What was your first set?

[ksfarmboy]

My first cards were 1977 football. I tacked the first pack up to the wall. A buddy of my dads soon opened a card store and I learned the value of cards were based on condition. Broke my heart I ruined my cards by pinning them up. I ended up getting many more and completed the set. I still have the original cards with the tack holes. I worked at the card shop and was his first customer. We were too late for the 77 baseball packs but I opened a ton of Star Wars, basketball and football. 1978 was my first year collecting baseball and I had the set. Yaz was extremely tough and I did get one but unfortunately left it at a friends house. I never got another one out of a pack but bought one later. Opened lots of 79s but 1980 was my heyday. I have about 8-9 sets from packs. I even knew the collation from opening so many. Working at the shop one of my jobs was opening a case of cards and sorting them by numbers and pulling the big stars. I chewed so much gum and it was a great job. I still remember the owner reaching into a filing cabinet of 55 Bowman baseball commons, grabbing a huge stack and giving them to me for working a full day. Man I miss those days.

[commishbob]

My first set chase was the 1960 set and i seem to think I finished it that year. The first cards I ever saw were in the hands of a girl in my Long Island neighborhood in 1958. I was becoming a baseball fan at the age of 7 and those colorful cards made a huge impression on me. the next year I got some packs of '59s in my Easter basket and a hobby collector was born.

In 1960 I set out to gather as many cards as I could and saved every nickel I could for that purpose. I earned some coins doing chores and spent them all on cello packs at EJ Korvettes on every shopping trip my folks took me on. We lived near my Brooklyn-based grandparents and every weekend we were there and just down a block or so was a corner candy/news/cigarette/soda fountain that my grandfather would walk to every morning for the paper and a pack of Camels. I never left that place with a few packs of cards.

My best source was probably my uncle's pharmacy over in Bergen County, NJ. More than once he brought me a full 20 pack box.

The 1960 set doesn't get a lot of love from collectors but it still holds a place in my hobby heart. I rebuilt it just a few years ago and it was a very nostalgic and fun chase. I was reminded of how much i loved those orange rookie cards. Something about them impressed me and I've never lost that love.

And the backs, especially the ones printed on the cream colored stock, are among my favorites of any card backs. Love this set.

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[mortimer brewster]

In 1978 I was in a local bookstore (ullbrichs) in Buffalo NY and I picked up the history of baseball cards book by Clark. I started looking at the pictures and I got bit by the collecting bug. Purchased the book and occasionally take it off the shelf and thumb thru it. It's pretty beat up

I went home and ordered the 1977 and 1978 baseball card sets out of the Sporting News. I believe it cost me 27.00 PPD. I remember many of the cards being miscut, especially the 1978 Murray rookie. Been collecting ever since, I never really stopped.

My first set was actually 1971 Topps football. Collected the cards in the fall and when football season ended I took my cards to the playground at school and threw them up in the air and watched the little kids run after them.