I guess it depends on how much collecting counts as starting.
1969 - Bought one pack from the penny candy counter. Asked dad and he told me what they were and that they might be interesting. Got a Reggie Jackson, and dad said "hey this guy is pretty good".
1970 - No cards,
1971- one pack, whatever series had the coin. Danny Cater.
1972- no cards.
1973- Moved to a new town, and the kids I met collected cards, and did some flipping and trading. So I bought cards starting in maybe September.
1974- Got into it a lot more. And into sports in general. Aaron and the HR record, Mays retired the year before but was around for the WS. And the cards showing the older cards! And the Washington variations.
Got the same interest from the 75 MVP subset and started asking around. One kid got a 1968 Ed Matthews from his brother and traded it to me.
1977 Moved to a new town, and asked a kid on the cross country team with me if there was anybody with "old" cards. He said there was an entire store in the center of town. Stopped into Halls Nostalgia on the way home, and was amazed at the number of old cards. Stacks and stacks of them!
eventually that became one of my after school hangouts and they taught me a lot. As it turned out my first job was in the building next door and I got out about an hour before closing. Helped break vending cases into sets for store credit. Even though I moved away in 83 I came back to visit my friends in town and always left a bit of time to stop in.
I've had a few periods of relative inactivity, where I get into other hobbies, or go back to ones I was into before cards. (Stamps- started around 1967-68 same for coins. Was into cars for a bit in college, old racing bicycles starting about 1999-2000, and some dabbling in antique electronics and industrial stuff. Plus a load of stuff I just liked and bought)
Steve B
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