What got you started collecting cards?

[kmac32]

Originally Posted by Sean

I started in 1965 when my father gave me a pack of Topps cards. I still have one of them.
I didn't start collecting vintage cards until 2002.

Attachment 121055

Same reason I started. Mr. Cub

[daves_resale_shop]

My parents picked me up from summer camp. Once I got in the back seat of the car they handed me a brown paper back with 4-35 cent waxpacks & a small glassine envelope with 3-72 topps Redsox in it... Yaz, Tiant, & Kennedy.

To this day the 72 set is one of my faves, and there was nothing greater than plucking a Clemens, Eric Davis, & Dwight Gooden allstar from those packs!

[AndyG09]

I got my first pack in 1982. A cello pack with Darrell Evans on top. I still have that card somewhere. Around that time I had a neighbor across the street who was pretty much a shut in with bad emphysema. His wife would invite me in and Joe would show me his cards and some of stars out of the sets he had put together. He would give me cards once in a while. Some from the sixties, seventies and early 80s. He would finish up an oxygen treatment and reach for his cigs. Sadly, he didn't live much longer. My dad and I built an '84 Topps set busting boxes and I still have that set. I think Detroit was pretty much Mecca for card collectors. Shops and shows galore in the mid to late 80s made it easy. If only I knew then what I know now….

Best,

Andy

[wheitman]

Hi Tony. Please give my best to your Dad. Pat always was one of my favorite people in this hobby.

Bill Heitman

Back in the mid to late 1960's, my dad would give me 25 to 35 cents a week , I would go to the candy store right on the corner across from the grade school and the other one was a store like out of the 1930's with the candy behind the glass case, right by were my grandparents used to live. It was also spending quality time with my dad buying the older cards from the late 1800's early 1900's at flea markets.

[ullmandds]

ron...that must have been awesome buying old old cards like that at flea markets!!!!! I remember the local fleamarkets had 75' topps...that was about it!!!!

Originally from NJ the best flea markets were around the New Jersey, Pennsy border, Philadelphia area and Englishtown flea market the grave yard section that opened around 4:30 am Sat morning,

[Samsdaddy]

I don't remember exactly what got me started collecting but 1975 Topps Baseball was the first wax packs I remember purchasing. My best friend did not collect cards but I always was collecting something whether it was cards or comic books. The 1975 Topps set hooked me. I always was collecting my favorite team, the White Sox and in football it was the Buffalo Bills. It was a chance to collect my heroes.

Over the years I have had a fairly decent size collection to just a couple sets and some other odds and ends which is where I am at now. I would give cards away to my nephews or sell some stuff to buy other items not sports related.

And, as one person said on here, I guess I tried to get out of card collecting, but I have found, I cannot. It too is in my blood. Just when I think I am done collecting, I am drawn back in. Sadly, I am back in at a time when I am unemployed and hurting financially.

This will pass and in the mean time, I get my fix on this forum.

[the 'stache]

Chris, when I was a little kid, I spent a lot of time in bed. When I couldn't go out to play baseball, I read about it. And I read a lot. I am fortunate to have two parents that have always nurtured my desire to learn. They bought me books, and checked others out of the library for me so I could immerse myself in the game I loved.

Some of the books I read as a kid:



Before I reached ten years, I knew how to say Lajoie. I not only knew who the Milwaukee Braves were, I could rattle off Hank Aaron's lifetime stats. I knew Cap Anson was the first hitter to ever gain 3,000 hits. Joe DiMaggio was "Joltin' Joe" to me when my other friends knew him as "the coffee guy." I read everything I could get my hands on. When I was ten, the Brewers were in the World Series, and I was lucky enough that my teacher, Mrs. Travato, was married to a man that worked in the Brewers front office. Buying baseball cards just seemed natural to me. I got packs of Topps baseball cards in my Easter Egg basket. On weekends, my dad would drive me to the local card shop, and I'd ooo and ah looking at the Stan Musials, and Roberto Clementes in the glass display cases.

I collected until I was in my 20s. College and girls took my money and my time. But now I won't ever leave the hobby again. They can pry my baseball cards out of my cold, dead hands.

[Theo_450]

When I was 11 years old (1982), my old man produced a shoebox of 1100 cards from his closet. There were 300 prewar, and 800 1950s cards in that box. I was floored. We bought a "price guide", and hoped that one of the T206s was a Wagner, to no avail. Still, it was AMAZING to a me as a boy, and is still amazing to me as a man. I took care of those cards, placing them in binders and plastic pages. I poured over them, and read about historic players in the local library (from BOOKS). Remember books?

I learned about players that my child will not really ever have any interest in. Cy Young, Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Zach Wheat, Mordecai Brown, Walter Johnson, Sam Crawford, Eddie Plank, Frank Chance, Napoleon Lajoie, Fred Clarke, Rube Marquard, Johnny Evers, Tris Speaker, Hal Chase, Hugh Jennings, "Home Run" Baker and more...

I was a kid playing ball at the local Kiwanis field, and had a few cards from the late 70s. I began collecting cards in earnest from the 80s and 90s, and now I have some worthless shiny stuff, and a lot of great memories. I wouldn't trade all that for the world!!

BUT... I have some shiny stuff for trade, going cheap! I can't call myself a collector anymore, just an enthusiast, and a fan. I wish every collector here the best.

[campyfan39]

Wow Ted what an awesome experience that must have been. Glad you still have them.

[alanu]

I found my cards from when I was a kid around 1990, which was mostly a 1972 Topps baseball set and lots of late 60's and early 70's football cards and started trading for Clemente's and Ryan's, my 2 favorite players.

[Samsdaddy]

Originally Posted by Theo_450

When I was 11 years old (1982), my old man produced a shoebox of 1100 cards from his closet. There were 300 prewar, and 800 1950s cards in that box. I was floored. We bought a "price guide", and hoped that one of the T206s was a Wagner, to no avail. Still, it was AMAZING to a me as a boy, and is still amazing to me as a man. I took care of those cards, placing them in binders and plastic pages. I poured over them, and read about historic players in the local library (from BOOKS). Remember books?

I learned about players that my child will not really ever have any interest in. Cy Young, Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Zach Wheat, Mordecai Brown, Walter Johnson, Sam Crawford, Eddie Plank, Frank Chance, Napoleon Lajoie, Fred Clarke, Rube Marquard, Johnny Evers, Tris Speaker, Hal Chase, Hugh Jennings, "Home Run" Baker and more...

I was a kid playing ball at the local Kiwanis field, and had a few cards from the late 70s. I began collecting cards in earnest from the 80s and 90s, and now I have some worthless shiny stuff, and a lot of great memories. I wouldn't trade all that for the world!!

BUT... I have some shiny stuff for trade, going cheap! I can't call myself a collector anymore, just an enthusiast, and a fan. I wish every collector here the best.

What a great experience Ted. No one in my family ever expressed any interest in cards. Glad your dad did. Awesome memories you will always have with you.

[Piratedogcardshows]

What got me started is trips to the Price Club for boxes of Score Card packs with my Dad in the late 80's.I started again a few years ago after a random Ebay search and a T206 Killian portrait I bought.