OT; Your Fondest Memory

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Posted By: Jerry

This post is a little off topic but maybe Leon will indulge me.

I was thinking about card collecting as a kid and thought it would be neat to hear your fondest memories of baseball card Collecting as a kid which is the root of most of our lingering passions for the cards.

One of my fondest memories concerns the Journeyman Major League Pitcher Bill Henry. Bill Lived in my neighborhood (Lower Middle Class) and his son was on my little league team. Well I wanted a Bill henry Card in a bad way, but could never pull one. I bought many packs and even considered trading one of my (3) 56 Topps Mantles for one. Well I bought a pack of 59 Topps on the way to elementary school one day but did not open the pack, I was saving it for later. I was sitting on the John in school that day staring at the cold black stall door and remembered the pack of cards in my top pocket and you guessed it, The Bill Henry had alluded me no more.
Now tell me one of your stories

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Posted By: Brad Green

I grew up about two hours away from Pittsburgh, PA and rooted for the Pirates as a kid. I had been trying to put together a set of 1980 Topps cards one pack at a time. I probably had about 500 cards out of the 726, but no Willie Stargell. One night on the way home from church, my mom bought me a pack of cards. That was a lucky pack of cards, as Willie Stargell was burried in the middle of the pack. The car was dark, but in the moonlight I could still make out Willie's profile. In disbelief, I looked at the card from every possible angle with the available light. What a great feeling! That was 26 years ago and I have never forgotten that feeling!

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Posted By: Joann

My fondest memory of baseball cards as a child was they way they sounded in my bike spokes, especially going down a steep hill.

Yep. I confess - I was one of "those". Bit of a late bloomer in the baseball card appreciation area. What could I have wrecked in the 60's? Maybe a Pete Rose rookie? It's possible.

But they all went on the bikes. All cards, all kids in the neighborhood, all bikes. Until our parents ran short on clothes-pins (yes, they really did used to hang laundry out on a rope in the backyard). lolol.

Joann

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Posted By: H Murphy

As far as cards are concerned, when I was young we lived in central Conn. I was in the 2`nd grade and my mother happened to be substitute teaching in the same building one day. After school I walked down to her classroom and found her shooting or flipping cards with about 5 or so 5`th graders. It lasted about 2 hours and she proceeded to lose about 2 or 3 feet of cards(mostly early to mid 60~s stuff) that the regular teachers had confiscated during the school year!!!

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Posted By: dennis

opening 1960 fleer baseball greats and thinking how old players looked back then!

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Posted By: David McDonald

Taking a hit of the unmistakable bouquet of an unopened '57 Topps pack.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Growing up as a yute in NYC, the agreement among us was that whoever got up and out earliest on Saturday had first crack at scouring the curbside adjacent to a nearby busy street for discarded soda bottles (which had a two cent deposit on them). We would then bring them to the candy store and collect our proceeds and typically select candy, cards or soda, or combinations thereof.

Well one Saturday I was second earliest, and I caught my friend just exiting the candy store, still opening packs. I had a big wad of cards in my pocket, but he had no others with him. We began to flip against a stoop. Early on he was winning, but I just had an overwhelming quantity of cards (he only had three packs of '57 Topps to start with). So eventually, I cleaned him out. The card which he held for last was the Mantle. And it was a beauty. The deep green background of the grass sets off Mantle's crisp white uniform very well. Jeeze I was happy with that win. I made sure that I did not accidentally flip that card, by putting it in my front pocket (usually reserved for frogs). My pack of cards was in my right rear pocket, of course, as was everyone elses.

Well that Mantle stayed secure in my frog pocket thru at least one wash/dry cycle. And I still have it. Although I initially got it in good shape, it sure wouldn't come close to a G grade today.

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Posted By: Darrell

Selling cards to Mr. Mint.Really I mean it.

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Posted By: Paul

Growing up in New Jersy, I was a huge Mets fan. My fondest card memory was when my mom was driving me somewhere, & one of my cards from a pile on the back seat got sucked out the window. I panicked looking through my cards for my Seaver, & sure enough it was gone. My mom knew how important it was to me, & we walked the side of the road seemingly forever until we found it. I'll never forget that.

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Posted By: Bill Stone

Growing up in Burbank,California in the mid-50's every kid in school wanted to get a 1955 Topps Frank Sullivan of Boston because it listed Burbank on the back as his hometown. My favorite player was Dale Long and I soon realized that every time I pulled a Frank Sullivan it was like gold because I could command 5 Dale Longs for one Frank Sullivan --by 1956 I thought I had every Dale Long card ever made!!

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Posted By: Anonymous

Getting shoved in to a revolving door at the Biltmore Hotel by Jerry Grote when I was 11 years old after asking for an autograph. "Sign this!" he said. What a class act. After that, I moved my hero worship to Jeff Torborg.

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Posted By: ralph

I recall hole punching the entire set of 1969T , then running a string across my bedroom wall over my bed,I put all these card on the string and had my own baseball card rolladex

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Posted By: V117Collector

Wow! I can't believe how cool' card collecting has become in the last decade or so, or is it just me?

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Posted By: leon

When I was 8 we played games, in an rv parked at a friends house, it was about 1969, and traded cards with whomever won the games. There were grocery sack's full of cards being traded that summer. A little off topic but that was the summer, in the same neighborhood circle, when playing kick the can, that I was running full speed with my head turned, and when I turned it back around I ran right into a light pole, full speed. I will never forget that. It hurt. regards

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Posted By: Pete Z.

When I was 8 we were visiting some friends of the family and I had a really bad cold. I made it a habit to ask if they had any baseball cards and the mom said there were some in the basement and I could pick out a few that I wanted. Well there I was picking through a box of cards, barely able to see straight with the fever, yet I managed to pick out, among others, a '63 Musial and a '56 Crazylegs Hirsh. I remember thinking how cool the cards were the next day thumbing through them, but I've forever wished that I hadn't been sick.

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Posted By: BcD

here's my story~

http://www.psacard.com/set_registry/display_cards.chtml?rsetid=10649&alltime=no&rank=6&tied=0&requesttimeout=9999