Your first vintage card

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Posted By: Chris Mc

What was your first vintage card? Mine was a raw Hugh Duffy that I bought on ebay . I don't have the card anymore but will someday own another. Kind of like my first car, don't have it anymore but someday will own another. Is it the same for other board members? Does anyone still have their first vintage card?

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Posted By: bigfish

My first card was a 53 bowman color mantle. Found it in my parents attic where my dad said his cards were. There were only a few left that were in the floor boards. i ripped the floor up and got a hand full of 53 cards. Wish his box was still there though. The one i found spilled onto the floor and into the cracks. I still have it an won't ever sell it.

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Posted By: Andrew Parks

Mine was a T205 Arthur Devlin off ebay 8 years ago. There was no scan and the description said "...in excellent condition...nice corners..." I was an ebay and vintage rookie and decided to take a shot and won it for $35.00. I loved it so much I started buying the set. I eventually got it and many others graded.

The Devlin came back an SGC 70 EX+. Great buy! That one is long gone, though!

My second one was a Cicotte T205 again with no scan for $55. It was described as Excellent, too and decent shape. It came back a 50.

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Posted By: JimB

My first vintage (for me at the time) card was a 1960 Yogi Berra which I got in 1979 or so. My first pre-war card was a T206 Cobb red portrait which I got about a year or two later. Both cards utterly blew me away at the time. The Cobb sent me on the pre-war track which I have not been able to retreat from since.
JimB

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Posted By: jay behrens

my first old card was a 1956 Jackie Robinson. My first pre-WW2 card was a t205 Matty. My first 19c card was an n162 Caruthers.

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Brian E.

In 2002 while serving in Kosovo, I purchased a raw T206 Red Cobb off Ebay, it had an EPDG back and cost around $350. I sent it to SGC and it came back as a 40. Regrettably, I no longer have the card but it has a safe caring home with another board member. I found a replacement Bat Off EPDG earlier this year, but it's not quiet the same

Brian E.

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

I must have gotten a bug the weekend of January 14th and 15th, 1995. On Saturday, I bought a National Game John McGraw at a Parsippany, NJ card show and on Sunday I bought a T206 Jimmy Collins at a Mahwah, NJ card show.

A year later (January 19, 1996) I broke the 19th century barrier when I bought an Allen & Ginter Cap Anson at a card show in White Plains, NY.

I've still got all three.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Mine first pre-war card was a T206 Bresnahan portrait in gd condition bought from the Larry Fritsch museum in Cooperstown in 1991.Still got it and its a card i'll always have.I wanted a t206 back then for the longest time but that was before i ever had a real job.Best $42 i spent,the trip home which was a 7 hour ride i mustve looked at that card 20 times

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Posted By: Anson

I wish mine were exciting as the ones mentioned. My first prewar card was a T206 McBride.

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Posted By: Neal

My very first vintage card that I bought was at Hall's Nostalgia in Arlington,Mass. It was a T201 Mecca Folder of Lord/Dougherty and I remember paying $50 for it. This was over 20 years ago. I still own it and several other T201s. Love collecting!!!!!

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Posted By: Donald Miller

Back in 1987 everyone I knew wanted a McGwire(R),Gooden(R)or Mattingly (R). I had my cards from the 50's and everyone was in awe of my numerous Mantles. If you talked about T206's in South Dakota in the late eighties, you were talking"zero". Noone cared. I was a faithful subscriber to SCD and one week decided I would order a card from the classifieds. The man had several T206's in lesser condition and I picked Tris Speaker because he was a Hall of Famer. The price was eight dollars including shipping. I was happy when I got it. I was not overly impressed but still happy. The same week some antique dealer friends of mine showed me a card they had found in an old dresser. It was a "Yum Yum" tobacco card of Pud Galvin. They wondered if I knew the value of it. I told them to call a well known buyer from an ad in SCD. I did not see them for a couple of weeks but when I did they thanked me for sending them in a profitable direction. They had sold the card for 200.00. At the time I did not kick myself but I certainly do now. I could have bought the Galvin but I saved 192.00 buying the Speaker which I have to this day. I have purchased thousands of cards over the years but to this day losing out on the Galvin still bothers me the most.

Don(in snowy) Dakota

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

First card ever bought:


First 19th century card I ever bought (except I gave the first two Hoys away):



...I can't remember much of what happened in between, except trading my '75 Mini set for a Cobb, bat off (plus I had to fork over a fair amount of cash) at the San Francosco National...

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Posted By: brian p

I can't claim a first card, but I can tell what I got with the first $11.00 I spent toward vintage cards. At the first baseball card show that I ever attended, in 1981, I purchased the following Pre-WW2 cards (at the table just inside the door): a T206 Matty dark cap, a T206 W. Johnson pitching, a T205 Breshnahan, a T205 Wheat (Broadleaf), and a E98 Cy Young, all for $11.00. That was all the collecting money I had brought. They are in F-G condition (still got them all), and they set the tone for my future in collecting cards in lower grade.

Brian

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Posted By: Shane Killian

My first vintage card was a T206 Davidson with Tolstoi back

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Posted By: David McDonald

My first vintage card was a 1956 Topps Del Ennis. I acquired it and four other forgotten cards for a nickel in 1956. (They even threw in a piece of gum). I was six years old and I was hooked. The card had not attained the distinction of vintage yet although the gum could have been. Awful stuff, that gum. My first vintage pre-war card was a 1933 Goudey Dizzy Dean I purchased around 1983 from a card shop in Menlo Park, California. Ho! Did I get ripped off on that card! Two hundred bucks I paid but I thought I'd never see another one and I loved Ol' Diz from the Game of the Week.

The Dean resides next to my shaving kit in my manly man bathroom. The Ennis, alas, resides in some unknown landfill far away. (The image is taken from a card I just BIN'ed).

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Posted By: Josh K.

First vintage - 1971 Thurman Munson
First pre war - T206 Johnson Pitching

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Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

My first vintage purchase was May 26, 2005. Liked the way the card looked and got hooked from there.

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Posted By: barry arnold

My first was 206 hughie jennings 'dancing'. Back in 1981.
Still have it but only got it graded about 3 years ago---excellent.
It keeps me dancin'.

Barry

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Posted By: Matthew

When the guy at the card shop told me there was going to be a show at the local mall, I began to save my money. By the time the show rolled around, I had hoarded $40 (a million dollars for a 13 year old in 1984). I had been working on a 1970 Topps set & was hoping to score some needed holes in my collection. When I got there, I went to every table (all 15 or 20 of them ) looking for 70 Topps. At the last table there were 2 old guys talking & even though they only had 1 case of cards, they weren't like any I had ever seen. I can still remember being in awe of how many there were & just knowing I had to have one. When the 2 guys had a pause in their conversation, I asked if I could look at a card or two. After a long time, I finally picked out 3 that I could get with my $40. I didn't recognize any of the players so I just picked ones I liked. They became my first prewar cards & are still my favorite cards in my collection.

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Posted By: Anonymous

I started collecting when my brother heard of the set called "t-206" at the time i thought, what set is that?!?!(i was 17 at the time)so i went on ebay and saw allllll these awesome looking old cards. i started bidding on some, i saved 180 bucks from my job. i won rube waddell portrait, addie joss E93,Hugh duffy(tolstoi back), 2 Bresnahan's, Waddell pitching, Bender swinging, and about 30 other cards. Now i;m 21 and my collection is just tobacco and caramel cards. When i got these cards i wanted to research the players and everything. i learned alot in that time! and watching Ken Burns baseball

I live in canada (near toronto) and its soooo hard to get tobacco cards at shows. But just recently i found a creaseless Joe Tinker for $40 bucks. the guy didnt even know who he was,, he only delt in new cards. so i think its a vary unique type of collecting!!!! I'm have sent it out for grading, and i think it will be about a 4 to 6! but my love for old cards, will never change!!!!

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Posted By: David Vargha

First vintage - 1951 Bowman Carl Furillo
First Pre War - 1939 Play Ball Williams, Durocher and Waner

I sold the WIlliams rookie for $14 in 1979. It was NM or better.

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Some of the modern cards I bought as a kid are now vintage by some standards.

The first Pre-War card I bought was a 1933 Goudey Jack Quinn from Larry Frisch's catalog. Still have it.

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Posted By: John S

T206 Bill Bradley batting pose with a Cycle 460 reverse. I still have the card (not a bad investment considering I paid $3 or $4 for the card but I will not say how many years ago). I believe it was purchased from the Fritsch catalog.

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Posted By: Scot Reader

T206 Bob Rhodes, EX. $3.00 at The Baseball Card Shop in Claremont, CA cica 1981. Mark the owner had a large three-ring binder of EX T206 commons for $3.00 each regardless of back type. I wish I would have bought them all.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Not sure exactly when I got it, but I've had it for at least 30 years:

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Posted By: identify7

Apparently the term vintage has come to mean about 50 years old. I bought cards in packs in the 50s, so I have had lots of cards from this era which survived my youth (thanks mom!).

The first cards which I purchased which did not come with a stick of gum were two common OJs from Lipsett. I had held off a long time before diving in to this pre-war arena. But these were a must buy by 1983. A good @$35, and a vg/ex@$50.

These cards have not appreciated well. The good would currently sell for a little over $100. and the vg/ex at just over $200., I think. Not quite a stellar performance over the past 20+ years, but they were a "must buy" and they are still a "must keep".

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Posted By: Bill Stone

Started in 1955 when I got my first pack of Topps --I loved the aroma opening the pack and yes I liked the hard gum --but mostly I liked the 1955 Pittsburgh Pirates -I hate to think how many Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider and Yogi Berra cards I traded for my hero DALE LONG,and Dick Groat --and even Jake Thies, and Preston Ward but I did get Clemente ---and the only exception to my Pirates focus was our Burbank, California native son Frank Sullivan of Boston --we all wanted him in our collection. My first pre-war was a T210 Series 6 of Cornell ( Frankfort).

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Posted By: jackgoodman

It was the early 60's - saw an ad in the Sporting News for a subscription to the Sport Hobbyist. Every new subscription received a "free 50 year old baseball card."

I subscribed and with my first issue - there was an ex condition T206 neatly stapled inside the front cover of the issue. So much for condition concerns in the early 60's. Don't know what happened to that card, but have since replaced it with many others.

Also, still have several of their "famous card series" reprints that they used to send out.

Those were the days my friend..........

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Posted By: Glenn

First vintage card for me was a 1972 Kellogg's 3D Ty Cobb. First pre-war card was a T206 Matty white cap. Both were in poor condition. I don't have either one of them today, but I keep telling myself I'll replace them with higher condition specimens of the same cards someday.

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Posted By: Darren J. Duet

T213 Cobb bat off in G-VG bought in 1981 along with 7 other T213's. (for $100)

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Posted By: T206Collector

...a 1933 Goudey Lefty Gomez. A card store dealer in my very small hometown -- he was only there for like a summer -- sold it to me for $.50. I don't still have it as I traded it to a friend a few years later.

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Posted By: zach

My first vintage cards were my 56 Topps Koufax and Robinson. I love them to death and will never go anywhere. BTW I got these because my goal for my first collecting challenge was the 1956 Topps Brooklyn Dodgers.

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Posted By: Mike Campbell

48 Leaf Ted Williams. I didn't know what I was doing in the early ninties. I just know it was a beautiful card. Just sold it this summer.

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Posted By: Cat

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Posted By: warshawlaw

T206 Johnson ready to pitch. Cost me twelve bucks in 1977.

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Posted By: Marc S.

I think my first vintage cards were some Whitey Ford cards that my dad helped me buy when I was growing up.

I think the first purchase I made of pre-war was a T-206 Fred Jacklitsch PSA 9 from the Harris collection some years ago.

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

First pre war card was a T206 Wagner - Heinie, not Honus. Cost me $7 at a live mid-show auction in about 1980. Had a nip out of one corner.