The first cards I bought with my own money were 1986 Sportflics when I was ten or eleven. I think they had three player cards and two mini team cards in each pack. I believe the packs were like $3 a pop. Some day I'll get my money back on that investment
Actually, I still have them and like them, though they are a little gimmicky. They've held their condition much better than my junk wax cards of that era. I also had vey good luck buying them, in that the entire set was only 200 player cards, I bought 57 cards, and I only pulled two doubles (Joe Carter and Paul Molitor).
The first individual card I bought was a T205 Eddie Collins - the red one with his mouth closed. I grew up in Philadelphia, and when I was blowing off assigned readings from school I would often read of the old championship Mack Men teams and that drew me to buy that card a few years later.