What is the first Baseball Card or Set you Remember?

[texmrsport]

1971 Topps. I was 9 years old and remember seeing a cello box pack with a Reggie Jackson peeking out on the front. I was a Giants fan but loved the green and gold on the A's. That was my first pack I opened. Still one of my favorite cards of all time along with the fearsome looking Willie McCovey from the same set.

[Jersey City Giants]

1978 Topps, in packs and the large vinyl sports cases (like 1 1/2 feet high and sports characters on the outside) that came with about 20 loose cards inside one of the slots (does anyone else remember those? Football and baseball?).

[dabigyankeeman]

The oldest cards I remember seeing as a kid is the 1955 Bowmans. I remember it because I thought it was the neatest thing, little color tv's, a real novelty back then!!!

[trdcrdkid]

I got very into collecting Wacky Packages when they came out in 1973, when I was seven years old. I was not yet a baseball fan, but I was aware of 1974 Topps baseball cards, which my friend Mark Alexander got a complete set of for his birthday. I became a baseball fan in 1975 and collected the MVP subset from that year’s Topps set, because I liked the old cards pictured on them, and I was becoming obsessed with baseball history. In 1976 I began collecting in earnest, including older cards, and in 1977 I collected the full Topps set for the first time.

[Ricky]

My first packs were 1968 Topps, but 1969 was the year that I really started collecting and went non-stop to the drug store to buy wax packs. I remember begging my mother for a nickel every day...

[Rich Falvo]

Originally Posted by Jersey City Giants

1978 Topps, in packs and the large vinyl sports cases (like 1 1/2 feet high and sports characters on the outside) that came with about 20 loose cards inside one of the slots (does anyone else remember those? Football and baseball?).

I definitely had the baseball one. I used one slot for each team. Loved those cases.

[shagrotn77]

1979 Topps/Burger King Yankees.

[tonyo]

1973, 3rd grade

I know I collected in 72 as evidenced by having most of the set from my childhood, but my first memory is of grouping the 73's by teams, laying a team out on the shag carpet in our living room in their positions on the diamond, propping the world book encyclopedia's up to form the outfield fence, Putting their Opponents in batting order, each batter's cards like a ramp off the floor and flicking a small wad of paper out onto the field, playing an imaginary game between teams.

Of course the Reds always won and Joe Morgan's card was the most ragged after a "season"

[Huck]

1972 Topps - We lived in Hawaii. I never completed the set. I still have the cards. All of the cards are from the first and second series. As a military kid, we played baseball, football and basketball. We just kept playing the next sport on the calendar. I don't know if my mind had shifted to playing football or the third, fourth and fifth series never made to the islands. While in college, after I was slightly over-served at a bar, I ended up at a 7-11 type of establishment. As I approached the counter with my armload of goodies, there sat in all its glory was a box of 1981 Topps. I said right there "I never finished the 1972 set but I am going to complete the 1981 set." I completed the set and kept going, although the card producing insanity of the late 80's, early 90's drove me away from completing sets.

[ullmandds]

The first cards I ever owned were a bunch of 1970 topps cards...I had maybe 40 and they were rubber banded by team and at a bbcard gathering at the library some girl had a 76' topps babe ruth card and I offered my whole collection of 1970 topps' for it...she said NO!!!!!! I don't know where I got those cards from?

1977 topps was the first set I completed and that I remember buying packs of.