What got you started collecting cards?

[campyfan39]

This is a follow up to the enjoyable thread about the future of the hobby.

What was it that got you started?
For me it was in 1978 (I was 5) my Dad started being interested in cards from his childhood and my mom would bring home packs for us.
In subsequent years I was actively watching the Braves on tv with my Dad and I was playing ball myself. The concession stand at our little league field sold cards and I usually got some after games.

All thoughts/responses welcome!
This board is awesome!

[g_vezina_c55]

in 1991 a friend at the school show me some pro set hockey cards and the patrick roy mask CC2 from pro set 1991..

it is my start in the hobby and i collect since this time.

[insccollectibles]

Around 1986-1987 when my uncle introduced me to baseball card collecting. I started collecting vintage cards after recieving a T206 Wagner, Plank, Magie, Lajoie goudey, and one other reprint set. I remember seeing the $100,000 price tag on the back of the Wagner reprint and being a kid I was hooked.

[Sean]

I started in 1965 when my father gave me a pack of Topps cards. I still have one of them.
I didn't start collecting vintage cards until 2002.

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[Cardboard Junkie]

Around 53/56, I collected topps world on wheels and rails and sails then in 56 had to have davy crockett cards. But in the background of my memory I see my older brother, who was about 13 or so at the time playing with baseball cards, football cards and hockey cards. The first baseball I actually remember openning was 57 topps. By 58 59 60 I was into it big time and would buy them by the box. (From the milk depot) (a little woodfloor depot covered in sawdust and sold dairy and eggs.....had a small place on the counter with boxes of topps issues stacked 3 or 4 high.) (they always gave me a free glass 1/2 pint of milk....I would put a strawberry or chocolate "flavor straw" in it and sip on it while looking for Tigers......it was heaven.

[jbl79]

In 1988, my dad owned a small convenience store when I was younger and always supplied wax boxes of Topps, Donruss, and Score baseball cards. Every once in a while he would give me a couple of packs to open. Since I was a big SF Giants fan I would always try to find Will Clark cards since he was my favorite player. I didn't get into vintage until the mid 90s when I went to my first major show in SF. I was amazed to see all the Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle cards at all the tables. That's when I started to read up on the history of the game and all the great players. Once I did that, I've been collecting vintage cards ever since.

[quinnsryche]

Started in 1976 when my dad and his 3 friends opened their card store in Chicago. At age 10 I saw more cards than most people have ever seen total in their entire lives. Cases of Topps cards from the 60's & 70's, literally stacked to the ceiling, 3 deep in multiple storerooms. Tables in the store front made out of unopened cases of cards (3 high and 2 deep with plywood and fabric on top of them). Cabinets filled with complete sets of 50's - 70's Topps, 48 -55 Bowman, Goudey, etc. Put together a 1956 Topps set, hand picked in NM condition and sold it for $300! Tried many times over to stop collecting, just can't do it. I guess it's in my blood.

[kmac32]

Originally Posted by Sean

I started in 1965 when my father gave me a pack of Topps cards. I still have one of them.
I didn't start collecting vintage cards until 2002.

Attachment 121055

Same reason I started. Mr. Cub

[daves_resale_shop]

My parents picked me up from summer camp. Once I got in the back seat of the car they handed me a brown paper back with 4-35 cent waxpacks & a small glassine envelope with 3-72 topps Redsox in it... Yaz, Tiant, & Kennedy.

To this day the 72 set is one of my faves, and there was nothing greater than plucking a Clemens, Eric Davis, & Dwight Gooden allstar from those packs!

[AndyG09]

I got my first pack in 1982. A cello pack with Darrell Evans on top. I still have that card somewhere. Around that time I had a neighbor across the street who was pretty much a shut in with bad emphysema. His wife would invite me in and Joe would show me his cards and some of stars out of the sets he had put together. He would give me cards once in a while. Some from the sixties, seventies and early 80s. He would finish up an oxygen treatment and reach for his cigs. Sadly, he didn't live much longer. My dad and I built an '84 Topps set busting boxes and I still have that set. I think Detroit was pretty much Mecca for card collectors. Shops and shows galore in the mid to late 80s made it easy. If only I knew then what I know now….

Best,

Andy

[wheitman]

Hi Tony. Please give my best to your Dad. Pat always was one of my favorite people in this hobby.

Bill Heitman

Back in the mid to late 1960's, my dad would give me 25 to 35 cents a week , I would go to the candy store right on the corner across from the grade school and the other one was a store like out of the 1930's with the candy behind the glass case, right by were my grandparents used to live. It was also spending quality time with my dad buying the older cards from the late 1800's early 1900's at flea markets.

[ullmandds]

ron...that must have been awesome buying old old cards like that at flea markets!!!!! I remember the local fleamarkets had 75' topps...that was about it!!!!

[mets41]

I had collected as a kid (1960-64). I stopped in 1965 ("baseball cards are for kids") but I would buy 1 pack each year just to see what that year's design looked like. Whwn I bought my 1973 pack, there was a Clemente card (he had been killed the previous winter in the plane crash). At the time I had no clue how cards were printed so I thought it was odd that Topps had a card of a dead player.

[TheBig6]

I would say I started collecting Baseball cards around 1956 when I started playing Little league and became obsessed with the game.

One memory I have is from 1959. Major League relief Pitcher Bill Henry lived in my neighborhood and his son played on my Team. I for the life of me could not pull a Bill Henry from a pack of 59's. One day I bought a pack at the Utotem on the way to school and stuck them in my top pocket to open Later. Sitting on the can in Elementary school I remembered the pack and opened it and squeezed them like a poker hand, Walla Mr. Henry Cubs Card appeared.

Always making my mother Buy armour franks so I could get the coins, but it seemed like I always got Frank Malzone or Gus Triandos.

Going thru the Jello Packs at the store looking for a player you wanted on the back. Or having to endure Grape Nuts because a favorite player was on the box.

Just a few of the great memories of Collecting as a kid.

[Steve D]

Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what got me into collecting cards. Since I first started collecting cards in 1970 though, I imagine it was the fact that the San Diego Padres had just joined the National League the year prior, after having been in the PCL since 1936.

Steve