That's great. My story is similar 14 years later. My first Detroit Tiger was a 1973 Jim Northrup. Don't remember if that was in the first pack of cards I ever got, but he's the first I remember. He became my favorite Tiger. Then he got traded during the '74 season.

Really interesting reading all the stories! I first started collecting soccer cards around 12-13 and would buy them from the UK and wait months for a pack to come. I found a Paul Gascoigne one day and was hooked but then realized baseball cards were much easier to come by. I was rather naive though to the older cards until recently. My first 'real' card was/is a Beals Becker T206 gifted to me by a special friend that definitely has been around but it got me into the older cards and the histories of the players! I find it remarkable these cards and others are still around despite being over a hundred years old.

I only had a small stack of cards left from when I was a kid. But this is one I saved and it got me started collecting again.

That's a great one to have saved. Nice card!

My first one was 78 Topps Reggie Jackson #200 fresh from the pack. The swing, still one of my favorites.

In 1982, I got a 54 Topps Jackie Robinson for $5 as Wes' Hall of Fame cards in Paramount, CA. Still have it.

Pre-war would have to be the first T206 I got in 1983. My dad got it for me at a shop in Anaheim for $9. Still have it. I drive by the place about every other week in my travels for work. I think there is an insurance place there now. Thanks Dad!

Wes was a great guy. He introduced me to "hobby" as he hired me to work for him at the monthly card meetings and at shows for about 15 years. I lived in Norwalk and I would go to visit him from time to time. He moved out to Temecula and restarted his store in that area. Wes passed away three weeks after his wife, Dixie passed in 2016. He had a tremendous collection at home as well.

I was hooked twice. The first time was in 1969 when a neighbor gave me a stack of his 1966 Topps, about 40 if I remember correctly. They all disappeared little by little until there was a Maris left and it was in very poor shape when I finally threw it away some years later. Getting those cards led me to buy my first packs and I particulary liked the stamps that came out that year. I left the hobby in 1991-92 and got rid of everything except a 1970 Topps Super Clemente as he was my favorite player.

In December of 2019 I went to a local card show in Garden Grove where I came across two 1953 Bowman color cards for .50 each. They were in fair condition I picked them up because they were cheap while taking me back some 40 years when I had some of the Bowmans, including the Mantle. Instead, I began looking on eBay and I picked up a Campanella and then a Hodges. That turned into the set I now own and enjoy immensly. I'm now attempting the same with a 1971 Topps which I'm building from scratch for the fun of it.

Once again, everyone, your stories are incredible. Thanks for sharing.

This is one that didn't necessarily get me into card collecting as that distinction goes to the 1984 John Elway Topps #63 rookie (still have it and have never taken it out of the sealed toploader that I found it in Christmas of 2011) but moreso into baseball cards and baseball in general. But when my Dad began telling me stories of his favorite athlete and baseball player as I was growing up around 2011, this was one of the cards that I found in his sports shoe box. A 1997 Upper Deck SP Inside Info #1 of Ken Griffey Jr. I typed a post earlier about it... https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=296541 but it is my favorite baseball card that I own. I keep coming back to this one no matter what and it was part of the reason that I became a baseball fan and started looking more into cards.

https://i.ibb.co/RPX8ymM/0-1.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/hCM288V/0-2.jpg

In 1957 my friend Charles and I were eleven years old. Our Moms took us to the big city to make our monthly visit to the Orthodontist. After the Orthodontist visit our Moms shopped and Charles and I went to the Morgan and Lindsey store where we discovered our first baseball cards. The first pack that I bought had my favorite player, Ken Boyer. From that moment until now I have been hooked.

1987 Topps Bo Jackson - I received this card from my parents for my 11th birthday! This will always be one of my favorites.

Wait...there are collectors now who got into cards by finding 1997 Ken Griffey Jr. cards in their dad's shoebox??

My God, I'm old. :eek:

Andrew, trust me I know how you feel! ;)

First card(s) I owned that got me hooked:
1986 Topps Joe Montana & Jerry Rice

First vintage card I purchased when I got back into the hobby:
1909 E95 Phil Caramel Ty Cobb PSA 4


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1982 at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in Raleigh's weekly "flea market" with my mom getting supplies for her macrame side job when Dad and I saw a booth called "Paper Heroes." We went in and it was like a time machine for my Dad who was born in '49. All of his cards were tossed but that day he bought 4 cards (pictured below). He eventually bought an album and 9 pocket pages so he trimmed the Ford and Collins so they would fit (despite Mom's advice not to do so!)

The card that got me hooked was this '58 Mick. It was on the back wall where the "good cards" were for weeks. It was labeled at $25. I was only 10 but after about 2 months of regular visits I got up the nerve to ask the man if he would take $20. He said yes! On the way home I was reading the back and Dad, from the front seat, asked "Does it have a cartoon of Mickey swinging a bat with a crown on his head?" I said "Yes, how could you possibly know that?" He replied, "I had a stack of them."

This spurred us on a quest to "Buy Back Dad's Cards" which I even wrote a book about. Dad passed almost 20 years ago at the tender age of 53 but his memory lives on through these cards.
God Bless

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=29979

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=29980

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=29990

The 1949 Bowman Bobby Doerr was the one that did it for me. It was in 2006, so I was around 11 or so and saw it at my LCS. The shopkeeper agreed to put it on layaway until after about six weeks I had enough saved up to buy it. It cost $60, if memory serves me right. I had recently gotten Doerr's address from another collector, and while paying for the card mentioned sending it TTM, and even before I had finished the sentence he was shaking his head no. A few months later, it disappeared when we had company over. Several years later, when I was in college and starting to get back in to cards, I came across a lot of three 1949 Bowmans on eBay: Doerr, Al Dark, and Eddie Stanky, for less than I had paid for just Doerr in the first place. Buying vintage in those days for me was buying champagne on a beer budget, but I dug deep enough for the trio, and the day they arrived, I packed up Doerr and Dark and sent them TTM. They both came back signed, and for Dark, it was one of the last autographs he signed; he died a couple of weeks after it came back.

1974 Topps Dave Cash
 

Last card to complete my 1974 Topps set as an 11 year old one pack at a time-

Hooked - at least pre-war
 

I played ball as a kid, so naturally I collected some, but I didn't really stick with it as there were other attractions for the limited resources. When I got back into cards after school, this one got me hooked on pre-war

From the 1990 Nat'l in the Dallas area.

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=30023

and this one was one my of first two T207's - from a 1991(?) Festberg auction

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=30024

Still have them both.