Just for fun.... How many still have their first card?

[Mountaineer1999]

Here's mine... or one of mine as my brother and I only got one pack in 72 and Yaz was the lone star. This poor old baseball card came from hard beginnings surviving our musty little house and the wrath of a 5 and 7 year olds.

[Gr8Beldini]

Funny you should mention it. 1971 Topps... My first pack (or packs - my parents might have bought me two) I pulled Jerry Crider, Frank Johnson, and Aurelio Monteaguado among others that I don't recall, though I'm pretty sure there was a Pinella as well. Was just thumbing through a stack of childhood beaters and came across the cards (all but Pinella). Cool.

[nolemmings]

This one was not in the first pack I ever opened, but I would bet it was in the first ten:

[bnorth]

The last time I seen my much older cousin was when I was 6-7 yrs old. He gave me all his cards, around 3-400 of them. They ranged from 61-66 and included several types including Topps, Post, Batman, Monster Laughs, and a few others. I still have most of them. I got them around 1975 and they just set in a dresser drawer for 10/11 years till my brother got me into collecting.

EDIT: After seeing Todd's 66 Mantle above I have a sad/funny story. Most of the 66 Topps cards I was left were in NrMnt just pulled from the pack condition. In my early 20's I was dating a girl and her little brother who was in about 7th grade knew I collected baseball cards and asked if I had any Mickey Mantle cards. I said I have an amazing 66 Topps card. He asked if he could take it to school the next day and like a dummy I said yes. When I got the card back it looked worse than the one in Todd's post.

[DHogan]

The nuns in 3rd grade took all the cards that they caught us with in 1967. That could be why I've never seen any retired nuns around. My mother never threw any of my cards out. My father, he would throw my stuff out of the window.

[mrmopar]

I have all of my cards from childhood, but I don't have a "first" card that I can ID. I first bought packs in 1978, so it is one of many well loved 78 Topps baseball cards.

I'll show this because that is what I did to some of my cards then. The photo cropped a little funny, but it is a mini card, thanks to me cutting off part of the border.

[Collectorsince62]

Summer of 1962. I rode my bike to the neighborhood drug store and bought my first pack of cards. Guisti, McLish, Lemon, Gotay, and Horlen. I kept them together in a rubber band made from an old inner tube. The rubber band is gone but those five are still together and they mean as much to me as the most valuable cards in my collection.

[Volod]

Funny, the very first one is the only one from childhood I still have. Was walking down the hall in grade school and saw a kid slam his locker shut and hurl something at the floor. Walking past it, saw that it was a pasteboard card of a ballplayer i had never heard of. In fact, I had never heard of baseball cards at the age of seven. But, something about the tools of ignorance, the name Robinson and the sadness of his situation made me pocket the find. Studying the back of the card brought the realization that there were whole sets of cards that were issued every year. I stashed Mr. Robinson in a photo album where he remained until I found it more than 30 years later in my mother's remnants. She had tossed all of my other cards, but missed that one.

[hcv123]

The first cards I remember having were from 1972. I had a shoebox full of them. By 1975-76 I was much more into comic books and had started going to shows. I took my box of 1972's (pretty sure I had a Carew in there) to a comic book show and traded them for next to nothing. :-(

[Shoebox]

First pack of cards I ever received was a pack of 89 Donruss. I remember it had a Ryne Sandberg in it because I was a Cubs fan. I carried them in my pocket everywhere for the next week. Don't still have that card but still have a pristine example of the card in my avi that was pulled from a pack that first year as well.

[pawpawdiv9]

Yep, actually mine was a album/starter set from Sears at Xmas time. They were those TCMA all time cards of all the greatest players.

[Mountaineer1999]

These were great guys, thanks for sharing. There was nothing like opening up those fresh packs as a kid and hoping for a Stargell card.

[David W]

One of my first cards is the one with my User Name written on it.

In my circle of friends we all wrote our names or initials on the cards so we would not get them mixed up when we played with them.