How long have you been a collector?

[wolf441]

Started collecting in 1981. Spent waaaay too much money as a young teenager on 1980's Topps that I wish I had spent on vintage cards! My 1st T206 was bought in 1984, Ed Abbaticchio - Brown Sleeves for $4.00 at a card shop in Hyde Park, MA.

[chris]

I am 32 and have been collecting as long as I can remember. My first memory of cards is from 1985, opening a 1984 Topps pack after a tee-ball game.

[EGreenwood]

I started in 1978. The 78 set is still one of my favorites. Stopped in 87 when I went into the Navy. I was on and off until around 2000 when I started back up.

[vintagerookies51]

Started in December 09, so a little over 3 years.

[familytoad]

Beginning in 1970 at age 8. Had thousands of each sport, up to high school age. still have most of them.
Seems I paused for a few years in the early 80's but by the late 80's I got even crazier about cards.
Bought my first vintage HOFers in 1990.
What a ride since then...

[kmac32]

1969 started with Topps....then quit and started again in 1988 collecting all the Topps cubs. Started with vintage pre war in the early 90's collecting cards of my great great uncle.

[queencitysportscards]

Since the mid 80's...off and on the last few years, but building a T206 Cincy set now...really appreciate the vintage material now.

I will never forget going to my local hobby shop in Fairfield, OH and finding creative ways to pay for cards such as cutting lawns, washing cars, and doing chores to pay for my next pack of cards, not to mention all the card shows I went too (those were the good old days).

I will never forget riding my bike to the store and buying a 1989 Upper Deck pack and pulling a Griffey Jr. Rookie...too bad most of the cards I collected growing up aren't worth much today! That's why I am collecting vintage now...plus I am older and wiser and appreciate the history of the game and the story the vintage cards tell through cardboard.

Happy Collecting!

[DeanH3]

I started in 1983. I found a box of cards in the garage. They belonged to my order brother but since he had no interest in them he gave them to me. A Yount rookie was hiding inside and got me hooked. I migrated to vintage during the mid 90's then prewar in 2000. Here is the Yount card that started it all. I still have it.

[cincyredlegs]

Closing in on my 38th year. Started in 1975 at the age of 4 with my dad and brother. He came home with a box full of 73 and 75 Topps BB and we were hooked. Still have all the cards today.

Mark

[itjclarke]

My first packs were 1980 Topps when I was 3.

My first true collecting habits formed around 1987-88 when my friends and I started going to local card stores and the old Moscone Center show in SF. Been collecting ever since.

[ullmandds]

Mark...im no math whiz...but yours doesnt add up?!

[ethicsprof]

from age 10 to now, except for a wee bit of time in grad school.
Looking at nearly a half century.
Pre-war only since around '82 or so.
T206s for a couple of decades then type collecting, vintage photo collecting for
6 or 7 years now.

all the best,
barry

[Bosox Blair]

Since 1976. Hockey first - then baseball. Still collect both but almost all pre-war now.

Cheers,
Blair

[larrie804]

I started in 1950. The amount of time spent "collecting" has varied greatly over the 62 years. The primary interest has, for most the years, been the cards of my teens (1950-62). There were various distractions over time( . The pre-war cards unfortunately didn't become an interest until the 1990s.

[tonyo]

First year collecting was 1972 in 2nd grade. Baseball Football Basketball. All wax packs and rack packs and cello packs. I bought a couple of complete football sets from Renata Galasso in the late 70's but that wasn't as fun as buying packs. Went to a random show and or shop a few times, but either I didn't see any prewar or they just didn't catch my eye - too bad. I always enjoyed reading about the history of the game, but it just didn't occur to me at the time that I could actually buy and collect prewar. I did accumulate a short stack of post war vintage somehow but at that time they didn't really catch on in my mind. Just wasn't in the right place at the right time regarding vintage cards I suppose.

Collected pretty consistently in that manner thru 1996 when my first daughter was born. Tailed off pretty rapidly and by 2000 I was pretty much in collecting hibernation until 2009 when I randomly decided to buy an upper deck goudey blaster box at Target. Then I bought a Topps Allen&Ginter blaster. then another then another.

While putting together those two sets and the mini version of the A&G set, I happened across a 33 Goudey Travis Jackson on ebay and decided to it would be cool to have an actual 33 Goudey to match the 09 UD version. Also bought a T205 Merkle for a good price "for the fun of it", happened across Net54 and soon jumped on the slippery slope. I've spent way too much money on cards the last 3 years, but it's been a fun hobby and a great diversion!

[EvilKing00]

I guess sinceI was about 8 years old so, almost 31 years.

[Writehooks]

Coming up on 45 years. Concentrated solely on hockey cards in the late '60s while in elementary school, then switched to baseball after finding a stash of 150 '54 Topps inside a cookie tin in an old barn. In 1973 I read 'The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book
by Brendan C. Boyd & Fred C. Harris' and was hooked. By the mid-'80s I decided to focus on my favorite sport — boxing — and sold off most of my hockey and baseball collection to purchase vintage cards from the sweet science. The baseball stuff is long gone, and the only hockey I kept was the OPC WHA sets from the mid-'70s. Still buying, selling and trading boxing.