3. Hobby Publication Profile: The Trader Speaks

The Trader Speaks Issue #1 marks the beginning of a 15-year run. (see Gallery of all Covers)

Beginning in 1968, The Trader Speaks became one of the most influential and longest running of the many early hobby magazines. It was published by Dan Dischley, whose "day job" was that of a police detective for Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

For nearly fifteen years, from November of 1968 through August of 1983, Dischley nurtured the monthly publication. It was financed primarily by advertising, which accounts for roughly 80-85% of the content of most issues. For many dealers, TTS was the primary media for promoting each month's latest special.

In many ways, The Trader Speaks was published during the formative years of the hobby. It was a period during which the first National Conventions were held. Collectors were spending much of their time "comparing notes" with each other and putting together detailed checklists for many of the sets for the first time.

In the beginning, subscriptions were set at $3 per year and were increased progressively throughout the run. It was announced in the October 1970 issue that subscriptions had increased to $6, then to $9 per year by the mid-1970s, to $12 by 1980 and to $15.95 per year in the magazine's final years.

The magazine's page count started with humble beginnings, ranging from 16 pages for the early issues to over 80 pages during its peak in the late 1970s. It then experienced a modest decline in the final years. From its inception in 1968 through June 1981, the magazine's size measured 8-1/2 inches tall by 7 inches wide. Beginning in July 1981, it was "down sized" in height by one inch (from 8-1/2 to 7-1/2 inches), but retained the same width of 7 inches.

Although advertising dominated the magazine, there were typically several articles written by leading collectors of the period. A few of these hobby pioneers included Lew Lipset, Rob Lifson, Barry Halper, Buck Barker, Jim Beckett, Richard Egan, Ron Greenwood, Keith Olbermann, Frank Keetz, Don Steinbach, William Heitman, Elwood Scharf, John Spalding, Bill Haber, Larry Fritsch, Doug McWilliams, Lionel Carter and many other contributors. Dischley himself penned a monthly column, "Collecting News," about a smorgasbord of topics that ran throughout the full fifteen-year run.

Dischley's last issue of TTS was distributed in August 1983. The publication was sold to Sonny Jackson, who continued printing under the name "The New Trader Speaks" for seven more issues, ending in March 1984. The remains of the then defunct operation (including its subscriber list) were acquired by Sports Collector's Digest (SCD). For a brief period from mid-1989 until mid-1990, SCD attempted to revive The Trader Speaks as a supplement to its newspaper before discontinuing the supplement after the issue of May 1990.

The covers of TTS often featured examples of vintage sets. The set pictured on the cover, however, was often not described in the content of the magazine.

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Dan Dischley (1944-2019) Founder and Publisher of The Trader Speaks

As a baseball fan, Dischley became an avid Cincinnati Reds supporter from a very early age. By 1975, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper, he had amassed what was believed to be the most extensive collection of Reds memorabilia in existence at the time.

As a collector, Dischley once owned three T206 Honus Wagner cards. "I sold all three of them," he later lamented, "and the most I got for any of them was $1,500."

Sadly, Dischley passed away this past September (see his brief obituary in the News Briefs section below).