Night Owl Cards

I have already said my goodbyes to this card. There weren't as many tears as I thought there would be. I had come to terms with the fact that it didn't fit in my collection a couple of months ago. In fact, I was the one who decided that it was probably time to trade it. I have owned this 1957 Topps Willie Mays card since I was 14 or 15 years old. It was one of the cards that arrived in that large grocery bag full of cards that my dad's co-worker gave to me and my brothers. Most of the cards were from the 1956 set, with a small number of '55s, '57s and '58s mixed in. As we took turns selecting cards from the bounty before us on the dining room table, I selected this 1957 Mays first. I picked it because it was Willie Mays ... duh. But also because I knew it had value. I was pretty sure from the moment that I saw the cards come out of that bag that it was the most valuable card in there -- monetarily speaking. This was the early 1980s. The card hobby was...