I can't remember every pack I ever opened, but here are the highlights:
1) In 1965 when I was 5, I bought a pack of Philadelphia Gum football cards from the ice cream man. I was too young to even know what football was.
2) In 1970, I bought a pack of baseball cards with money my mom had given me to buy broccoli. They came with a poster, and it was Ollie Brown. I figured he was a baseball legend.
3) By mid-summer of 1970 (I was 9), I was obsessed with cards. But the local stores stopped at the fourth series. My family traveled back east in the summer, and along the way, I picked up cards from the 5th and 6th series. Pulling Willie Mays from a pack was pretty exciting.
4) By the end of the season, Johnny Bench was firmly entrenched as my favorite player, but I still didn't have his card. But in December, I found his card in the display of a vending machine at a local grocery store, and fed coins into it until a card of the greatest catcher ever popped out.
5) The last meaningful pack I opened was in 1974. Although I was only 13, I was deep into vintage cards by this time. A neighbor and card seller, John Parks, sold me an unopened box of 1957 Topps football cards. It was sure fun busting them out of their cellophane, and I got all the big money rookies, but opening them was probably the worst financial decision in my life.
Last edited by Chris Counts; 10-24-2019 at 03:45 PM.
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