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How long you collected as a kid ?...
I was thinking about this recently...How long or how many years did you collected cards as a kid. Im talking about that those " true passionate years of collecting cards as a youth".. I think its a lot SHORTER then you would think.
I know thinking back,.. for myself...it was ONLY a little bit in 66..a lot in 67,68..and kind of " out of it" by 69. As with many..when I just about got to my early teens...i started getting interested in "other things". Ral G |
I stuck with it for awhile, collecting from '77 (age 7) through '85 (age 15). While I kept one geeky vice (my love for Rush music), I did fall out of baseball card collecting for about 15 years, getting back into collecting in '99.
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1954-61
I was very much into baseball cards from age 3 (1954) through 9 (1960). Football card interest spanned the years 1954-62. I think the last serious non-sports set I pursued was Civil War News in 1961.
I generally bought one pavk of the new baseball cards each spring to see what they look like, through the 1960s. |
I have been truely passionate since 1977. When I was younger I couldnt wait for each weekend to go to the local bowling ally or VFW. Luckily my parents were very supportive. Up until a few months ago I had never sold or traded any of my cards(then I sold four 2009 autos and bought a T205).
In the last year I have even come to enjoy the hobby even more by pretty much going exclusively with prewar. It has become exciting learning every day something new, and this board had a great deal to do with that, so thank you very much! |
Started in '86(age 6) picking up a pack here and there from the concession stand at the t-ball fields. Was pretty serious in '87. I just loved the '87 topps set. Collected somewhat seriously until about '93. A combination of too many sets coming out, the downfall of Bo Jackson, and somehow lost interest between Topps series 1 and 2. Going through my old collection, I've got a crapload of series 1 singles, and nothing at all from series 2 that year.. After '93, I really only collected casually for a few more years. A random pack here and there. But I still went to shows and collected a few of my favorite players. Cal, Molitor, Brett, Murray and pretty much my favorite Indians.. I got back into it for a bit in '98 when I started putting together the '98 Bowman set, but that quickly fizzled and I found myself completely out of collecting by '99(other than the 1982 Topps Traded Ripken that I bought in '01)
I started back up late in '04, when a buddy was showing me a t206 of his, and I decided I wanted one too. So to ebay I went, and I ended up with a beat to shit Krause pitching for under $10. And the collecting has been back on since then. Almost everything I have from my childhood collection is worthless, aside from a handful of HOF rookies. My childhood football collection is even worse, aside from having almost every possible Drew Bledsoe rookie(I think the number of rookies he ultimately had was another reason I lost interest in collecting altogether). I've never really gotten back into football, aside from slowly putting together the '56 topps set and some HOF rookies. Never got much into basketball other than star/HOF rookies. |
I, too, started in '86 (age of 15 - late bloomer) and got very passionate about it in 1987. I sitll love opening '87 junk wax!!! I never quit the hobby and have been collecting for 25 years straight now. I will be 40 next month and I don't plan to ever stop.
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A bit different here.
1969 - 1 pack 1970 - none? 1971 -1 pack 1972 -none? 1973 - none till we moved late in the year then some 1974- 77 a fairly typical ammount for a kid late 77 - moved again to a town with a card store! It's been downhill ever since - a few periods of relative inactivity, but still collected a bit. Steve B |
Thanks for bringing it up. Since I didn't start "re"collecting until some 30 years after initial childhood collecting, it has been a subject of some interest to me, since I wasn't sure of the exact points at which cards first grabbed my interest and then became passe. In the mid-1980's, I could still recall finding a few 1951 Bowman baseball cards in the schoolyard, and the 1952 and 1953 sets were powerful deja vu for me at card shows. But then, the 1954 sets were zippo, as far as my recall went, so I have to think the card fascination lasted just a scant two years. I have to think that my childish attention span shifted from gum cards to little league ball at that critical point.
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I started collecting in 1978 age 11.I would save my allowance, and went
to a local candy store and would buy a box of Topps,usually every couple of months.Buy 1980 or 81 card stores started popping up in my area, and my allowance went toward buying older cards.By 1983 girls and cars became my priority,and I stopped collecting.In 2005 I got back in to collecting.I'm still in to girls and cars but I collecting cards makes me feel like I'm a kid again.:) |
I began collecting starting with baseball in '58 at age five, and pretty much continued part way through 1969. I can still remember the excitement that echoed through the neighborhood when spring came along each year and some kid was the first to spread the news that the new Topps cards were out! Usually, we each got on our bikes and rode down to the corner market and/or the local drugstore and bought as many packs as we could afford. I always pretty much stuck to baseball, as if I wasn't playing it, I was reading about it, or watching it, or playing Stratomatic baseball with buddies for long hours at a stretch (which was very, very conducive to learning about pre-war stars, as we ordered not only the new game cards each year, but the all-time greatest team series and finally Stratomatic's hall-of-famer AL and NL series. We'd have a draft of all of the greatest players of all time that we had cards for, and play countless 50-game seasons before starting all over again--Ah, the delight of a youth filled to the brim with baseball!
Got back into the hobby in 1990 when a fellow lawyer at my office would bring his baseball cards in occasionally. Others made fun of him, but I thought they were pretty cool, so I began collecting again, mostly buying all the wrong stuff at first (read here new cards printed by the hundreds of thousands, at a minimum!), until I gravitated to vintage, about equally split between '50's to '60's and pre-war, in the early to mid-nineties (with something of a detour to McGwire and Sosa, plus Frank Thomas--how I loved to watch him hit) during that time. My focus has been primarily pre-war for the last half-dozen years or so. Good thread! Larry |
Really ??
Bob,
Come on.. Very much into baseball cards at age 3 ?..AGE 3 ?? |
I knew of baseball as a game, of course, but never knew anything of cards when I was very young untill the summer of 1978. I was 6 years old at the time and my older brother was injured badly in an accident that put him in the hospital for over a week. The associate pastor at our church bought him a full box of 1978 Topps cards that he opened and looked through while in recovery. Our family didn't have any money to buy other cards after that for a while so my brother and I knew everyone of those cards back and forth. That was the year Topps put a game on the back and we played it constantly. I learned to flip, sort and count with those cards but more important I learned to love these small cardboard treasures of my boyhood heroes.
After that I picked up a pack here and there until high school then got a complete set of Topps every year. In 1990 I stated to follow a young player in Seattle named Griffey and that's when I went nuts on cards until about 1995. Like most I realized there was not value to keep and couldn't keep up with it. So I abandoned it until about 2001 when a friend introduced me to Ebay and vintage cards. Form then on its been a passion and a hobby. But every time I see any card from 1978 I can tell you wats on the back. Good thread!! Drew |
I still have a number of my cards from "The Wonder Years". 1961, 1962, 1963 and a couple from 1964. I didn't save any of the gum.
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Age 6 (1971) started me out. I was passionately into it until 1980 (age 15). I purchased some packs in 1981, mostly as an afterthought, and more or less dropped out until about 1987 or 1988, when I was in law school. I started attending shows [remember those?] regularly at that point and have been full bore at it ever since.
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Started in 1982 at age 11 and have never looked back..............:D............but sometimes wish I had never seen or heard of a cards
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Sincerely, Larry |
Wow, age 3 is young. Nice thread by the way.
1965 for me at age 5. I can remember them and I really liked the pennant design. I still have some in the collection but they are all collector grade as I used to keep them in a red suitcase and would sort them by team and then Mom would throw them into the suitcase and I would sort them again. Probably peaked in 68 and 69 but collected up until 74 and then HS and girls became the priorities. And I still have that red suitcase. It has a bunch of 69 decals on it as well as 67 Red Sox stickers. Priceless to me :) |
I bought a few packs here and there 1972, 73 and then in 1974 a friend whose dad collected gave me all their 74 doubles after they put together a set. I got a shopping bag full of cards just dumped in there.
75, 76, 77 I spent every penny I could muster on cards (I was 12 years old in 75). We lived on a dead end road called a "Hollow" in Illinois, every time we'd go to the "big city" I'd comb alleys and lots for milk and soda bottles to return for the deposit, and then buy baseball or football cards. Late 70's I got TSN subscription and just mail ordered my sets, went to college and quit collecting, then in 87-90 thought I would retire on unopened wax..... oopps..... Started going to and setting up at card shows in late 80's, had a card shop part time in 90-91 and been collecting when funds allow ever since. |
I collected
I collected from around 10 thru 14 or so and then reconnected from the age of 28 thru Present
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I started collecting in 1983 as a 7 year old. I would spend most if not all of my allowance on packs, mainly Topps from the local convenience store and at Little League, then we found a pharmacy that sold fleer and got into them as well. I have never looked back. My 4 years of college were lean years, but in the summer when I worked, I always bought plenty and the birthday and christmas gifts that I chose were mainly baseball cards. Once I graduated and got a "real job" the collection/addiction has continued to grow. All of my friends from my childhood who sold or stopped collecting, always comment how they wish they still collected or atleast still had their cards. I can't imagine ever not collecting, and I just kep working my way back set by set, and I still get at minimum a Topps factory set each year, but usually I get a few boxes to bust throughout the year.
Great Thread!! |
Ah,yes...the days of youth! My first packs were Topps baseball in 1968. Only bought two or three packs. Still have that Ryan rookie after all these years. My friends got into collecting in 1969 so that was the first year of real collecting. 1970 was the heaviest year of collecting among the group and the only year that I bought a whole box(with a friend) to open. I can still see us sitting on his bedroom floor taking turns picking and opening packs. We had more Yaz than we knew what to do with! 1971 and 1972 were also pretty enthusiastic collecting years. Collecting started to fade in 1973 losing out to HO slot cars and a beginning interest in rock music and stereo equipment. My best friend quit collecting in 1973. I still collected some into 1974. Maybe ten to twenty packs purchased that year and that was the end. No purchases in 1975.
Football cards were collected mostly in 1969, 1970(again peak year), 1971, and 1972 was about the end. Basketball in 1969 through 1972, and Hockey in 1969. I put the whole thing away in 1974 and never looked at it again until the mid-eighties. At least the cards were still there. Those early collecting years were a great time of my life. |
Collected some from the 1970 set but, really got drawn in by the playground discovery of the 1971 black borders-- still my favorate set. Got a paper route in '74 (delivering papers was once the work of grade school boys on bikes and not middle-aged men heaving papers from the open widows of beat up vans) which helped fund my first complete set. As my luck would have it, the first non-series issue.
A fond memory was playing baseball with freinds, during summer break, until the heat got to us. At which point we would all go to our respective bedrooms and meet under a shaded tree with card filled shoebox in hand. There, seated cross legged, we would look through each others collection and conduct card exchanges, with the familiar "got him, got him, don't got him" as background noise. You always knew the "spoiled" kids in the crowd by the size of their collection and you could tell the investors from the collectors by the trades being made. As I entered middle school, I simply felt too old to continue. At this stage, irony, to say the least. Picked it up again during the frenzied late '80's/early '90's-- although I can honestly say I never fell for the investment hype. Now for the painful Mother story. I have three older cousins who had moved on to college and marriage by the time my parents would drag me along to visit my Aunt and Uncle's house in the mid '70's. Bored during a visit, I ventured from my siblings in the TV room to the garage were I found 2 brass ringed, cardboard industrial drums both filled knee high with cards from the 1950's through the early 1960's. Everytime I visited, I could be found sorting through these NrMt gems. And they were all there; Mantles, Mays', Sniders, Berras, Spahns..... One day as my parents were preparing to leave, my mother along with my Aunt, went to get me. As they entered the garage and found me at my familiar spot, on my knees looking at the cards, my Aunt said "you seem so interest in those old cards, why don't you take them with you?" My mother jumped in" oh no, he's got too many of his own." My "oh please, Mom" went on deaf ears. If she'd only thrown my earl '70's collection away instead |
Collecting
1956 to 1969 and then 1982 to yesterday....and now today
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My collecting yrs started at age 8 in 1948 & in '49---just a few packs each yr but really began in earnest in 1950 & extended into 1955 (age 15). By then cards went on the back burner as other interests took over!
When I got out of HS in 1958 & was off to college the cards went into the closet & were reclaimed around 1980 when the card "boom" started. Been into cards since then to now. |
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Started in 70, stopped in 1978, restarted in the early 80s. Haven't stopped yet.
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collecting then and now
I started collecting baseball cards in 1954. i can still remember going to a small candy store about 1 block from my school, and laying down 5 cents for a pack of 54 topps baseball cards. i would hurry to open the pack just to get the gum, the gum would leave a coating of white sugar on the top card. i remember going thru each card, hoping for a yankee or dodger. living in NY. i always rooted for the yankees or dodgers, mostly the yankees. Funny, i don't remember being for the giants. i remember in 1956, opening 5 cent packs of 1956 topps, the one thing that sticks in my mind was when ever we got a checklist card, we would throw them away, who knew that they would some day be worth more than most of the cards in the set. oh well. About 1958, when i was 12, i discovered girls, and my card collecting days were over, until 1989, when i was looking for a hobby. yep. card collecting. i have bought and sold the 1956, 1960, 1962, topps and the 55 bowman baseball sets, which i put togeather, card by card. to me the enjoyment was putting these sets togeather. i currently have the 54 topps set, with a CSA 6.5 aaron rookie, the rest of the set is ex-mt, to nr mt. in football i had every set from the 55 topps AA to and including the 86 topps set, i also had the 55 bowman set, had about 3 of those. i have to admit i have put away enough money over the years from my card collecting, to put my son thru college. i didn't even mention all the autographs i accumulated. the hobby has been good to me, and i still search ebay for those good deals, to good to pass up. hope i didn't waste anyones time, thanks . dave
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Yes, age 3
My second childhood memory is of stepping out of my grandfather's maroon 1949 DeSoto in front on our house with a red-amd-green pack of 1954 Topps. The only card I remember (maybe it was a penny pack) was Ray Blades, who, amazingly, bore a strong resemblance to my grandfather at that time.
I had three older brothers and we all collected to a greater-or-lesser degree. I still have a few of those choldhood cards that I inherited from them and from older kids in the neighborhood who outgrew them. I remember in 1955, when the local groceries ran out of Johnston Cookie packages with the Braves folders before we could get a full set, that my mother wrote the company and they sent both me an my brother full sets of 1953s. |
It's odd how your memory works sometimes. I don't actually remember buying the 1968 Topps cards, but I remember getting the 1968 Topps Game Cards that were included in the packs and had all the top stars in a game deck. I must have bought several packs in 1968 because I had a pretty good stack of those, but the actual cards got lost somewhere. I was 8 when those came out, and I remember going on treasure hunts looking for empty pop bottles which were worth 2 cents each. I'd save those pennies until I could afford a pack. Like lots of others I remember the thrill of opening the packs and hoping to get my favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals. My buddies and I all wanted Lou Brock or Bob Gibson. I must not have bought very many other packs of cards until 1971, but I remember opening many of those packs with that distinct black border. Then those crazy 1972's came along. What a strange design! But I bought quite a lot of the 72's. I lost interest in the 1973's except for the card number 1, I remember that card and thinking it was special. And then when Aaron broke the HR record I got lots of the 74's because I really liked those Aaron tribute cards. I was done after that until I picked it up again years later.
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Collecting as a "kid"
I remember collecting from 1952 (9 years old) until I graduated from high school in 1960 (17 years old). Still have many of the cards which are truly in " a kid's collector grade" (whatever that means). Mike
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Remember a few cards in 1962. Then a collecting frenzy '63 to '68 and a few in '69. Pretty much cooled off after Mantle retired. Cards were all in well-handled kid's grade as we flipped them against the wall of the school.
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Painful mother
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'66-'80
I bought a few packs in 1966 at age 7 but really started collecting heavily in 1967. I have fond memories of buying the 6 pack Wax Trays for 25 cents at the A&P. I probably bought the most cards from the era of appx. 1971 through 1976 and really stopped while in college in 1980. I bought no packs in 1981 but picked up a few in 1982 and then plunged back in in 1983. I bought my first prewar card in 1988 and really haven't dabbled much in newer card with the exception of the Topps Heritage issues since.
1967 Boxes http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...r/67tboxes.jpg 1967 Wrapper http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...perwPin-Up.jpg My Favorite Card as a kid and still my favorite postwar card http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s.../AUTOS/068.jpg |
great thread
I took moderator liberties and moved this thread to the front page so more folks can read, enjoy and join in it.
I started collecting in about 1968 at 7 yrs old. I kept collecting until about 12 yrs old and then some family stuff happened and I stopped collecting until my mid 30's after I was married....regards |
I was hooked for sure at age 3. My earliest memory is swimming around on the living room floor in a pile of 1978 Topps cards. I would ask for baseball cards instead of toys for every birthday and Christmas (still at the top of my list every year) and would save up every penny of loose change I could find to be able to buy a couple of 20 cent packs at the grocery store each week. I finally completed my first set (1987 Topps), card by card. Putting that final Roy Smalley card in the box and feeling that I had truly accomplished something is my single greatest childhood memory. I still have that set and literally wouldn't sell it for a million dollars. I can honestly say that there has not been one single month I have been alive, from probably age 5 onward, that I have not bought or traded for some baseball cards. Great thread!
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I don't remember exactly how long, but I think from about 1967 (6 years old) until 1972. This is based on the mostly football and baseball cards (and lots of non-sports too) that I found when I was out of college, including a complete 1972 Topps baseball set that was mailed to me by series.
I didn't really start back up gain until the late 80's, early 90's when I mostly started trading all of my stuff for Clemente cards. -Alan |
Started at age 5 in '76 with football, baseball and basketball. My mom got me hooked buying me packs. Started seriously buying packs in '83 and going to shows at the local VFW in '84. Bought 50s and 60s, never remember seeing any pre-war at those shows.
'85 to '89 was the heaviest, collecting every set from every sport. About the only set I didn't collect was '86-87 Fleer basketball. Go figure. Got back in after college in '96. |
During ages 5-7, 1984 - 1985 I loved the baseball and football cards my dad brought home for me. But it wasn't until the fall of '86 that I started "collecting" (before that I played with the cards, wrote on the backs, and stored them in a 1972 Olympics bag that my aunt gave me. I was just thinking the other day how the 1987 Topps set was the first set I remember waiting for the release and being excited about the new design. The wood panelling often gets panned, but I will always love it.
I stopped collecting baseball cards when MLB went on strike. I collected basketball and mostly hockey cards for a couple more years, but I moved into comic books almost exclusively and was pretty much done with both by the time I graduated from high school. It was a good long run, ages 5-17 broadly speaking, or ages 7-15 as prime collecting years. |
Ral
Your story is almost identical to mine, except the years would be 1976-1979. I collected all three sports then. Still have all my cards, except one. I decided two years ago to finish one of my sets that I started back then. Found the last few cards for my 1979 Topps set at the Strongsville show last month. 31 years later and its finally finished! Like your comment about "other things". So true Jantz |
I started in 1982 at age 9 and basically continued until 1990 before starting up again last year.
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1949
Started with 1949 Leaf after 1st grade ended and walked to Cashman's store on Rt 9 in Natick Mass with Bob Olskansky. Picked up pop bottles from construction site between school and Cashman's and turned them into Leaf's - still have the cards. My step-granddad saw them and gave me about 50 goudeys that were canceled as a promption that was being run at the drug store he worked in Worcester. They were punched through the trademark. Still have those also.
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My first BB cards were acquired in the Summer of 1947 when I was 8 years old. They were pulled from the BOND BREAD packages.
<img src="http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd339/tz1234zaz/bond1947jdybtwjr.jpg" alt="[linked image]"> Like Peter Thomas, my first color BB cards were the 1949 LEAF's. But, only the 1st series of 49 cards. Peter was very fortunate, since the very tough 2nd series (49 cards) were available in his area. Collected 1948 - 1952 BOWMAN's (BB and FB and WILD WEST cards). In the Spring of 1952, I was very excited when the TOPPS cards were available. My very last pack of 1952 TOPPS cards was acquired in the Fall of 1952. It included this Mickey Mantle. In 1977, I recovered my collection of sportscards from my youth. Fortunately, my folks stored the cards in our attic (when I was away in the Air Force in the early 1960's). <img src="http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd339/tz1234zaz/mmantle52t.jpg" alt="[linked image]"> TED Z |
my start
I opened packs of EVERYTHING starting in 1967. I got more into it in 1968/69 when I completed my first sets which were 1968 Topps BB, FB, and the hockey and basketball from the fall and winter. I opened lots of non-sports, too.
By the time 1969 arrived I was buying a dozen or more boxes of every series of Baseball to make up multiple sets. I continued opening packs and I still do today. My passion has always been in "older cards." I started scouring the neighborhood for older cards in the late 60's and did quite well. My favorite childhood sets are: 69 Topps BB, 68 Topps FB and 68-69 Topps hockey. |
I started with non sports in 1977 (Star Wars). I only collected sports for two years, 1980 and 81 football. I never did collect baseball and when I got back into cards a few years ago, I started a football set, then discovered the wide world of vintage baseball, and got interested in baseball history. I still don't care much about, or watch much, modern baseball.
If football had the same array of pre war cards that baseball does, I'd most likely collect those. As it is, there's only a couple of isolated issues. Football cards didn't really take off until Bowman started issuing them. |
I began collecting cards in 1975-1976 at the age of 6-7...I first acquired a small stash of 1970 topps...which led to buying packs in late 1976 or so. I started compiling sets in 1977 and did this until 1982 when the market was becoming crowded with sets other than topps. My dad would ask his coworkers if their sons(who had gone off to college) had any bb cards they didn't want...and through this I was able to acquire most significant cards from 1957-present. I had a huge bider or two with hof'ers and stars of the day...all in sheets in chronological order.
I purchased my first t206 at a card show in 1980 or so...and had a handful or two of vintage(pre-wwII) cards when I sold my collection in high school to fund the purchase of a bitchin' camaro. I kept maybe 30 cards from my childhood collection. In college my roommates and I started buying packs of upper deck cards which led me back to the hobby. I vowed to never buy cards I once owned so I went in the direction of vintage...and haven't looked back. |
I collected Ryne Sandberg cards as a kid in the late 80s/early 90s. Like many others, I left the hobby during the strike.
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Nice thread. I started collecting baseball cards in 1954 at age 9. I played little league baseball in Burbank, California and I always looked forward to going to see the Hollywood Stars at Gilmore Field. I can remember like it was yesterday riding my bike down to the neighborhood corner grocery and buying a pack of cards ( I loved the hard gum ! ) and I also would buy a dill pickel out of a jar. My favorite player in 1955 was Dale Long and I would trade cards to get his. I can fondly remember getting my shoebox out and arranging the cards into teams. I never thought of it as completing a set only adding teammates. About 1956 I started collecting travel decals and to this day I think I have one of the finest collections of pinup travel decals from the 50's.
At age 12 a beautiful pinup was just more appealing than another Spook Jacobs card ;). |
I started collecting at the age of 6 in 1968 and continued until a H.S. senior in 1980. I was quite passionate about it and ended up with quite a collection. There is a picture of me opening a pack of 1968 Topps and the floor around me is littered with cards (a Nolan Ryan is right next to my foot just waiting to be stepped on). Fun times indeed.
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Great thread!
I can recall buying gas at our local Sunoco station and reminding my dad not to forget the football stamps! That was 1972, I was only 6, but I remember the Sunoco Stamps and the saver album vividly. I also remember the NFL Pro Draft game by Parker Brothers that contained cards from the 1974 Topps set. (Topps provided the cards for the game, but each card has a double asterick on the copyright line). Actual card collecting came to me a few years later, probably 1976-78 is all that I collected. I had a storage box with dividers, and I sorted by teams. My return to the hobby was 1995 or so. I went back to my parents basement to fetch my childhood cards, and the only thing left was a single card in the bottom of the Pro Draft game box! I still have that card, and as beat-up as it is, I will never get rid of it. |
Nice to see how many of us old timers that collected in the fifties that there are here, and even two or three that were bustin' packs in the forties. Let us give a kind thought to our departed friend Joe Palaez who would have collected Play Balls.
In my mind's eye I can still see myself playing with a handful of cards someone had given me in 1956, amongst them a '54 Topps Ernie Banks and a '56 Topps Del Ennis. Loved that little bear cub in the corner and the way Ennis was jumping. By 1957 I was collecting with a vengeance. Didn't have easy access to any stores but my Uncle Harry owned a cigar shop in Brooklyn and every so often he'd hand me a few packs. I must have been pretty good in the schoolyard flipping games because I had a yard-high stack of '57s. Also had a number of football, basketball and hockey cards but those sports were just diversions until baseball season started again. Collected cards until 1959 when we moved from the suburbs to New York City and then my nickels and dimes went to comics. Each month I'd patronize the green newspaper shack at West 86th and Broadway, Superman, Superboy, Action, Adventure, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, ten cents apiece, hanging by clothes pins in a neat and colorful array. Great memories. http://photos.imageevent.com/kawika_...0Banks%201.jpg http://photos.imageevent.com/kawika_...6T%20Ennis.jpg |
I'm still a kid at heart, so does that mean I never stopped?
Actually I started in 1969, and collected just Topps Baseball thru 1979. I remember an older lady from our church at this time (she was probably in her 80's) asked if I wanted her deceased husband's cards he collected when he was a kid. I was to polite and said no, I prefer the modern players. I always wonder what she would have given me....T-cards? Goudeys? I then got back into collection in 1986 collecting Red Sox players from Topps, Fleer, & Donruss as they headed to the world series. It was also then I collected my first T-card, T206 McGraw glove at hip. I then collected various T & N cards since. |
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Started collecting as a second grader in 1972. Baseball, Football, Basketball. This continued with a vengeance thru high school and college. took about 15 years off starting in early to mid 90's when the family started to grow, back in it and discovered pre-war in 2009. Similar memories to others: riding my bike to "The country store" and buying pack after pack of 76 topps baseball. Easter basket was always filled with packs of cards instead of candy. Mom always came home from grogery shopping with a few packs for me. I hated having to go clothes shopping with her, but there was always the draw of getting to go to woolworth and rummage thru their bins full of rack packs looking for the best players............ |
I got started in 1977 at the age of 8. A friend on my dad's bowling team opened a card store in the bowling alley. It was in the fall so football and Star Wars cards were my first buys. Usually I would work all day Saturday and get paid in cards. Even if he paid me in cash I would still spend it on cards. I got to open the new cases of cards and would spend countless hours sorting out the stars and local favorites. I always got cards for my birthday and Christmas. I Continued buying cards up until the early 90's when I switched to memorabilia. I still have all of my cards and still frequent my friends card shop.
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My earliest recollection was around 1967 or 68...my dad bought me some Topps baseball wax packs at a US NAVY Commissary when I lived in Japan...then when I came stateside I dabbled in the Topps 1971 BB...I got serious with the 1972-74 BB sets...I remember I thought I had the complete set in 1972 and imagine my suprise when I visited cross town to see my best friend who had moved away that summer..and he had the high numbers..:eek: I eventually got the complete set years later.. 73 set was acquire piece by piece through wax packs, rack packs, trading with friends and finally bought one series from Larry Fristch when I couldn't find them at the nearby stores... 1974 was completely acquired card by card...upgrading at shows into the 80's..and still have them.
Stopped during high school years but got back into it again in college when I saw newspaper ad about a guy opening a card shop...and I've been collecting ever since...seriously with vintage stuff since the mid 80's... |
My earliest memories are from the Post cereal/ Jello cards from 1963, when I was 5. I remember cutting them out, and I still have a whole bunch of them. I also recall my dad buying me a cello pack of 63 Topps---I remember looking at the cards through the plastic and picking out the pack with a Pirate player in it. Still have them, too. I became an avid collector near the end of the 67 season, when I bought up lots of packs from the 7th series. From then on, I bought lots of Topps through 1974. In 1971, I became an eager collector of older cards, and picked up a lot of t-206's, Goudeys, and older Toppps cards through flea markets, the mail, and my first card convention (at the second annual midwest card collectors convention in Dearborn Mich). Then I dropped out until about 1991. It all came rushing back to me then.
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Collecting as a kid...
I recall dipping my toe into collecting as a kid about 1975-76, and ramping up quite a bit in 77' and steady through about 1986. I think the feaux wood panel issue of Topps in 1987 broke me as they were hideous and mass produced. Now maybe if they were less produced, I would view them like I do the 62' Topps issue. (Unique look, not my favorite, but some rugged charm) So I had about a 10 year run of collecting and after a 14 year hiatus, I came back to the hobby around the turn of the century, collecting mostly pre-war stuff. The cards I broke in on as a kid were Kelloggs, Hostess, and Topps. I think the Kelloggs cards along with the 75 Topps issue is what grabbed hold of me.
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CW- You and I must have been separated at birth. The ‘77s were my first true love and I too took a “Rush break” in the 1980s. I came back to the hoppy and turned to tobacco cards when I landed my first “real” job in the mid 1990s, although I now collect as much 1950s football as I do old baseball. I bought a few packs in 1976, but really dove in as a seven-year-old in 1977. I still have 500 or so of my original ’77 Topps cards in the same wooden box I housed them in (decorated with my little drawings of the team logos). I have since gone on to complete two very high-grade ’77 sets, and I’m working on a third, but I will always keep those originals because of the fond memories. I collected for a few years until 1982, when all three card designs that year really turned me off, so I really didn’t buy any cards that year. A high school buddy and I bought a ton of 1986 and ’87 cards, most of which I sold a couple years back in a yard sale. Mom and Dad never really supported my hobby, but somehow a few packs always made their way into my Easter basket or under the Christmas tree. |
1978-1980 - Several Packs a Year
1981-1989 - Hardcore! 1990-1991 - A couple boxes a year 1991-1993 - Not much at all, I was 18-20, it was all about girls and cars 1993-1997 - Some Pre-1948 cards, almost strictly memorabilia 1997-Now - Full time dealer, no more collecting, you can't eat baseball cards or put them into your gas tank. Scott |
First bought packs in 1959 (age 8) after mom brought home a shoe box full of 1956 Topps baseball and 1955 Topps All-America football from a rummage sale. Heavy in 1960-1962. Less so in 63, then big in 1964. Nothing after that until 1981 when Fleer-Donruss challenged Topps.
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I first started buying packs in 1966. A friend and I would ride our bikes over to the local drug store and buy them. This continued until he moved away in 1970. So my peak years were from age 9 to 13. I didn't see the cards again until the 1980s when my parents moved and my Mom made me take them (at least she didn't throw them away!). It wasn't until 2001 when I discovered EBay and decided to finish a few of those sets that I got back into it and the rest is history.
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1972 (age 6) to 1984.
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I also appreciate those cards -- I had a blast while building a NM+ '55 All-American set a few years ago. I've always thought about putting together a high grade subset of '77 Topps, collecting all the "All-Stars" from that set. The photography and card layouts in the '77 set are some of the best from that era, no doubt! |
This is my first response as a relatively new member. I swore that I would just be a spectator but can't sit this one out! My first cards purchased were 62 Topps baseball in the spring of 1962 (end of grade 1) bought at Edwards' corner grocery store. I played "dropsies" only once and lost all my cards so never played again. I also placed high value on condition and my sets never came to school (only doubles for trading). I continued to buy baseball (and hockey and football, some non sport like pirates and civil war) every year until and including the summer of 1968 (between grade 7 and grade 8). It then became uncool and, after 3 aborted attempts, vividly remember throwing virtually everything else out (I still believe there is a box in the ceiling joists of our former family home which I would love to figure out how to gain access to). Included in the disposition were many cards that I had acquired from older kids going all the way back to 1953 (had the Mays but no Mantle) but, for some reason, no 1952s.
Every subsequent year I would buy a couple of baseball packs just to see what they looked like up to 1990. That year we were still playing in a seven a side touch football league but decided that we (all around 35yrs old) needed some youth if we wanted to continue to compete so we recruited some junior players. One of these kids didn't drive and lived near me so I became the driver and got to know him well. Guess what, he collected baseball cards so I decided to put together a 1990 Topps set card by card. I was again hooked and have collected ever since, I currently concentrate on 1952-1967 Topps along with all Bowman Baseball 1955 and prior. As a postscript to this rant, I suffered my 56th birthday this year and got an amazing gift from my younger brother. Ready for this, he had found a calendar from non other than Edwards' grocery store which had been demolished probably 30 years previously!! |
Now, boxing cards, slightly different story. I was at a show in the 1990s after I'd come back to L.A. after graduation and I saw 1948 Leaf cards for the first time. I was thumbing through them and I picked up a Barney Ross and Benny Leonard. I knew Ross's name and I saw that the back of the Leonard card made reference to his being Jewish, which I thought was interesting. I picked up the cards and took them over to my parents' house to show to my father as curiosities--Jewish boxers after all. He took a look at the Ross card and said "I think my cousin Ray fought him." First time he'd ever mentioned it and it totally blew my mind that we had an actual athlete in the family tree as I can barely walk and chew gum together. I pressed him for details but he didn't have much, so I started researching. I first used my trusty old Beckett multisport book, which had about a dozen sets in it, to target Ray Miller cards, and Ross and Leonard cards and anyone else who sounded Jewish (of course, I had no idea who was what--I looked for Sammy Mandell cards--he was Italian--and passed up Joe Choynski cards--his dad was the publisher of one of the more influential Jewish newspapers, from S.F.). Shortly after that I found my first boxing Exhibit cards at another show. Bought a group of 1920s-1950s from an obnoxious loudmouth dealer who I'd normally have walked away from but I had to have those cards. Got a Marciano, a Louis and a Jack Johnson, among others.
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I was 12 years old in 1980 when I started. Coincidentally, in 1981 when Donruss and Fleer brought out sets to compete with Topps, that was when the hobby literally exploded! Hobby shops and shows everywhere! It was awesome! I collected actively and passionately until 1984ish. Then resumed as an adult to find that the beloved cards of my childhood were so mass produced they didnt seem likely to hold their values.
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Interesting thread! :)
I started collecting in 1972 with Football cards and collected Football and Baseball through 1980. --Then returned to the hobby in college around 1983 through the early 1990's. -- My collection was dormant with the exception of a few trades and sales here and there until 2008 when I reorganized everything and got interested in vintage baseball cards. |
I bought my first pack late in the summer of 1958, when I was six years old (I know I've told this story before). The one card I distinctly remember getting was the Ted Williams All-Star. I didn't know what All-Star meant but I did think all the stars against the red background looked cool. I continued buying packs in 1959, peaked in 1960, and continued sporadically from 1961-63. Then in 1964 the Beatles came and my money was spent on LP's and 45's.
But here's a childhood memory I have that I think others might find pretty interesting. Around 1960 I was at my friend Lenny's house and I was looking at his older brother's shoebox of childhood baseball cards. And I remember with absolute certainty they were 1952 Topps. And here's the part that I couldn't explain then and understand today: the cards were in numerical order, and the run was nearly complete up to about #300. And then inexplicably there were only a smattering of cards throughout the numbers above #300. My eight year old mind wondered why he was missing so many of those cards when he had nearly all the others. It was my introduction to the 52 high numbers and how scarce they were, but at the time I couldn't explain it. |
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What a great thread this has turned out to be! I've enjoyed reading every entry. |
Bought my first pack in 1959 at age 6. While opening it in the kitchen, I pulled a Detroit Tigers card of catcher Red Wilson. My folks - both school teachers - made a big fuss about pulling a Tiger player in my first pack. My dad was a coach and I was always a manager on his baseball, basketball and football teams in elementary school. He let me show my Red Wilson card to the varsity team. I never stopped collecting after that and my folks saved all my cards when I went away to college.
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Bought packs of sports cards from 1957, through 1965, when, at the age of sixteen, I became a serious adult. : D Since '57 Topps Baseball was my "first", plus the fact that I find the pics so attractive, I've always had an attachment to them - to the point where I put together the set, not my usual collecting style (team collector).
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I bought Football in 68 and then Baseball in 69, packs were still a nickel in 69 and my grandmother would give me a dollar so you can imagine how many I had, I can remember getting so many 1st series Al McBean's I thought he was in every pack. That same year in little league baseball we bought packs at the concession stand that had the rub offs. We were really inrigued by prior years issues that we were not familiar with, a 1968 BB card was like ancient to us!
Oddly one of the small grocery stores in town was selling black and white cards with cat eye marbles?? they had left over 1960 Leaf cards and I bought a ton of them. I quit in 1975 and sadly sold it all in 1981. I have put together sets of most of these years 1969-1973and they bring back more memories and mean much more to me than all of rare turn of the century stuff. I sold all of my 1952-1967 sets that I put together after the fact, years ago. I still enjoy putting together the insert material and the Kelloggs 3-D cards. Scott |
Collecting timeline
Started in 1972 at age 5 with basketball and baseball. Added football in 1975. Collected hot and heavy until age 33 in 1999(marriage). Started back in 2006(post marriage). Going strong again the last five years.
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This is a fun thread - thanks!
I discovered baseball cards in the spring of 1957 after acquiring a few Topps Davy Crockett cards sometime a year or two earlier. (No memory of where or exactly when; perhaps they were gifts.) The first card set I would complete was the 80-card green back Davy Crockett set; the first baseball set, the 1963 Topps.
Spent about every available cent from 1957 to 1964 on baseball (and a few other) cards except for my Chuck Schilling model glove (1963) which set me back nearly $20 - or a full year of baseball card buying in those days. (Starting in 1960 or '61, I virtually completed the each Topps set while accumulating more than 1,000 duplicates each time.) My last "kid collection" [insert asterisk here] buy was in the late summer of 1964 when I bought lots of the 1964 Topps Giant Size cards. I did not buy even a single pack in 1965 or for a few years thereafter. The asterisk: Despite not buying the current cards from neighborhood stores starting in 1965, I did make a couple of purchases via mail order: a 1955 Bowman set (from Barry S. Newman) and 1954 Topps baseball set (Frank Nagy). Both sets were in tip-top condition and, if memory serves correctly, the '55 Bowman cost $12 and Frank let me have a deal on the '54 at something less than $10. (Each was acquired in either 1965 or '66.) Thanks for the great trip down memory lane. |
Thanks for the memories!
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Though I never post, I read this board regularly and can't remember a thread I've enjoyed so thoroughly. OK if I join in?
I discovered baseball cards later than most of you (age 10) because my dad was in the Navy and we usually lived on base (Guantanamo, Parris Island, etc.) where there were no little stores with candy counters. But in 1957 we lived off base (NAS Pensacola) in what is now the Warrington section of the city. I had discovered the Topps Flags of the World set that winter, amassing a near set, so, come spring, it was natural to buy a couple of 1-cent packs of the new baseball series. Luis Aparicio and Johnny Temple (I can't recall which I opened first) and so began a lifetime obsession. I can remember trading Moe Drabowsky and Dee Fondy to help a friend finish his first series, then getting them both in the packs I purchased the next day; paying a kid I'd never seen before 5 cents for Yogi Berra to finish my first series; pedaling crosstown to find the second series and coming home with Duke Snider; trading a pile of 1956s I gotten in the Drabowsky-Fondy deal for Gus Bell to complete Series 3; finding only a handful of packs of the Fourth Series, then being inundated with Fifth Series cards. That winter we moved 15 miles into the country (3 miles from the nearest store) and I thought my collecting days were over. But a couple of days after we arrived, two neighbor boys arrived on bicycles from their house a mile away and asked if I had any baseball cards. As luck would have it, I had a duplicate of the older boy's favorite player, Ted Kluszewski, and a friendship was forged. Jimmy later traded me most of the 57 Fourth Series cards I needed for chemicals from my chemistry set. That spring the younger boy and I collected 58s together, discovering an ad for the Card Collectors Co. in the Sporting News that enabled us to fill in the gaps, and we even bought a few cards from older sets. Wayne abandoned cards when we moved up to junior high, but I continued through 1962, buying a box every two weeks when we rode through Warrington on the way to the base commissary. I didn't quit cold turkey, however. I bought complete sets from 1963-66, then returned to the pack-by-pack method in 1967 when I was a junior in college in Orlando and continued until 1972 in Boston where I discovered the vintage version of the hobby. Believe it or not, these are very same cards I pulled from those packs in 1957, identifiable by the pinholes I poked in the cards to simulate injuries for a marble game. The 56 Football McCormick is my first sports card, found on the street in San Leandro, Calif. Sorry to be so long winded. Bob Richardson |
Spec, you should post more often. Thanks for sharing.
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Hi Bob- it's been a very long time. Hope you are doing well.
Regards, Barry |
Hey Bob R
Hey Bob R.
I still remember the very kind email you sent me a few years ago after I posted my Uncle Jacks background-color thread. You were a gentleman and a scholar to this "young" collector. Thanks so much for sharing your story. I know I frequently say I get private emails from long time collectors and I am glad a few are coming a bit on board. Except for a few situations we really are a friendly group. Now where is Heitman hiding out these days? He even came to the Net54baseball Dinner when it was in CA., but I haven't heard from him since? Anyway, take care Bob, and thanks again for joining in....regards |
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Clint, That shop is still one of my favorite places ever. Rob |
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