What got you started collecting cards?

[campyfan39]

This is a follow up to the enjoyable thread about the future of the hobby.

What was it that got you started?
For me it was in 1978 (I was 5) my Dad started being interested in cards from his childhood and my mom would bring home packs for us.
In subsequent years I was actively watching the Braves on tv with my Dad and I was playing ball myself. The concession stand at our little league field sold cards and I usually got some after games.

All thoughts/responses welcome!
This board is awesome!

[g_vezina_c55]

in 1991 a friend at the school show me some pro set hockey cards and the patrick roy mask CC2 from pro set 1991..

it is my start in the hobby and i collect since this time.

[insccollectibles]

Around 1986-1987 when my uncle introduced me to baseball card collecting. I started collecting vintage cards after recieving a T206 Wagner, Plank, Magie, Lajoie goudey, and one other reprint set. I remember seeing the $100,000 price tag on the back of the Wagner reprint and being a kid I was hooked.

[Sean]

I started in 1965 when my father gave me a pack of Topps cards. I still have one of them.
I didn't start collecting vintage cards until 2002.

121055

[Cardboard Junkie]

Around 53/56, I collected topps world on wheels and rails and sails then in 56 had to have davy crockett cards. But in the background of my memory I see my older brother, who was about 13 or so at the time playing with baseball cards, football cards and hockey cards. The first baseball I actually remember openning was 57 topps. By 58 59 60 I was into it big time and would buy them by the box. (From the milk depot) (a little woodfloor depot covered in sawdust and sold dairy and eggs.....had a small place on the counter with boxes of topps issues stacked 3 or 4 high.) (they always gave me a free glass 1/2 pint of milk....I would put a strawberry or chocolate "flavor straw" in it and sip on it while looking for Tigers......it was heaven.

[jbl79]

In 1988, my dad owned a small convenience store when I was younger and always supplied wax boxes of Topps, Donruss, and Score baseball cards. Every once in a while he would give me a couple of packs to open. Since I was a big SF Giants fan I would always try to find Will Clark cards since he was my favorite player. I didn't get into vintage until the mid 90s when I went to my first major show in SF. I was amazed to see all the Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle cards at all the tables. That's when I started to read up on the history of the game and all the great players. Once I did that, I've been collecting vintage cards ever since.

[quinnsryche]

Started in 1976 when my dad and his 3 friends opened their card store in Chicago. At age 10 I saw more cards than most people have ever seen total in their entire lives. Cases of Topps cards from the 60's & 70's, literally stacked to the ceiling, 3 deep in multiple storerooms. Tables in the store front made out of unopened cases of cards (3 high and 2 deep with plywood and fabric on top of them). Cabinets filled with complete sets of 50's - 70's Topps, 48 -55 Bowman, Goudey, etc. Put together a 1956 Topps set, hand picked in NM condition and sold it for $300! Tried many times over to stop collecting, just can't do it. I guess it's in my blood.

[vintagechris]

I was 11 in 1980 and my Mother worked at Sears at the local mall. When I was out of school for Summer or Christmas, I would go to the mall with her and I would play video games.

One of the places I shoveled massive amounts of quarters into was the Woolworths game room. It was in the back of the store. While walking quickly to the game room one day, I noticed a box in the candy section that had some kind of football design on it.

Being a fan, I stopped to see what it was. Saw they were football cards and bought two packs. Went outside the store to one of the mall benches and opened the packs. In the first pack, I got a card of Tony Hill who played for my favorite childhood team the Cowboys. I was hooked. I then took all of my video game $ and bought football cards that day.

Shortly after that, my Mom started buying me two packs of cards everyday that she worked at the mall. She did that for 6 years when I took a break from collecting. It's one of the great memories I have of my Mom who is no longer here.

Then in the summer of 1981, while at the local flea market with my Dad, there was a guy there who had older cards I had never seen. Mantle, Aaron, Mays, guys from the 50's I had only heard of but never saw cards of. I plopped down $5 for my first vintage purchase, a 1959 Topps Yogi Berra. Two weeks later I paid $6 for a 1965 Topps Hank Aaron. Shortly after that I paid $9 for a Mike Schmidt RC and when I showed it to my Dad, he thought I was crazy for spending that kind of money for "old cardboard".

Like many, collecting cards was one of the great memories I had as a child.

[mets41]

I had collected as a kid (1960-64). I stopped in 1965 ("baseball cards are for kids") but I would buy 1 pack each year just to see what that year's design looked like. Whwn I bought my 1973 pack, there was a Clemente card (he had been killed the previous winter in the plane crash). At the time I had no clue how cards were printed so I thought it was odd that Topps had a card of a dead player.

[kmac32]

I started in 1965 when my father gave me a pack of Topps cards. I still have one of them.
I didn't start collecting vintage cards until 2002.

121055

Same reason I started. Mr. Cub

[daves_resale_shop]

My parents picked me up from summer camp. Once I got in the back seat of the car they handed me a brown paper back with 4-35 cent waxpacks & a small glassine envelope with 3-72 topps Redsox in it... Yaz, Tiant, & Kennedy.

To this day the 72 set is one of my faves, and there was nothing greater than plucking a Clemens, Eric Davis, & Dwight Gooden allstar from those packs!

[AndyG09]

I got my first pack in 1982. A cello pack with Darrell Evans on top. I still have that card somewhere. Around that time I had a neighbor across the street who was pretty much a shut in with bad emphysema. His wife would invite me in and Joe would show me his cards and some of stars out of the sets he had put together. He would give me cards once in a while. Some from the sixties, seventies and early 80s. He would finish up an oxygen treatment and reach for his cigs. Sadly, he didn't live much longer. My dad and I built an '84 Topps set busting boxes and I still have that set. I think Detroit was pretty much Mecca for card collectors. Shops and shows galore in the mid to late 80s made it easy. If only I knew then what I know now….

Best,

Andy

[wheitman]

Hi Tony. Please give my best to your Dad. Pat always was one of my favorite people in this hobby.

Bill Heitman

[TheBig6]

I would say I started collecting Baseball cards around 1956 when I started playing Little league and became obsessed with the game.

One memory I have is from 1959. Major League relief Pitcher Bill Henry lived in my neighborhood and his son played on my Team. I for the life of me could not pull a Bill Henry from a pack of 59's. One day I bought a pack at the Utotem on the way to school and stuck them in my top pocket to open Later. Sitting on the can in Elementary school I remembered the pack and opened it and squeezed them like a poker hand, Walla Mr. Henry Cubs Card appeared.

Always making my mother Buy armour franks so I could get the coins, but it seemed like I always got Frank Malzone or Gus Triandos.

Going thru the Jello Packs at the store looking for a player you wanted on the back. Or having to endure Grape Nuts because a favorite player was on the box.

Just a few of the great memories of Collecting as a kid.

[Steve D]

Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what got me into collecting cards. Since I first started collecting cards in 1970 though, I imagine it was the fact that the San Diego Padres had just joined the National League the year prior, after having been in the PCL since 1936.

Steve

[rgpete]

Back in the mid to late 1960's, my dad would give me 25 to 35 cents a week , I would go to the candy store right on the corner across from the grade school and the other one was a store like out of the 1930's with the candy behind the glass case, right by were my grandparents used to live. It was also spending quality time with my dad buying the older cards from the late 1800's early 1900's at flea markets.

[ullmandds]

ron...that must have been awesome buying old old cards like that at flea markets!!!!! I remember the local fleamarkets had 75' topps...that was about it!!!!

[rgpete]

Originally from NJ the best flea markets were around the New Jersey, Pennsy border, Philadelphia area and Englishtown flea market the grave yard section that opened around 4:30 am Sat morning,

[Samsdaddy]

I don't remember exactly what got me started collecting but 1975 Topps Baseball was the first wax packs I remember purchasing. My best friend did not collect cards but I always was collecting something whether it was cards or comic books. The 1975 Topps set hooked me. I always was collecting my favorite team, the White Sox and in football it was the Buffalo Bills. It was a chance to collect my heroes.

Over the years I have had a fairly decent size collection to just a couple sets and some other odds and ends which is where I am at now. I would give cards away to my nephews or sell some stuff to buy other items not sports related.

And, as one person said on here, I guess I tried to get out of card collecting, but I have found, I cannot. It too is in my blood. Just when I think I am done collecting, I am drawn back in. Sadly, I am back in at a time when I am unemployed and hurting financially.

This will pass and in the mean time, I get my fix on this forum. :)

[the 'stache]

Chris, when I was a little kid, I spent a lot of time in bed. When I couldn't go out to play baseball, I read about it. And I read a lot. I am fortunate to have two parents that have always nurtured my desire to learn. They bought me books, and checked others out of the library for me so I could immerse myself in the game I loved.

Some of the books I read as a kid:

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/9558/9jt1.png

Before I reached ten years, I knew how to say Lajoie. I not only knew who the Milwaukee Braves were, I could rattle off Hank Aaron's lifetime stats. I knew Cap Anson was the first hitter to ever gain 3,000 hits. Joe DiMaggio was "Joltin' Joe" to me when my other friends knew him as "the coffee guy." I read everything I could get my hands on. When I was ten, the Brewers were in the World Series, and I was lucky enough that my teacher, Mrs. Travato, was married to a man that worked in the Brewers front office. Buying baseball cards just seemed natural to me. I got packs of Topps baseball cards in my Easter Egg basket. On weekends, my dad would drive me to the local card shop, and I'd ooo and ah looking at the Stan Musials, and Roberto Clementes in the glass display cases.

I collected until I was in my 20s. College and girls took my money and my time. But now I won't ever leave the hobby again. They can pry my baseball cards out of my cold, dead hands. :D

[Theo_450]

When I was 11 years old (1982), my old man produced a shoebox of 1100 cards from his closet. There were 300 prewar, and 800 1950s cards in that box. I was floored. We bought a "price guide", and hoped that one of the T206s was a Wagner, to no avail. Still, it was AMAZING to a me as a boy, and is still amazing to me as a man. I took care of those cards, placing them in binders and plastic pages. I poured over them, and read about historic players in the local library (from BOOKS). Remember books?

I learned about players that my child will not really ever have any interest in. Cy Young, Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Zach Wheat, Mordecai Brown, Walter Johnson, Sam Crawford, Eddie Plank, Frank Chance, Napoleon Lajoie, Fred Clarke, Rube Marquard, Johnny Evers, Tris Speaker, Hal Chase, Hugh Jennings, "Home Run" Baker and more...

I was a kid playing ball at the local Kiwanis field, and had a few cards from the late 70s. I began collecting cards in earnest from the 80s and 90s, and now I have some worthless shiny stuff, and a lot of great memories. I wouldn't trade all that for the world!!

BUT... I have some shiny stuff for trade, going cheap! I can't call myself a collector anymore, just an enthusiast, and a fan. I wish every collector here the best.

[campyfan39]

Wow Ted what an awesome experience that must have been. Glad you still have them.

[alanu]

I found my cards from when I was a kid around 1990, which was mostly a 1972 Topps baseball set and lots of late 60's and early 70's football cards and started trading for Clemente's and Ryan's, my 2 favorite players.

[Samsdaddy]

When I was 11 years old (1982), my old man produced a shoebox of 1100 cards from his closet. There were 300 prewar, and 800 1950s cards in that box. I was floored. We bought a "price guide", and hoped that one of the T206s was a Wagner, to no avail. Still, it was AMAZING to a me as a boy, and is still amazing to me as a man. I took care of those cards, placing them in binders and plastic pages. I poured over them, and read about historic players in the local library (from BOOKS). Remember books?

I learned about players that my child will not really ever have any interest in. Cy Young, Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Zach Wheat, Mordecai Brown, Walter Johnson, Sam Crawford, Eddie Plank, Frank Chance, Napoleon Lajoie, Fred Clarke, Rube Marquard, Johnny Evers, Tris Speaker, Hal Chase, Hugh Jennings, "Home Run" Baker and more...

I was a kid playing ball at the local Kiwanis field, and had a few cards from the late 70s. I began collecting cards in earnest from the 80s and 90s, and now I have some worthless shiny stuff, and a lot of great memories. I wouldn't trade all that for the world!!

BUT... I have some shiny stuff for trade, going cheap! I can't call myself a collector anymore, just an enthusiast, and a fan. I wish every collector here the best.

What a great experience Ted. No one in my family ever expressed any interest in cards. Glad your dad did. Awesome memories you will always have with you.

[Jason]

What got me started is trips to the Price Club for boxes of Score Card packs with my Dad in the late 80's.I started again a few years ago after a random Ebay search and a T206 Killian portrait I bought.