Summer of 1973, during the week I used to work for my dad and got paid $50.00 every Friday. Saturday morning would take the bus and go to ADCO owned by Goody Goldfaden. My first time there I bought Cobb green port ($4), Johnson pitch ($4), Speaker ($3), Cy Young glove ($4), Lajoie port ($3), Brown port ($3), Chance port ($3), Evers port ($3), Tinker port ($3), Walsh ($3), 39 PB Dimaggio ($3), Diamond stars, Cochrane ($2), Hornsby ($2), Lazzeri ($2), Greenberg ($2)

Most of the cards where in VG-EX condition, Goody did not care much about condition and used to thumb the cards like a deck of cards.

I would go every Saturday for the rest of the summer...and the next few after that.

Darn good money back in 1973! :D

First pre-war was in 1996 or so. My dad and I went to a show in White Plains and I saw T206's for the first time. I was 10 at the time and couldn't believe there were actually cards of Ty Cobb. I decided to stop collecting 60's HOfers and decided these were the cards for me. I bought a T206 Miller Huggins hands at mouth for I think $40 or so. Still have it and would never think of selling.

This T206 started it for me. It was found in my Wife's Grandmother's personal belongings back in the early 80's. There were also a few BF2 Felts and B18 Blankets. Enough to get me hooked. Still have the card.

T206 Rhodes purchased from The Baseball Card Shoppe in Claremont, CA circa 1981 for $3.00. Graded PSA 4 23 years later.

Oh how I wish I had splurged on the EX-MT Red Cobb he had for $75.

I didn't buy my first vintage card
 

I got a phone call from an uncle who had helped some friends clean out an old house. He found a small "foot locker" type box and opened it. He said that the box was full of old "stuff". In the bottom of the box there was an old baseball card. This was probably around 1983-early '84 (I was 12-13 yrs old). The card turned out to be a 1933 Goudey #206 Gus Suhr. Has back damage and some front damage from I guess bugs(????). I still have this card even though I have had 2 or 3 of the same card in better condition BUT I always keep this one......and probably always will.

'33 Goudey ...
 

I wish this wasn't the case, but I believe that my first prewar purchase was a '33 Goudey Danny McFayden PSA 3 on eBay about 7 years ago.

First PWW1 was a T205 Eddie Collins won in a Richard Wolfers auction in 1993. First PWW2 was a 1939 Playball Gehringer from a Kevin Savage SCD as in 1991.

First five
 

My first Pre-WW2 cards came together in lumpy fashion. I was driven by my folks to a card show near LAX in 1981, and the first dealer inside (yes, I remember it was on the right side) had some beat up old cards in their case. I took them all for $11.00, pretty much all I had to spend. I ended up with:

T206 Mathewson Dark Cap
T206 Johnson pitching
E98 Cy Young
T205 Breshnahan
T205 Wheat (Broadleaf back)

All around Fair to F-G condition. These cards started me on the path to low-grade collecting bliss. I have never minded to swim amongst my fellow shark fodder in that mediocre stuff called water. I still have each card, and if I had to get rid of all my cards I have collected except one, I would hang onto the Matty.

Brian

At a flea market, about 25 years ago. A T206, for $1.75 -- the most dilapidated beater ever, but of my favorite pre-war player, Germany Schaefer. Still have it, in a poly sleeve, and every time I look at it, it reminds me of how much fun collecting used to be.

This one is easy! 1969 Holiday Inn Pikesville Maryland show. T206 Green Cobb for $2.00 It is still in my set today. Dan.

Our first pre-war cards
 

The first pre-war card was a Kalamazoo Bat of Mulvey which we acquired from the late George Lyons in 1975 ...for then princely sum of $60. Later that year we acquired 100 T 207s at $4.00 each from an antique store in Greenwich Village and a Duke Cabinet of Robinson from Mr. Lyons for $300.

Old George knew where the "bodies" were buried and where to find the great cards...

While still in high school, the majority of my pre-WW2 material was picked up from Vin Minner. He used to set up a table at an annual collectibles show (cards, stamps, coins, etc.) held in Alexandria Bay, NY. I had visited his table one summer when I was a kid and we spent 30 minutes talking about cards. He seemed impressed that a kid as young as I could identify vintage sets; in fact, at one point, he showed some of his tobacco cards and when my Mom asked, "what's the T stand for?" it was me who rattled off "20th century tobacco cards."

Driving home that day, Mom told me she never realized how much I'd known about older cards. Perhaps she realized that all those books I brought home from the school library and all those issues of Baseball Cards and Beckett were actually doing some good. In any case, Mom gave me a lot more latitude when it came to card shows after that.

Anyway...Mr. Minner was one of the first sellers who didn't seem annoyed to deal with an inquisitive kid and his kindness was one of the reasons I stuck with the hobby even after "discovering" things like girls and stupid teenage rites of passage...

I believe the first pre war cards I acquired were in 1993 when I was 10 or 11 from my Great-Grandfather. I remember it was 1993 because I had been collecting the 93 Flair set and brought over a Jeromy Burnitz "Wave of the Future" card to show my Grandpa how cards have changed.

I got a 1915 CJ Connie Mack w/writing and about a dozen Fleischmann Bakery D381's that he had doubles of, including an Edd Roush, who I found out was a HOFer. My other faves that I first got were Hugh High and Ray Caldwell because they were Yankees and I liked the pictures. I also liked the Fred Anderson because he looked a bit like my grandpa.

At the time I didn't know what the Fleischmanns were as they had no coupon. All I knew was that they came from loaves of bread because he told me that's how he got them.

I had been collecting newer cards of the time since around 1990. But I really loved all of these old cards. I'd always ask to see them whenever I visited my Great-Grandpa and drool over his stack of Fleischmanns, which now thankfully reside with me after they had been lost for a number of years since his death.

As a kid and through my teens I would buy a real old card such as a pre war goudey beater or something if I ever saw one. for me there were no shops around that had anything good and older than a few 50's cards. So it was tough.

It wasn't until I started using ebay around 2001? that I bought a few more vintage cards. And once I inherited the rest of the D381's (in 04 or 05?) and found out what they were (thanks to oldcardboard site) that I got really heavy and near exclusively into vintage. My quest for D381's continues. Still 8 away from set....