[50sBaseball]

I started collecting with 1953 Topps Baseball with my older brothers buying me packs as I was too young (age 6 at the beginning of the MLB season) to go to the local Kingswood Drug Store outside Hartford, CT. I remember looking at the cards for hours and learning what teams were in the American and National Leagues by the color (red or black) at the bottom of the card. Still have my Mantle card. In 1954 I was allowed to go with my brothers to buy cards and we would open the packs the minute we left the store, with the colorful card backgrounds very attractive to a young collector. The drug store also sold the NY Journal American, and as a young lad interested in any image of MLB players, I would search the nearby bushes where the NY Journal American "cards" - actually pieces of paper - were discarded or fell from the newspaper. I have since sold many of those, but still have a few. I should have picked up more - for free! And those were the days before checklists, but my brothers and I would help each other with trades, not knowing exactly what cards may come out. And we traded with friends. I bought and collected until the 1960s set, then life had other priorities. I started up again in the late 1970s when our sons came of age to collect. Good times.