the day there. Or if we got up early on a Saturday my mom would drive us there. They had $1 packs from the 1990s and early 2000s. They had a big 6/$1 bin. They had everything, as far as I was concerned. They also used to have a little box of discounted vintage on the counter, and that's where the '65 Ernie Banks came from.
Going to Graf's was a major event back then. It still would be today, too, but the store closed down a few years back. Just another casualty of the diminishing hobby. It still pains me that the last time I went to Graf's, it was during my year-long hockey card collecting phase, and that's all I bought. Hockey cards. Not baseball, the national pastime, but hockey. Oh well. I guess life's funny that way sometimes.
From the outside, it just looks like a simple baseball card store. But it was so much more than that. It was my childhood paradise.
1 comment:
Thanks for not mentioning the memory of me dropping the giant soda at the place we used to eat at across the street!!
Graf's was a special place....glad we could do that together!
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