First Pack of Cards
 

Time to publicly out ourselves age-wise. What was the first pack of cards you opened and do you remember any cards contained therein? I will start with the 1951 Bowmans when I discovered a Nellie Fox rookie (long gone). Trading, after shuffling the cards with greasy kid fingers was the only way to get favorite players. There were no TPGers, no auctions and we only had our meagre allowances to pursue our passion. Different era.

1987 Topps, my mom grabbed a pack for me when we were picking up subs from the Shortstop Sub shop in Ithaca, NY. Got a Dave Righetti, still have it around somewhere, along with 17,897 other 1987 cards.

1976....
 

1976 Topps Baseball @ .15 per pack. Told my mom I needed $1.05 for school lunch or milk.....went hungry for a week! lol

7 packs = $1.05

Got a Rick Rooster Burleson as 1st card and became a Red Sox fan!

:cool: Peace, Mike

Attachment 485584

Wow!
 

Such an exact number! Sounds about right, I have 5000 ct boxes full in my basement of 1987 Topps Baseball also! ugh

Mike

1967, age 5. I walked to the corner store with my dad and sister. I bought a pack of Red Sox Stickers. I think my sister bought The Monkeys cards. My sister dropped her gum and my dad picked it up, took it home, ran it under water and gave it back to her.

One of the three stickers has survived childhood; it spent many years on my Mickey Mouse Club toy-box.

1976 Topps and with friends and each got our first packs.
Opened and I had Bobby bonds and Dusty Baker and a few others.
My friends had gotten like Seaver, George Brett and Dave Kingman.

I wanted me some King Kong Kingman. But we never traded.

We always flipped cards for them.

All day long we flipped and I lost most cards only going home with 3 or 4

I do not remember which cards I brought home but they all ended up in the spokes of my bike.

It would have been 1966 or 1967 Topps. That was a while ago. I still can't believe I turned 60..... :eek:
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1990 Score by the boxfull lol.

It would have to be 67 or 68, and no memory whatsoever of who. As for the store, 7-11 was right down the end of our street in Maryland.

Dangerously close actually. Loose change never made it far from the 7-11 and if it did, it was across that street to the Peoples Drug Store.

1986 Topps. I don't remember the specific day or pack, though.

Last winter an eBay seller included a 1986 Topps pack as a bonus with the cards I bought. I was surprised at how powerful the nostalgic feeling was when I opened it. I learned about baseball, the players, the teams, the uniforms, the history, etc. through cards, and opening that pack brought back exactly that feeling of discovery.

Didn't try to chew the gum though.

1974 for me. Growing up in Georgia, we were excited about the upcoming season and the prospect of Hank Aaron breaking the Babe's record. My dad brought a Street & Smith's (with Hank on the cover) and a few packs home to me one day. I was instantly hooked. I don't remember the first cards, but I do recall how cool the Tom Seaver and Jon Matlack actions shots were.

65 Topps from the local 7-11.

69 Topps.
from the small town pharmacy/store.

Opened it with dad sitting in the car, and he said one guy was pretty good.
Reggie spent a few years in the toybox through a move until he was "rescued" in 74 when I really got into cards.

Still have that one.
Maybe a couple others from that pack.

Plus the Danny Cater coin from my second pack in 71.

1966 Topps Batman. I don't remember if I bought any baseball packs. If I did, I just don't remember.

Probably some mid 90's junk wax, I can't recall a particular "Pack" that I bought first.

1952 Topps, don’t remember any of the cards

1987 Topps Football. Next was 1988 Donruss Baseball.

1963 Topps
 

I was 5, and I remember that it wasn't baseball season. I was in a small grocery near Sewickley Pa., and I saw packs of baseball cards in cello packs. They were hanging on a rack. One had a Pirates player on the front, Johnny Logan, so I persuaded my dad to buy that one for me. I still have about a dozen of those 1963 Topps cards somewhere in my accumulation. Thanks for asking: a really nice memory.

1976 Topps Rack Packs.

One of my uncle's bought me a bunch of rack packs when I was over my grandmothers house. I remember being disappointed they were 76's, because I knew the 77's were out by then, and Reggie wasn't in a Yankee uniform in the 76 set. I don't think I got any Yankees I recognized in those packs.

I think I got a Bobby Bonds, and I was like "who is that?". My uncles told me, he was pretty good, but he's not on the Yankees anymore....but they did get Mickey Rivers for him. I was like "great, but why is Mickey in an Angels uniform?" LOL!

Maybe they were out late in 77 because Topps was behind schedule airbrushing a Yankees cap onto Reggies card. :D

Got my 77's in due time, and was ecstatic with that design. I think I held an irrational dislike of the 76 set through most of my childhood and even part of my adulthood. I trace it all the way back to that day. :cool:

1975 Topps
Remember it containing Danny Frisella and Chris Cannizzaro, both Padres, and both with poorly airbrushed caps/uniform tops.

1979 baseball rack packs from Brownstone Drug, Portland CT

they also sold leftover 1978 rack packs at the same time! *mindblown*

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Not counting older packs that I bought years after they were issued, 2005 Topps. They came in 35-card packs for $7, which I thought was a great deal at the time. In retrospect I wish I had put that money into vintage instead. I remember pulling Johnny Damon, still in a Red Sox uniform, a couple days after he signed with the Yankees.

1975 Topps

I remember opening a pack of 1981 Topps and being excited because it had a Fernando Valenzuela rookie card!!! I also remember opening a ton of Wacky Packages cards. And Planet of the Apes.

1968 Topps Football....Bill Glass seems to stick out.

Next year 1969 Topps Baseball 1st Series can vividly remember that every other pack seemed to have an Al McBean card. As a 10 year old, had no idea who this guy with no cap on was....but I had a lot of his cards, as the packs were still a nickel and a dollar every saturday bought a lot of cards.

1979 Topps...my mom brought home a pack for my brother and I. My first card was Reggie Jackson...who promptly became my favorite player at the time. I was disappointed to not get any Mariners cards...and jealous my brother got a Rick Honeycutt! Still have my childhood 79 set.

Much like Hxcmilkshake...a while later my mom came home with some 78 packs she found at a slower little store...MIND BLOWN as well!

1964 Topps. Seems I remember a Kaline early on. Didn't get too many. Store sold out and allowance was slim. But, '65 was a different story and is still the childhood set to remember. Pinned or taped at least 6 Mantles on the walls and back of the door. Ugh!

Where's Teddy Z.? I think he pulled some N172s!

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1963 Topps
 

Found a few of the first ones from the cello pack that my dad bought for me. The first cards I collected were cut from the back of Post cereal boxes.

I discovered cards in 1958 through a friend who lived in my Long Island neighborhood. I was immediately transfixed by them.

In my Easter basket the next spring I got packs of 1959 Topps and for some reason I recall getting Albie Pearson in those packs.

Was early summer of 1967 while visiting my sister who was living in Dallas, Texas at the time. I was allowed to buy several Topps wax packs at the Safeway near the Four Seasons apartments where she was living at that time. They would have looked like this, I imagine:

I was 8 years old and the first pack was 1964 Topps from a local 1960's convenience store named Ellison Grocery in Kings Mountain, NC.

My dad who was a huge baseball fan would buy me boxes when they came in. Cost was a nickel a pack or $1.20 for a 24 pack box. Seemed expensive then. Of course gas was as low as $.179/gal. Five cards per pack + 1 coin as well as I remember + that wonderful piece of bubble gum.

Certainly don't remember which cards came from first pack but I was ticked that I kept getting Mickey Mantles instead of Willie Mays. Had no idea that the boxes I kept opening were first series and Mays was not in it.

56 Topps

No idea what cards, but I ended up buying probably a couple dozen nickel packs in ‘56 and never got a Mantle.

1968 Topps and opened the pack and pulled the Bob Gibson World Series card of him pitching against Boston . Image looked like a TV screen in black and white. Gibson was my favorite player on my favorite team... I was hooked .

I don't really remember my first packs of baseball cards, but I do have very distinct memories of the 1974-75 hockey stamps that they would give out at Loblaw's grocery stores.

https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/p...Strip-of-8.jpg

Even though I don't follow hockey anymore, I still have a soft spot for these stamps. I have finished the album three times as an adult and have enough stamps to make a good run at finishing three more if it wasn't for the 20 short prints.

1958 - still remember the orange Tony Kubek in the pack. Can't remember any of the other cards - but he was a Yankee and that was my team.

1978 at Vilmure's grocer in Decatur, IL

1963 fleer

A few people have this but also 1987 topps for me. Love that set. But I remember feeling really baller when I opened 89 upper deck and 90 score.

1974 topps I still have some of them along with some older cards I won flipping.

Attachment 485637

I'll never forget it. 1977 Topps, my mom bought them for me. She gave me the pack while grocery shopping. I didn't understand what they were. She tried to explain that they had cards of all different players, and you could trade them with your friends until you got all the ones you liked, or the full set.

I had no clue what a "set" was, or anything. But I opened that pack, and inside there was a Rod Carew. To me, 8 years old or whatever, Rod Carew was the greatest player on earth, and that card was BEAUTIFUL, with the camera focused on Carew with the blurry player in the background, and "A.L. All Stars" emblazoned across the bottom of the card. It was fantastic, and it had all his stats on the back!

I was hooked. Baseball cards were all I thought about when I was a kid, 8-10 years old. I'm glad I've gotten over them.

-Al

Flipping isn’t what it used to be.

Have we evolved or devolved?

I guess what we usually played is technically called tossing.
http://www.streetplay.com/thegames/baseballcards.shtml

I remember 7 packs for a dollar, the kid across the street getting a 1971 full Topps box, digging through the Kelloggs box to see what I got and Hostess cards with yummy Twinkees and other good stuff.. My first pack memory is long gone..

1970 Topps baseball from the TG&Y

I remember buying 67 topps baseball at a store in Old Lyme, CT at Sound View beach. I was 9 years old, and like Leon said, I can't believe I'm turning 65 this week.
Thanks,
John

Although I had a stack of 1985 Topps baseball, I don't remember buying or opening any packs of them. My dad had an old Phillies cigar tin box, and inside he had stacks of 1985 topps and fleer, so he probably bought them (feeling nostalgic at the time himself, no doubt) and gave them to me. However, I vividly remember buying 1986 Topps baseball packs, and even more, 1986 Topps football packs. Cello packs, to be specific. The local Quick Check or Krausers stores in Hopatcong, NJ were my go to spots. I also remember buying the Topps sticker albums for both baseball and football and lots and lots of those packs as well, though I never completed either one. Lol.

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From the cards I had as a kid, my first pack would have been 1977 football. First baseball pack would have been 1978. Would buy them from a local family grocery store.

Hey Leon
You are off a year, I pulled this card out an 1888 OLD JUDGE pack :) .....https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan.../kellyn162.jpg..... my favorite set in my collection.



SERIOUSLY speaking............I pulled my first BB cards from the BOND BREAD packages in the Summer of 1947.



1947 Homogenized BOND BREAD wrapper

https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...eadwrapper.jpg



Here are Yogi Berra, Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Ralph Kiner, Bobby Thomson (any of which were my 1st BB cards). These are their true "ROOKIE" cards.


https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...ookiestars.jpg


TED Z

T206 Reference
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My first pack was in 1959 which my Mom bought for me at a pharmacy. I don’t remember any specific cards from that pack but it did start my journey (addiction). Several years later my Mom made an amazing find at a garage sale and purchased me thousands of cards from 1951 through 1958. I was on the receiving end of the “mother got rid of my baseball cards story”.

Absolutely awesome!

1971-72 O-Pee-Chee hockey

1972 Topps In Lincoln, IL at Age 5. Still remember the Chris Chambliss All Star Rookie card!

1968 Topps BB Rack Packs
 

For me, 1968 Topps BB 1st Series Rack Packs, purchased at the Woolworth's department store. I don't remember any of the cards from my first purchase, but do recall anxiously waiting to return later to purchase more. It wasn't until later that summer that I purchased my first 5 cent wax pack (in a different town). Up until then, I didn't know wax packs existed. I was more thrilled with the insert game card than the actual cards in that pack. At Christmas that year, my parents gave me a Topps Fun Pack which had several 1968 Topps BB 6th and 7th series packs (1 card to a pack). I remember getting a Manny Jiminez and a Phil Roof. That would begin a trend of pulling plenty of Phil Roof cards over the next three years.

1964 Topps. I bought a very few packs at the end of the season. And didn't keep up with them, they were lost before the next season started. I bought a bunch of 1965 Topps, maybe had 300 cards including duplicates. Only a few packs in 1966; then in 1967 I liked the cards, was scrounging up more coins for cards, and eventually had what I recall as being the set. I'm gonna fill those out here sometime soon.

One thing younger collectors miss out on is buying cards as they came out in series. When word spread that there was a new series out, we were on our bicycles with a plan on buying ball cards. A modern equivalent is the internet and eBay. Trading or acquiring cards you lacked was peer to peer initially, then by mail from lists and known card fanatics. Now, many cards are just a click away, and you can pay for them with a few more clicks. I'm sure there are guys on here who sent cash and coins through the mail buying cards in their old days.

1980 Topps baseball wax pack, my great Aunt gave me and my cousin a handful of packs one day on a visit. Still have the 40-50 cards from that day....no Henderson though.

1974
 

Mine was 1974 also, from the Woolworth's in Freeport, IL. I was hooked, and have been ever since. Still one of my favorite sets...

Cheers,
Geno

Crazy thing is that it wasn't that long ago. I remember anxiously waiting to see if my Lew Lipset mail in order would return with cards. Just hoping I got to one on my list before the next guy. I don't think I bought my first card off of the internet until sometime in the 2000's.

The Lew Lipset boxes.... I have a couple a dozen of those secreted away on shelves and in closets. My family has always given me grief over saving boxes. Until this time of year, before the holidays. Then they'd sheepishly come to me and ask if I had a box about this long and this big, moving their hands as guides. I still have a few cards I'm certain I got from Lew's lists. Those boxes still bring me a smile. He could paraphrase Hans Wagner... "Ain't much to collectin' old ballcards, IF you know about old card collectin'"

1962 Topps 6th series. My mom let me ride my bike to the "dime store" by myself for the first time to buy whatever I wanted for a nickel. The boxes were right next to the register and the wrapper was so colorful. I kept those five cards together in a desk drawer for many years but somehow misplaced one of them, but having the remaining four is worth more to me than my entire 1962 set.

Right behind ya Leon - 60 is staring me in the face.

My first packs were 69 Topps - no clue what cards were there, but I remember a Félix Millán - one of my favorites. Before I became a Pirates fan, it was Atlanta - the nearest team to Orlando back then. Don't have any of them anymore, but I do have the 7-11 Slurpee cups from '71 and '72, + the HOF set (73?). They take up way more space than cards, and rarely see the light of day anymore.

--
Mike

I found a 1977 Don Kirkwood in the basement storage area of my house (it had belonged to my older brother) and that was the 1st baseball card I had ever seen, thus making it my first card (I still have it).

A few days later my brother and I each got a pack of 1986 Topps at the store. I remember getting a Willie McGee card and thinking that that had to be the worst picture ever put on a card, which is probably the only reason I remember any cards from the pack.

That would be the same ones I recall, but obviously the OPC version. The first sports packs I bought were 1967-68 Topps hockey. Still constantly upgrading that set.

After that I remember buying 1968 OPC baseball, 1968-69 OPC hockey, and also 1968 OPC CFL football. Didn't know that last one would be considered a test issue until years later.

What I mostly recall is trying to do chores at home so I could get a quarter from my mom, and buy five packs of cards for that quarter. All from the corner confectionary store (called a depanneur in Montreal). Great memories...

1967 Topps bought at Sal's Stationary Store in Stamford, CT. My Dad would buy me one pack after church every Sunday. I loved those 67's and loved my Dad, unfortunately both are gone now.

1965 Topps Baseball
 

From Hiram Schwartz’ corner store in Milmont Park Pa.

This is one of the clearest memories I have as a child. The year was 1970 and I was eight. My Dad brought home a pack of cards and I remember pulling this card.

https://i.psacard.com/cardfacts/1970...646.jpg?h=1000

Knowing me, I probably traded it for a Nate Colbert card. :-)

Well, we did play against each other in Little League. :)

.

Love hearing these stories, I was waiting for Ted to chime in with his stories from his pulling cards from packs days!

Can only imagine the feeling of pulling guys like Mays, Mantle, Robinson, etc from a pack. I'm sure the feeling has remained the same for younger collectors today when they pull the stars from today out of a pack of cards!

At least back then though there was no "Prismatic Superfractor Diecut Serially numbered NFT variation." Simpler times, simpler cards, I'm sure. And for a hell of a lot cheaper too!

1975 Topps, and the pack had a Joe Morgan with that beautiful NL All-Star star in the corner. Traded it later that day for the 1975 Topps Johnny Bench that my best friend had pulled.
Dave

Gotten over the cards...hmmm. If you say so, Al.

1985
 

1985 Fleer from an Eckerd drug store in Florida while visiting my grand parents. Bought by my dad when I saw them and asked him what they were. Probably around 45 cents a pack or so if I remember right.

'70 Topps 4th series. Felipe Alou, Carew AS, Phillies Team, Billy Grabarkewitz, John O'Donughue, Tim Cullen. And a scratch off with Tom Seaver on the front. https://photos.imageevent.com/griffi...0Topps.tif.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/griffi...ge/70Topps.jpg

My first was a pack of 7th series '70 Topps Baseball. My mother handed it to me in the backseat of the family car on a long trip to Maine, to shut me up (& it did..). I stared at the Bud Harrelson card, which featured him signing a program for a fan.

Then next year ('71 Topps Baseball), the stuff really hit the fan. Boy those beautiful black bordered cards with the tremendous actions shots really gripped me, and still do today.

enjoying this post.

1. Shows many of our ages
2. Fun sharing some of the memories
3. Interesting view many have and share in this post

First Topps Pack
 

Back in 1967 or 1968, when I was 10 I bought my first packs of Topps cards at Hartman's Corner Store is Southmont (Johnstown, PA). Got a Bill Mazeroski in my first pack and became a life-long Pirates fan. Bought a whole box of cards after that for $2.40.

1967 Topps Baseball bought at Menard & Dempster Drug Store Morton Grove, Il. Tony Perez was one of the cards. also !967 Philidelphia Football cards.

I love it because it makes me feel so young! :D

It must have been either 1988 Topps or Donruss. I thought about buying a box and ripping them for fun and nostalgia.

1973 Topps at a corner store in Overbrook Park in Philly with 2 half dollar coins my grandmother gave me. I remember getting water ice and some cherry licorice and a pack of cards. Went back and opened them up and spread them out on the carpet and studied them. NO PHILLIES! Went back after dinner and spent the rest on more packs.

A few things:
I had no idea they were issued in series, so I spent a good deal of the summer only to get the same damn players, and no Mike Schmidt's!

Even back then I had a nose for numbers, and when I saw Rack Packs for the first time (at a 5 & 10 in the Bazaar of All Nations) I knew my cost per card had gone down considerably, of course sans gum.

At some point, my persistence paid off. I got my Schmidt! And I hated it! I traded as many as I could to non-discerning friends for Bowa, Carlton, and Luzinski.
I kept one that was sweet. I took it to a game in '85 in a bobo display holder (black border with 2 little snap in legs) and I showed it to Tom Foley and asked him if Schmidty could sign the holder. He said probably not, but could he take it to the clubhouse to show it around? The few that I saw him show it to before he disappeared, were laughing their asses off. After a while I started to get worried because batting practice was winding down, and by this point it was my prized possession. Luckily he popped out a few min later as security was trying to shoo everyone back to their seats. He thanked me (!) and handed back a beautifully signed autograph nearly the entire length along the bottom.
It was stolen in 1988.
I still have a good deal of my original cards.

Deertick that is a bittersweet story.

I was 9 years old in 1966 and I liked Mickey Mantle. I used to ride my bike with my friends to the IGA in South Jacksonville IL and buy packs two at a time. I bet I bought a hundred packs before I gave up, never did pull a Mantle. Of course I didn't know how the series' worked back then, by the time I started buying packs they were already done with series 1 and were selling series 2 and 3.

I did visit my cousins later in the year and they had some Mantles which they traded me for Mays and Rose cards so I eventually got my Mantle. They also had some series 7 cards because I traded for Gaylord Perry.

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