How long you collected as a kid ?...

[CowboysGuide]

Great thread!

I can recall buying gas at our local Sunoco station and reminding my dad not to forget the football stamps! That was 1972, I was only 6, but I remember the Sunoco Stamps and the saver album vividly. I also remember the NFL Pro Draft game by Parker Brothers that contained cards from the 1974 Topps set. (Topps provided the cards for the game, but each card has a double asterick on the copyright line).
Actual card collecting came to me a few years later, probably 1976-78 is all that I collected. I had a storage box with dividers, and I sorted by teams. My return to the hobby was 1995 or so. I went back to my parents basement to fetch my childhood cards, and the only thing left was a single card in the bottom of the Pro Draft game box! I still have that card, and as beat-up as it is, I will never get rid of it.