I spent every penny I got my hands on as a kid on hockey cards (during the late 80s). The local card shop had a Mario Lemieux rookie card. I was always in there, trying to haggle the owner on prices and just spent hours in that tiny store just looking and buying when I could. I would always ask him about the Lemieux card and dropping the price (about $160 ish?). He always said no, not that I ever that kind of money anyway. I would BEG my mom to get it for my birthday or christmas but she always said no. I was obsessed with this card. It would be the crown possession.
I forget how or why my mom finally gave in and gave me the money for it (13th birthday maybe?) but she finally gives me the money for it. I race over to the shop and buy it. I was soo happy. I was soo pumped up.
This is well before the era of internet and immediate knowledge on anything.
Years later, I find out that the one the guy sold me was one of the many fakes, with the 60/40 cut and the grease mark etc that was the obvious tell-tale signs of a forgery obviously known to the grown man who owned the card shop but perhaps not to a young kid (again no internet or anything like that).
I hate that guy. He knew. Thats why the card didnt sell and just sat there in his display case. And he just waited and waited for that young kid who always asked him about it to finally scrounge up enough money to buy his childhood dream.
That absolutely sucks.
I have that card. I think this winter I am finally going to grade a bunch of my cards. Between my father and I we have been collectors since the 50's. He passed away May 2019 so when I get the chance, going to go through and pull the big ones. We were lucky that my father was a little OCD and always sought out the best cards he could find and luckily what he was looking for was what one day became the exact factors they grade on, so I have a lot of cards (Lemieux, Gretzky, Howe, Belliveau, Plante, Orr etc.) that should fetch very good grades.
The old man had the rookie Mickey Mantle (one sold for $2.9 M) and traded it for bottles years before card values took off (he also collected bottles). DOH!
Funny thing though, one of my favourite possessions is a 1980-81 Pepsi bottle cap collection. In the days of bottles under the grey plastic liner of the lid, you peeled it off and there were player faces underneath for all the Canadian teams. There was a big disk/plaque that held them all. We completed it and I still have it. Don't see many of them around.
