Baseball Card Prices Spike 50%!

Summer 1977.

I was a young boy pulling in a weekly allowance of $1 which handily funded my need for baseball cards and candy. There was a local candy shop my brothers and I regularly visited on Saturday mornings to outfit those needs. The Village Barn.

Baseball cards at the time went for 10 cents per pack. I was ten years old and relished the transaction that yielded an even ten packs of cards enriched with a firm plasticesque stick of gum for one meager dollar. The walk home, half mile, opening packs, stuffing gum in my mouth, and reviewing the cards of my baseballing heroes. Really a glorious time.

With much sadness I recall that gloomy Saturday morning I approached the counter clerk with my weekly supply of ten packs and he said so casually, “That’ll be a dollar fifty.” 50% price increase from the week before! I remember struggling with the required downgrade to six packs for $.90 and having an extra 10 cents left over. How hollow this felt. The 10 cents went toward candy, a distant second in preference to the cards. It was a sad walk home. All six packs were opened and perused long before I got there.

My little world seemed a cold harsh place.
-klem