First Pack of Cards

[Yoda]

Time to publicly out ourselves age-wise. What was the first pack of cards you opened and do you remember any cards contained therein? I will start with the 1951 Bowmans when I discovered a Nellie Fox rookie (long gone). Trading, after shuffling the cards with greasy kid fingers was the only way to get favorite players. There were no TPGers, no auctions and we only had our meagre allowances to pursue our passion. Different era.

[yanks87]

1987 Topps, my mom grabbed a pack for me when we were picking up subs from the Shortstop Sub shop in Ithaca, NY. Got a Dave Righetti, still have it around somewhere, along with 17,897 other 1987 cards.

[vthobby]

1976 Topps Baseball @ .15 per pack. Told my mom I needed $1.05 for school lunch or milk.....went hungry for a week! lol

7 packs = $1.05

Got a Rick Rooster Burleson as 1st card and became a Red Sox fan!

Peace, Mike

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[vthobby]

Originally Posted by yanks87

1987 Topps, my mom grabbed a pack for me when we were picking up subs from the Shortstop Sub shop in Ithaca, NY. Got a Dave Righetti, still have it around somewhere, along with 17,897 other 1987 cards.

Such an exact number! Sounds about right, I have 5000 ct boxes full in my basement of 1987 Topps Baseball also! ugh

Mike

[obcbobd]

1967, age 5. I walked to the corner store with my dad and sister. I bought a pack of Red Sox Stickers. I think my sister bought The Monkeys cards. My sister dropped her gum and my dad picked it up, took it home, ran it under water and gave it back to her.

One of the three stickers has survived childhood; it spent many years on my Mickey Mouse Club toy-box.

[mrreality68]

1976 Topps and with friends and each got our first packs.
Opened and I had Bobby bonds and Dusty Baker and a few others.
My friends had gotten like Seaver, George Brett and Dave Kingman.

I wanted me some King Kong Kingman. But we never traded.

We always flipped cards for them.

All day long we flipped and I lost most cards only going home with 3 or 4

I do not remember which cards I brought home but they all ended up in the spokes of my bike.

[Leon]

It would have been 1966 or 1967 Topps. That was a while ago. I still can't believe I turned 60.....
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[Piratedogcardshows]

1990 Score by the boxfull lol.

[butchie_t]

It would have to be 67 or 68, and no memory whatsoever of who. As for the store, 7-11 was right down the end of our street in Maryland.

Dangerously close actually. Loose change never made it far from the 7-11 and if it did, it was across that street to the Peoples Drug Store.

[ASF123]

1986 Topps. I don't remember the specific day or pack, though.

Last winter an eBay seller included a 1986 Topps pack as a bonus with the cards I bought. I was surprised at how powerful the nostalgic feeling was when I opened it. I learned about baseball, the players, the teams, the uniforms, the history, etc. through cards, and opening that pack brought back exactly that feeling of discovery.

Didn't try to chew the gum though.

[Vintagevault13]

1974 for me. Growing up in Georgia, we were excited about the upcoming season and the prospect of Hank Aaron breaking the Babe's record. My dad brought a Street & Smith's (with Hank on the cover) and a few packs home to me one day. I was instantly hooked. I don't remember the first cards, but I do recall how cool the Tom Seaver and Jon Matlack actions shots were.

[Peter_Spaeth]

65 Topps from the local 7-11.

[steve B]

69 Topps.
from the small town pharmacy/store.

Opened it with dad sitting in the car, and he said one guy was pretty good.
Reggie spent a few years in the toybox through a move until he was "rescued" in 74 when I really got into cards.

Still have that one.
Maybe a couple others from that pack.

Plus the Danny Cater coin from my second pack in 71.

[GasHouseGang]

1966 Topps Batman. I don't remember if I bought any baseball packs. If I did, I just don't remember.

[Seven]

Probably some mid 90's junk wax, I can't recall a particular "Pack" that I bought first.

[jcmtiger]

1952 Topps, don’t remember any of the cards

[25801wv]

1987 Topps Football. Next was 1988 Donruss Baseball.

[Mark]

I was 5, and I remember that it wasn't baseball season. I was in a small grocery near Sewickley Pa., and I saw packs of baseball cards in cello packs. They were hanging on a rack. One had a Pirates player on the front, Johnny Logan, so I persuaded my dad to buy that one for me. I still have about a dozen of those 1963 Topps cards somewhere in my accumulation. Thanks for asking: a really nice memory.

[D. Bergin]

1976 Topps Rack Packs.

One of my uncle's bought me a bunch of rack packs when I was over my grandmothers house. I remember being disappointed they were 76's, because I knew the 77's were out by then, and Reggie wasn't in a Yankee uniform in the 76 set. I don't think I got any Yankees I recognized in those packs.

I think I got a Bobby Bonds, and I was like "who is that?". My uncles told me, he was pretty good, but he's not on the Yankees anymore....but they did get Mickey Rivers for him. I was like "great, but why is Mickey in an Angels uniform?" LOL!

Maybe they were out late in 77 because Topps was behind schedule airbrushing a Yankees cap onto Reggies card.

Got my 77's in due time, and was ecstatic with that design. I think I held an irrational dislike of the 76 set through most of my childhood and even part of my adulthood. I trace it all the way back to that day.

[Jayworld]

1975 Topps
Remember it containing Danny Frisella and Chris Cannizzaro, both Padres, and both with poorly airbrushed caps/uniform tops.

[Hxcmilkshake]

1979 baseball rack packs from Brownstone Drug, Portland CT

they also sold leftover 1978 rack packs at the same time! *mindblown*

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[egri]

Not counting older packs that I bought years after they were issued, 2005 Topps. They came in 35-card packs for $7, which I thought was a great deal at the time. In retrospect I wish I had put that money into vintage instead. I remember pulling Johnny Damon, still in a Red Sox uniform, a couple days after he signed with the Yankees.

[Jim65]

1975 Topps

[bobbyw8469]

I remember opening a pack of 1981 Topps and being excited because it had a Fernando Valenzuela rookie card!!! I also remember opening a ton of Wacky Packages cards. And Planet of the Apes.

[sb1]

1968 Topps Football....Bill Glass seems to stick out.

Next year 1969 Topps Baseball 1st Series can vividly remember that every other pack seemed to have an Al McBean card. As a 10 year old, had no idea who this guy with no cap on was....but I had a lot of his cards, as the packs were still a nickel and a dollar every saturday bought a lot of cards.

[Harliduck]

1979 Topps...my mom brought home a pack for my brother and I. My first card was Reggie Jackson...who promptly became my favorite player at the time. I was disappointed to not get any Mariners cards...and jealous my brother got a Rick Honeycutt! Still have my childhood 79 set.

Much like Hxcmilkshake...a while later my mom came home with some 78 packs she found at a slower little store...MIND BLOWN as well!

[ChiefBeef]

1964 Topps. Seems I remember a Kaline early on. Didn't get too many. Store sold out and allowance was slim. But, '65 was a different story and is still the childhood set to remember. Pinned or taped at least 6 Mantles on the walls and back of the door. Ugh!

[Leon]

Where's Teddy Z.? I think he pulled some N172s!

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[Mark]

Found a few of the first ones from the cello pack that my dad bought for me. The first cards I collected were cut from the back of Post cereal boxes.

[commishbob]

I discovered cards in 1958 through a friend who lived in my Long Island neighborhood. I was immediately transfixed by them.

In my Easter basket the next spring I got packs of 1959 Topps and for some reason I recall getting Albie Pearson in those packs.

[jingram058]

Was early summer of 1967 while visiting my sister who was living in Dallas, Texas at the time. I was allowed to buy several Topps wax packs at the Safeway near the Four Seasons apartments where she was living at that time. They would have looked like this, I imagine:

[rand1com]

I was 8 years old and the first pack was 1964 Topps from a local 1960's convenience store named Ellison Grocery in Kings Mountain, NC.

My dad who was a huge baseball fan would buy me boxes when they came in. Cost was a nickel a pack or $1.20 for a 24 pack box. Seemed expensive then. Of course gas was as low as $.179/gal. Five cards per pack + 1 coin as well as I remember + that wonderful piece of bubble gum.

Certainly don't remember which cards came from first pack but I was ticked that I kept getting Mickey Mantles instead of Willie Mays. Had no idea that the boxes I kept opening were first series and Mays was not in it.

[frankbmd]

56 Topps

No idea what cards, but I ended up buying probably a couple dozen nickel packs in ‘56 and never got a Mantle.

[Klrdds]

1968 Topps and opened the pack and pulled the Bob Gibson World Series card of him pitching against Boston . Image looked like a TV screen in black and white. Gibson was my favorite player on my favorite team... I was hooked .

[carlsonjok]

I don't really remember my first packs of baseball cards, but I do have very distinct memories of the 1974-75 hockey stamps that they would give out at Loblaw's grocery stores.



Even though I don't follow hockey anymore, I still have a soft spot for these stamps. I have finished the album three times as an adult and have enough stamps to make a good run at finishing three more if it wasn't for the 20 short prints.

[ocjack]

1958 - still remember the orange Tony Kubek in the pack. Can't remember any of the other cards - but he was a Yankee and that was my team.

[Tao_Moko]

1978 at Vilmure's grocer in Decatur, IL

[RL]

1963 fleer

[Carter08]

A few people have this but also 1987 topps for me. Love that set. But I remember feeling really baller when I opened 89 upper deck and 90 score.

[Pat R]

1974 topps I still have some of them along with some older cards I won flipping.

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[Al C.risafulli]

I'll never forget it. 1977 Topps, my mom bought them for me. She gave me the pack while grocery shopping. I didn't understand what they were. She tried to explain that they had cards of all different players, and you could trade them with your friends until you got all the ones you liked, or the full set.

I had no clue what a "set" was, or anything. But I opened that pack, and inside there was a Rod Carew. To me, 8 years old or whatever, Rod Carew was the greatest player on earth, and that card was BEAUTIFUL, with the camera focused on Carew with the blurry player in the background, and "A.L. All Stars" emblazoned across the bottom of the card. It was fantastic, and it had all his stats on the back!

I was hooked. Baseball cards were all I thought about when I was a kid, 8-10 years old. I'm glad I've gotten over them.

-Al

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by Pat R

1974 topps I still have some of them along with some older cards I won flipping.

Attachment 485637

Flipping isn’t what it used to be.

Have we evolved or devolved?

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

Flipping isn’t what it used to be.

Have we evolved or devolved?

I guess what we usually played is technically called tossing.
http://www.streetplay.com/thegames/baseballcards.shtml

[bmattioli]

I remember 7 packs for a dollar, the kid across the street getting a 1971 full Topps box, digging through the Kelloggs box to see what I got and Hostess cards with yummy Twinkees and other good stuff.. My first pack memory is long gone..

[Stonepony]

1970 Topps baseball from the TG&Y

[talkinbaseball]

I remember buying 67 topps baseball at a store in Old Lyme, CT at Sound View beach. I was 9 years old, and like Leon said, I can't believe I'm turning 65 this week.
Thanks,
John

[realbigfatdog]

Although I had a stack of 1985 Topps baseball, I don't remember buying or opening any packs of them. My dad had an old Phillies cigar tin box, and inside he had stacks of 1985 topps and fleer, so he probably bought them (feeling nostalgic at the time himself, no doubt) and gave them to me. However, I vividly remember buying 1986 Topps baseball packs, and even more, 1986 Topps football packs. Cello packs, to be specific. The local Quick Check or Krausers stores in Hopatcong, NJ were my go to spots. I also remember buying the Topps sticker albums for both baseball and football and lots and lots of those packs as well, though I never completed either one. Lol.

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[drcy]

From the cards I had as a kid, my first pack would have been 1977 football. First baseball pack would have been 1978. Would buy them from a local family grocery store.

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by Leon

Where's Teddy Z.? I think he pulled some N172s!

.

Hey Leon
You are off a year, I pulled this card out an 1888 OLD JUDGE pack .......... my favorite set in my collection.



SERIOUSLY speaking............I pulled my first BB cards from the BOND BREAD packages in the Summer of 1947.



1947 Homogenized BOND BREAD wrapper





Here are Yogi Berra, Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Ralph Kiner, Bobby Thomson (any of which were my 1st BB cards). These are their true "ROOKIE" cards.





TED Z

T206 Reference
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[MK]

My first pack was in 1959 which my Mom bought for me at a pharmacy. I don’t remember any specific cards from that pack but it did start my journey (addiction). Several years later my Mom made an amazing find at a garage sale and purchased me thousands of cards from 1951 through 1958. I was on the receiving end of the “mother got rid of my baseball cards story”.