Fast forward thirty years. The mall is still there, (which is an amazing feat within itself) but other than the cashier, I was the only other person in the store. The entire time I was there (about a half-hour) nobody came in. I'm not sure anybody even walked by.
While I was leaving the mall it was obvious that the employees of all of the stores greatly outnumbered the customers, and the high majority of customers all seemed to have graduated high school decades ago. It's certainly not the way things used to be.
Like this 1992 Classic Draft Pick Brien Taylor Promo card apparently used to be $30.00. I wouldn't doubt if some people paid that much for this card back then too. Promo cards like these had ridiculous prices attached to them.
The going rate was ten bucks for this Pat Falloon promo.
The rest of the cards in this post are not from the 1991 Leaf set, but part of a twenty-six card preview set which I was not able to find much info about. Apparently you could find these in the 1991 Donruss factory sets. If I wrong and someone else knows more about these cards, don't be shy.
And they're not black and white...I scanned it that way by accident and I'm too lazy to rescan it.
Here's the back where you definitely can see the words "1991 Preview Card".
A nice looking Tim Wallach card, but a nasty looking top loader.
This was the only card in the bunch that didn't have a price on the front.
It did on the back though. Ten bucks.
For anybody who wasn't collecting back in the early 90's, promo cards were everywhere. It didn't even matter who was on the card, if it was a promo card it was selling for far more than many player's rookie cards.
Would you pay $10 for a Leo Gomez card? Would you pay $10 for a Leo Gomez anything?
This card used to be $18. Wow.
If I had bought all of these cards back in the early 90's it would have cost me $129.00.
In 2018 it cost me $1.
I'm glad it's not the way things used to be.
GOOD DEAL
ReplyDeleteIn my area Silver Spring Maryland specifically and Montgomery County in general many of the malls that were packed during the 1980s including a fave of mine that first opened in late 70s early 80s have closed down completely. Most of the ones that have gone it was most likely increased rent and leasing costs and big named anchor stores going out of business. Don't get me wrong there are still plenty of malls just not as many as there were 30some years ago. A small part of it is also due to so many of the malls having the same stores or being more upper scale stores
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately some people are still stuck in the way things used to be. I can't tell you how many people are still trying to hock Sammy Sosa rookies for $10-15 a pop at the flea market around here.
ReplyDeleteexc deal! the mall of my teenage years is long gone. my LCS however, has the same problem. Year after year, the same cards sit in his glass cases. I don't understand this at all. He won't list them on ebay because he doesnt want to 'give them away'. If he ever has trouble paying the rent, maybe he'll reconsider the price tags.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that there's still a card shop in a mall somewhere that still has these kind of prices on these kinds of cards.
ReplyDelete