First year collecting was 1972 in 2nd grade. Baseball Football Basketball. All wax packs and rack packs and cello packs. I bought a couple of complete football sets from Renata Galasso in the late 70's but that wasn't as fun as buying packs. Went to a random show and or shop a few times, but either I didn't see any prewar or they just didn't catch my eye - too bad. I always enjoyed reading about the history of the game, but it just didn't occur to me at the time that I could actually buy and collect prewar. I did accumulate a short stack of post war vintage somehow but at that time they didn't really catch on in my mind. Just wasn't in the right place at the right time regarding vintage cards I suppose.
Collected pretty consistently in that manner thru 1996 when my first daughter was born. Tailed off pretty rapidly and by 2000 I was pretty much in collecting hibernation until 2009 when I randomly decided to buy an upper deck goudey blaster box at Target. Then I bought a Topps Allen&Ginter blaster. then another then another.
While putting together those two sets and the mini version of the A&G set, I happened across a 33 Goudey Travis Jackson on ebay and decided to it would be cool to have an actual 33 Goudey to match the 09 UD version. Also bought a T205 Merkle for a good price "for the fun of it", happened across Net54 and soon jumped on the slippery slope. I've spent way too much money on cards the last 3 years, but it's been a fun hobby and a great diversion!