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-   -   How did you get started in the hobby (http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=228979)

blackandgold 09-26-2016 08:44 AM

I got my first packs for my birthday in 1970 when I was six, and have never really stopped. My folks would put packs in our Easter baskets, and I would buy packs whenever I had a chance. There was an older kid in our town who had cancer, and when he would have to go for treatments, we would get him some packs to give him something to do, and he had an amazing collection. He had sets back through the 60's and would love to look to see if I had any he needed. he always treated me fairly, and that's how I got all my stars from those sets.
This is just a tremendous hobby. I have loved baseball my whole life, and the cards and memorabilia provide me with great memories.

jmb 09-26-2016 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mdmtx (Post 1588527)
David, your gif is fantastic!

+1

chris6net 09-26-2016 12:50 PM

I started buying packs as a kid in 1971 and by 1972 was totally hooked. I lived on Long Island and Tom Seaver was the King then.
I got lucky as far as the Hobby goes in that I knew someone who worked for the Deborah Heart Charity in NYC in the mid to late 70,s who sponsored the Golden Gate Monthly card show in Brooklyn which had all the big dealers back then. I worked the show as a young teenager every month for at least 3 years setting up the chairs and tables and then the best part was that during the show since I was a familiar face many of the dealers would let me watch their tables while they got something to eat or went to the bathroom. My payment would be in the form of cards. My 2 best I got were a 1957 Mays and a 1967 Carew rookie card in great shape which I still have.

Harliduck 09-26-2016 01:28 PM

Great thread...I LOVE reading these type of stories...


Mine was summer of 79, my mom brought home a box for me and my little brother. I pulled Reggie Jackson out of my first pack, my favorite player at the time, and was HOOKED. We both completed the 79's and there was a really slow corner store on the edge of our little town, and my mom found 1978 cards from the year prior. No one wanted them the store owner said, so she was made a deal for the boxes. So I started in 79, got into 78, and traded my way to both complete sets by the time 1980 hit. Been in and out of the hobby since...now collecting with my 11 year old son.

Vintagevault13 09-26-2016 04:10 PM

How did you get started in the hobby
 
My dad bought me a few cards in 1973. I was seven and really didn't know anything about cards at the time. I remember the A's cards stood out because of their yellow uniforms. In addition, the playoff and World Series recap cards seemed really cool and, even as a 7-year-old, I realized the A's must be good. Growing up in the Atlanta area, there wasn't much to get excited about the Braves at the time. Except for Hank chasing the Babe, MLB baseball wasn't a huge deal to me and my friends. When the 1974 cards came out, I began buying a few packs. Once I saw the A's won again, I was hooked! Reggie became my favorite player and I began immersing myself in the stats on the card backs. I learned so much about players from reading the '74 backs that I still remember some obscure ones today (ex. Phillies' Larry Christensen was born in 1955, making him a 19-year-old major leaguer in 1974!). I couldn't get enough.

I collected until 1981 when I got older and became frustrated trying to collect Topps, Fleer, and Donruss. Eventually sold most of my 70's cards.

I got back into collecting in 2013. I completed Topps runs for Reggie Jackson, Hank Aaron, and Terry Bradshaw (my favorites as a kid). I have now gone back to set collecting. I completed the 1965 Topps set (Birth year) as well as 1974. I am about 80% complete on the 1973 set. I will probably buy 1975-1979 to complete the 1973-79 run and have the cards I most fondly remember. Really enjoying my 2nd go round as a collector.


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spaidly 09-27-2016 06:43 PM

Ed!

Your avatar caught my eye. I think I am your doppelgänger from bizzaro world because I read your story and it is my story, too. So much so, I'm using your story as a template and just tweaking some of the names and dates from my alternate universe. Here goes...

-----

My dad bought me a few cards in 1974. I was eight and really didn't know anything about cards at the time. I remember the Dodger's cards stood out because of their blue and white uniforms. In addition, the Washingtion Nat'l cards seemed really cool and, even as an 8-year-old, I realized the Dodgers must be good. Growing up in the Los Angeles area, there wasn't much to get excited about the Angels at the time. Except for Hank chasing the Babe, MLB baseball wasn't a huge deal to me and my friends. When the 1977 cards came out, I began buying a few packs. Once I saw the Dodgers won again, I was hooked! Steve became my favorite player and I began immersing myself in the stats on the card backs. I learned so much about players from reading the '77 backs that I still remember some obscure ones today (ex. Mini Minoso was older than dirt ). I couldn't get enough.

I collected until 1981 when I got older and became frustrated trying to collect Topps, Fleer, and Donruss. Eventually sold all of my 70's cards.

I got back into collecting in 2003. I completed Topps runs for Pete Rose and Steve Garvey (my favorites as a kid). I have now gone back to set collecting. I completed the 1966 Topps set (Birth year) as well as 1971 and 1972. I am about 20% complete on the 1957 set. I will probably buy 1973-1979 to complete the 1973-79 run and have the cards I most fondly remember. Really enjoying my 2nd go round as a collector.

----

All of the above is 100% accurate. Amazing how so many of our stories overlap. :)

Scott

Vintagevault13 09-27-2016 07:11 PM

How did you get started in the hobby
 
Scott,

That is pretty crazy that our stories are similar. I think it shows the role that cards played in the era in which we grew up. Without the Internet and dozens of games on TV each week like we have now, cards were more than just pictures. They were like "mini encyclopedias" that taught us about the game and players. I loved that period in my life.


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spaidly 09-27-2016 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vintagevault13 (Post 1588976)
I loved that period in my life.

Me, too. :D

For me, collecting again isn't trying to "relive it all" like some non-collectors think but is about me loving this period of my life. Some of the days between now and then weren't so great so I have to believe happiness is in baseball card collecting. I hope I don't run out of money. :eek:

Vintagevault13 09-27-2016 07:26 PM

Scott,

100% agree. The 70's was a pretty cool time to be a kid and the quality of baseball that decade was very strong.


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Leon 09-28-2016 07:22 AM

Nice job on that. Many of our stories are similar.....

Smiling Dave at a mall show got me back into collecting around 20 yrs ago. I wonder whatever happened to ole Smiling Dave? Great guy with lots of bicycle spoke HOF rookies which I bought....


Quote:

Originally Posted by spaidly (Post 1588959)
Ed!

Your avatar caught my eye. I think I am your doppelgänger from bizzaro world because I read your story and it is my story, too. So much so, I'm using your story as a template and just tweaking some of the names and dates from my alternate universe. Here goes...

-----

My dad bought me a few cards in 1974. I was eight and really didn't know anything about cards at the time. I remember the Dodger's cards stood out because of their blue and white uniforms. In addition, the Washingtion Nat'l cards seemed really cool and, even as an 8-year-old, I realized the Dodgers must be good. Growing up in the Los Angeles area, there wasn't much to get excited about the Angels at the time. Except for Hank chasing the Babe, MLB baseball wasn't a huge deal to me and my friends. When the 1977 cards came out, I began buying a few packs. Once I saw the Dodgers won again, I was hooked! Steve became my favorite player and I began immersing myself in the stats on the card backs. I learned so much about players from reading the '77 backs that I still remember some obscure ones today (ex. Mini Minoso was older than dirt ). I couldn't get enough.

I collected until 1981 when I got older and became frustrated trying to collect Topps, Fleer, and Donruss. Eventually sold all of my 70's cards.

I got back into collecting in 2003. I completed Topps runs for Pete Rose and Steve Garvey (my favorites as a kid). I have now gone back to set collecting. I completed the 1966 Topps set (Birth year) as well as 1971 and 1972. I am about 20% complete on the 1957 set. I will probably buy 1973-1979 to complete the 1973-79 run and have the cards I most fondly remember. Really enjoying my 2nd go round as a collector.

----

All of the above is 100% accurate. Amazing how so many of our stories overlap. :)

Scott


Cooptown 09-28-2016 01:02 PM

This is a fascinating read. Thank you all for sharing. Sometimes when the threads get numerous pages long, I do some skimming, but not this time. I really enjoyed reading everyone’s stories.

I mostly lurk on the other side as I no longer really collect cards, minus a Mantle run I am always plugging away on, as I only collect autographs of baseball HOFers. But I still thought it would be cool to share my story.

My Dad did the grocery shopping in our house, every Saturday. He would bring me home a pack of cards; usually baseball, and usually Topps. There were a few random Donruss and Fleer baseball thrown in, and some Topps football and hockey thrown in, but mainly Topps baseball. This went on from 1981 – 1985. I was always hoping for Reggie Jackson cards, and then later on, Pete Rose.

My Dad would watch Yankees games and I would always tell him to call me when Reggie came to bat. I remember vividly, in 1982 at the age of 5, I told my Dad to call me when Reggie comes up, and he said “Reggie doesn’t play for the Yankees anymore”. “What? Why? How did this happen?” A few years later I really got to like Pete Rose. Pete Rose broke the hit record on my parent’s anniversary, which I always thought was cool. Anyways, I had these cards thrown about my room, in all sorts of random places.

In early 1986, we took a family trip to my uncle’s cabin in the poconos. He owned his own advertising firm, and I thought of his as “rich”. He drove a town car, had a vacation home, etc. Anyways, he showed my family his new hobby – collecting old baseball cards. He had his cards in pages and binders, and the older ones in plastic cases. TONS of Pete Rose cards. I was in awe and was hooked. I immediately wanted to get home and start putting my cards into sheets and binders like his. I started buying a ton of 1986 Topps baseball packs.

One Sunday, I woke up and my Dad said “There’s a baseball card show in Utica (about 20 minutes away). Want to go?” Ummm….yeah! I couldn’t believe it. My Dad bought me a 1986 Topps Yankees team set that day; to which I still have.

As the baseball card boom started, I couldn’t get enough. I was buying cards of anything I could find. My Dad would take me to shows and we would look around together. He always bought me pre-1980s cards; cards he had but had been lost. Those are some of the best memories I have.
That same uncle invited us to go to the Baseball HOF Induction ceremony the summer of 1987. It was amazing. My Dad and I wound up going every year, just the two of us, from 1987 -1998….until college, girls, jobs, etc. Got in the way.

Around 1992 or so I went to junior high and my new buddies were going to minor league games and getting autographs. My Dad had taken me to area minor league games as well; the Utica BlueSox and the Syracuse Chiefs…but I never thought about getting autographs on cards before! This became my new fix; getting as many autographs as I could at minor league parks. This went on from 1992 until 1995 or so…until I was just about to start my senior year in high school. Collecting autographs was true of HOFers as well, as paid signings started to pop up in Cooperstown (I chuckle writing that, as they started popping up in 1990 or so. Now, you cant go anywhere in Cooperstown HOF induction weekend without someone attempting to sign something for a dollar). I got a good jump on my hof collection with older players who signed rather cheaply; Buck Leonard, Warren Spahn, Billy Herman, etc.

Cards and autographs went to the back burner until after college and first job, apartment, etc.

Then in 2007, as I started to get a bit of disposable income, I dove back into autographs, but only of baseball HOFers. I became an elitist apparently. My Dad and I went to HOF weekend in Cooperstown in 2007 and 2008, and then he became ill in early 2009 and passed away in December 2009. I took me until 2014 to be able to get back to Cooperstown’s HOF Induction weekend, but I have gone the past three years…just me, and I like to think my Dad is with me there.

I still have all of my pre-1980 baseball cards that I bought with my Dad, and any Don Mattingly cards I collected in the 80s and 90s, but now I concentrate on autographs of baseball HOFers….primarily on baseballs.
Whew….long story. Do you regret asking?

Aquarian Sports Cards 09-28-2016 01:18 PM

bought my brother a pack of 1981 Topps as a present for getting his tonsils out. Through all the years, between the two of us, we had managed to keep one or two cards from that first pack. Alas in the last couple moves neither of us can seem to find them. If you ever get a 1981 Topps George Brett with seriously rounded corners and AP written on the back in black crayon you'll know you have one of ours!

KMayUSA6060 09-28-2016 01:32 PM

I was born in 1994, so I missed the "Glory Days" of collecting. However, I was fortunate enough to grow up with the Cleveland Indians of the 1990s. I remember a surprising amount for being as young as I was. My favorite athlete of all time is Jim Thome, and growing up, my mom would take me to the LCS every once in a while and allow me to buy quarters worth of Jim Thome or Indians stuff. I'd come home with 1-8 cards at a time, and slowly but surely built a collection.

When middle school came around, I lost interest in collecting (my mom still bought me packs as gifts and such) when most of my time was consumed by sports. After high school, I went to play collegiate tennis at a small university in Ohio. I ended up quitting the tennis team after a match early in the fall season, but remained at the university into the spring. I ended up leaving early in the spring semester after realizing that college wasn't for me, and had an opportunity to join the Air Force (I ended up getting disqualified after I left school due to food allergies, but that's a stupid discussion for another forum). About a month before leaving, I developed a great friendship with a kid on the baseball team who collected cards. He got me back into collecting, and I got the bug. This was about 2 years ago. Since then, my collection has gone through several transformations, but I have yet to lose the itch to collect. It has become a huge part of who I am, and I am proud to be a collector of historic cardboard. I love this hobby.



P.S. Sorry for the irrelevant information regarding my life story.

darwinbulldog 09-28-2016 01:55 PM

My older sister found a Babe Ruth card in a library book. 1986 Big League Chew unfortunately, but still, it got me into the hobby. I believe that (in 1986) was the first time I'd ever seen or heard of a baseball card.

Bliggity 09-28-2016 06:20 PM

When I was seven years old (1988) and started in little league, my parents bought me a Dave Righetti kid's glove and a pack of cards. I can't remember specifically what the pack was, but I'm pretty sure it was '88 Donruss. My dad was a Yankees fan, and pretty soon I was buying packs whenever possible to try to pull a Mattingly. My Dad would tell me stories (just like all the other dads of that era) about all the Mickey Mantle cards that his mother threw away when he went off to college...never did I think I would actually own one!

I collected through the junk wax era until I was about 13 or 14 years old, and then lost interest for a long time. About two years ago, I decided (well...my wife suggested) that I do something with the three 5000-ct boxes of cards that I hadn't looked at in two decades. I figured I'd keep the Mattinglys and maybe 30-40 of the most valuable other cards and get rid of the rest. I drove to a local card shop to pick up a couple packs of toploaders, and they had a box of unopened '83 Fleer on the counter. I figured what the hell, and bought a pack. Second card in the pack was the Ripken RC. Well, that might as well have been crack, because I haven't stopped thinking about cards since. For the next couple months, I wasted a lot of money as I tried to figure out what I really wanted to collect. In December 2014 I went to my first card show and bought my first prewar card (T205 Mathewson), and it's been all prewar since then. And I'm loving it.

All because I pulled the Ripken RC out of that one pack. Crazy. If I hadn't pulled that one card, I probably would have never bought another card again in my life.

sreader3 09-28-2016 07:06 PM

The Start
 
I started collecting Topps BB in 1971 when I was three. When my mom and dad traded-in their Ford LTD in 1976 for a Buick Electra and I did a “final check” under the back seat, I discovered a slightly bent but otherwise well-preserved Paul Blair #52. That’s how I knew when I started –- that and a few other completely trashed 1971 Topps 1st series cards that remained in my “collection.”

1977 was a watershed year. I spent all of my Little League snack bar tokens to buy Topps packs while watching all my buddies wolf-down “donuts” – fried Pillsbury rolls drenched in sugar and cinnamon (ok, ok, those "donuts" were really good!) . I completed about 90% of that set and kept the cards in decent condition (we would call it EX-MT) by storing them team-by-team in an old 24-count audio cassette holder. I remember particularly favoring the Blue Jays and Mariners cards given the exotic “inaugural season” status of those teams – although looking at the stats on the backs of those cards all their players seemed to suck.


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