Looking back...

[Vintagevault13]

Great thread. My best memories are from 1974 when I was 8 years old and just beginning to collect baseball cards. This is a special memory because I kept them at my grandmother's house (so my little brother wouldn't bother them!). I can remember spending countless hours sitting in the floor at her feet going through the cards and absolutely absorbing the stats on the back. On Saturdays she would take me with her shopping and buy me some packs at the local Woolworth's store. I still remember the anticipation of getting back to her house to open the packs to see what I got. This was a time of pure collecting innocence as I had absolutely no idea that these cards held any value to anyone other than me. It wasn't a business or an investment, it was just a wonderful hobby that let a small boy from Georgia visit ballparks and meet players in my imagination. To this day I almost feel like I personally know the players from the mid-70's because of what I learned about them from these cards. My grandmother passed away last year and these "baseball card memories" have provided me with a wonderful connection that I will never forget.

[dabigyankeeman]

Hey Mike, I have a few things I remember from childhood. I remember even as a kid spending every penny I had on cards. I remember when the 1955 Bowmans came out how neat it was that they looked like little color televisions! This is the oldest set I remember, I was 7 at the time. I remember selling a model ship to another kid and using the money to buy packs of cards. I remember when none of us kids could get a Stan Musial card (we didnt know there werent any) and one kid claimed he had one and we went to his house to see it and he seached and searched but couldnt find the non-existant card!! We flipped them and put them in the spokes of our bikes, had fun with them, all the cliche's are true, we did those things. And of course ultimately my mother threw them away.

I bet a lot of the cards I have been buying the last 30 years are cards I owned as a kid growing up in New York!!! I also wish I had someone to sit and share my cards with, but never had any kids, and none of my friends are into the hobby! Oh well, I love the cards anyway, and have my whole life.

[Sean]

I started collecting cards when I was seven. I collected the 1965 Topps set. My father gave me my first cards, and after that I spent what little money I had on packs of baseball cards. They were 5 cents for a pack of five cards. For some reason it seemed like every pack had a Gary Bell card in it.

Back then my friends and I always searched for Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or Sandy Koufax. I got a Mays and Koufax, but not the Mick.

A few years later my cards were thrown away when we moved. I only have one card left from my childhood:

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[Rich Klein]

when you traded the Aikman RC for the Canseco -- I'd bet that was an 86 SF Canseco you traded for and if that was the card with Mike Greenwell on the card, that was a pretty sweet card back then. That was when that was Greenwell's only 86 card and we all thought he had a great future based on his early years/

Just goes to show, you never can tell as Chuck Berry sang.

[baztacula]

I was always obsessed with 1975 minis when I was a kid. I began cobbling together a set in the late '80s and early '90s. One day a friend of mine told me that his sister had some '75 minis in their basement and that they were probably perfect because he remembered opening packs with her when they were kids. He explained that she would carefully remove the cards from the wrappers and then gingerly place them in a box which she never opened again. This really got my attention. Soon after hearing this intriguing story, while I was playing softball with that friend, I saw his sister sittinig in the stands, watching us play. Excited, I nudged another teammate, who apparently wasn't all that interested in baseball cards, and pointed at the bleachers and said, "Do you see that girl over there? She has minis!" He looked at me strangely and then silently gazed over in her direction. After a few minutes of confusion and me blabbering on about how much I craved her wonderful minis it dawned on him. "Are you talking about baseball cards?" When I nodded yes, he responded, "Ohhhh, I thought you were talking about her boobs."

[ATP]

Being born in the late 1970's and a child of the 80's collecting culture, I couldn't wait to get each months Beckett. I have always been a numbers person, and I would pour over that thing each month seeing what went up and what went down (I think they used to use plus and minus symbols, and then arrows if I am remembering correctly). And then wow, if a card you had ever went into bold type then you really new you had the key card. I think part of the mystique for me back then was that I really had very little access to vintage cards from my local store. I knew what the sets looked like, and could recognize the key cards, but I had no idea what a 1959 Clemente looked like unless I saw a photo in a mail order catlog, Beckett article, or happened across one in person. Money was different back then or course as well, so seeing a card worth $50 seemed out of this world at the time.

[DHogan]

I remember being in 3rd grade at St. John's Catholic school in Worcester Mass. in the late 60's and trying to trade cards at recess time. Or, if the nun's minding the school yard at recess saw anyone with cards in their hands worse yet playing flipping card games against the school building. They would come over and take everyone's cards away and never give them back. I guess they considered it gambling !


A strange thing was, that no one wanted anything to do with rookie cards. Kids would give them away or even throw them away !

[z28jd]

When I was about 10, I bought a Willie "Puddin Head" Jones card and I thought that was one of the best cards at the time because my dad still used his original four-fingered glove when we played catch. The glove was from when he was a kid and it had a facsimile autograph of Jones. It was beat up, but he could still use it and he still has it to this day, though he eventually bought a new glove.

Not only was the nickname cool to me, I spent part of my meager allowance to get the 1960 Jones card for my dad, so at the time I thought it was a big deal.

[vintagechris]

I discovered cards in 1980 at the local mall where my Mom worked. After discovering them and buying some for myself, My Mom would bring home two packs of cards for me everyday from work. She did this for 7 years.

I'm still at it after all these years and even though my Mom passed away in 2009, I give her lots of credit for my collecting bug and the enjoyment I get from cards. Thanks Mom! You were the best!