What was the first baseball card you ever purchased?

[Piratedogcardshows]

I don't remember my first ever card purchase besides packs.My first prewar card purchase was a T206 Ed Killian Portrait.

[Jason Carota]

The first card I ever purchased was a 1985 Topps Roger Clemens rookie. I was eight years old (summer of '87,) and I paid $20 for it. It still resides at my parents' house, along with all of my cards from my childhood. One of these days I plan on sorting out what I have there. I'm pretty sure I could piece together a complete set of 1987 and 1990 Topps.

[LKeeler]

I remember the first pack of cards I bought, 1988 Topps. The first individual card was a 1987 Topps Bo Jackson from a card shop in Salt Lake. My first prewar was a T206 portrait Keeler, and it happened to be trimmed which led me to learn the different levels of crappy grading companies!

[HRBAKER]

A pack of 1966 Topps @ IGA.

[Wildfireschulte]

I went to my first "show" in a mall in 1989 after having read about the Billy Ripkin Fleer ff card (about 25 years after I had grown out of buying packs of Topps ). I ended up buying a beautiful 1962 Lou Brock rookie card - not sure why I felt the need to be reminded every day about the worst trade in Cubs history. Us Cub fans can be masochists sometimes.

[t206blogcom]

My first pack of baseball cards was 1988 Topps. My Dad brought it home to me and I had no clue what they were. I was unimpressed, perhaps because it was 1988 Topps. He had to tell me that collecting cards was something kids did and that he collected when he was my age. Then I found out some of my older friends down the street collected them, so I then thought it was cool.

Ever since I was 9 or 10, I gravitated to the older cards. When I saved up my grass cutting money, I'd buy old beat up 50s commons from a local card shop. I remember liking the old Bowmans the best and my prized card was a 1954 Bowman Pee Wee Reese, that I still have today.

I bought my first T206 after riding my bike around 10-12 miles up to a local outlet mall. There used to be a 'shop' in the middle of the mall, one of those stand alone stands. I bought a Schlafly and thought it was the coolest card ever. A week later, I went back and bought a Bush. I still have these cards and will never sell them.

[K-Nole]

1973 Topps Roberto Clemente.

I was in the 4th grade (without giving up my age, this was in the late 70's).
I was a big sports fan and I knew I had heard of him and knew he was a star.
A buddy of mine brought in his cards and I saw it and knew I had to have it.

So, I traded 2 unused NFL Pencils, AFC & NFC, for it.
Took it home and showed my Dad and he was really happy for me :-)

[freakhappy]

Originally Posted by K-Nole

1973 Topps Roberto Clemente.

I was in the 4th grade (without giving up my age, this was in the late 70's).
I was a big sports fan and I knew I had heard of him and knew he was a star.
A buddy of mine brought in his cards and I saw it and knew I had to have it.

So, I traded 2 unused NFL Pencils, AFC & NFC, for it.
Took it home and showed my Dad and he was really happy for me :-)

Best trade ever!

[albrshbr]

1973 Topps Mike Schmidt for $5 in 1980. I believe it was the only card in the set that Beckett listed for more then $1.

[midwaylandscaping]

First pack: 1978 Topps
First single card: 1974 Topps Steve Garvey

[ethicsprof]

50+ years ago but a '62 mantle for a dime stands out.

best,
barry

[Tomman1961]

My first show. 1980 at age 19. Montclair NJ. Bought big lots of 1955 Topps commons, and scoured through others looking for the minor stars. I'll never forget my next show.Meadowland, NJ. I saw a nice lot of 1960's Mets yearbooks and bought them. I tucked them under my arm. I had a small box to hold my cards. I bought 1955T Aaron, Mays, Williams, Bank, Killebrew, and others I do not remember. I tucked that box under my arm. The box must have slipped away from the yearbooks. A 7 year old girl ran up to me and pulled on my shirt. "Mister, I think you dropped this". I caught her Dad's eye and we shared a nice wink. I droped my 1955 T cards on the floor. Nice kid. Nice Dad.

[EGreenwood]

I started buying packs in 1978. As I recall, my first purchases were a stack of 65 Topps (Koufax on top, Drysdale on the bottom of the stack) for $5 and a 54 Topps Jackie Robinson for $5. This was circa 1980 at Wes' Hall of Fame in Paramount, CA. Still have the Robinson.

[howard38]

When I was very young I ordered the TCMA 1936-39 Yankee Dynasty set through an ad in Baseball Digest. It's really not a bad set but I was pissed when I realized the cards weren't actually from the 1930s.

The first time I bought a real card was at a comic book convention in NYC around 1976. I picked up a mint 1958 Whitey Ford for $0.35. I also bought a '63 Wilhelm for a quarter and a January '62 Mad magazine w/a drawing of two fighting Santas by Don Martin on the cover for a dollar. Those were the days.

[bnorth]

My first card purchase was in a guys basement. It was the only card shop we ever had in our little town. It was 1986, I was 17 and it was my favorite player Wade Boggs 1983 Fleer rookie. Not 100% sure, I think it was $15 at the time.

[kmac32]

1922 E121 Elmer Miller at the National in 1989 for prewar and back in maybe 1988 I started collecting all of the Chicago Cubs Topps cards including errors and variations