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[unamuzd1]

A highlight of many Christmases, when I was a kid, was finding that one box under the tree that looked like it would contain clothes, but instead contained plastic pages filled with early- to mid-50s Topps and Bowman cards. My dad's collection was stolen out of the storage unit beneath my grandparents' apartment some time in the 70s, and every year he would buy a few lots of cards from the era he remembered, which he would then split between myself and my little brother for Christmas. And every once in a while, he'd go further back, and put in some Goudeys or t-cards.

The cards I can look at and say, "Dad gave me that," are still some of my favorites.

[Harford20]

I have a genetic inheritance to collecting—everyone collects something in my family. I started collecting in 1974, and at that time, I split time/money between GI Joe’s and baseball cards. I tried hard to complete the 1975 Topps set, but the 1976 Topps and Hostess sets were the first ever completed. Tried to go to the local pool every weekday, just to complete the Hostess set. Now, I did play with them as well, at least the Reds and the Red Sox cards.

The 1977 and 1978 sets were also completed, as well as many “star” cards back to 1970, before disaster struck. My father and step-mother divorced, and as a casualty of war, the local dump became the owner of not only all my cards, but all my GI Joe’s.

I restarted collecting eleven years later, in the late 80’s like many. I again tracked back catching all sets from 1972-1993, when the “push” toward subset cards drove me away.

The third collecting stint started in 2001, focusing back on my childhood heroes of Johnny Bench and Ted Williams. Collecting Ted quickly led me back to nearly completing a 1955 Topps set and then the T205 and T206 cards caught my attention. I have been nearly an exclusive pre-war collector since 2004 (except for Ted).
There ya go, third times a charm.
Dave

[jrlebert]

My first real card collecting memory was at the old Holiday Inn shows in Torrance, CA, put on by Ed Biegel, who became a friend of the family. I was 6, and could barely see over the tables, but I knew all about cards because of the backs and all their statistics. I loved stats.

Flash forward a few years, and my father and I head to the show. 1993 Pinnacle just came out, and the Team Pinnacle inserts were in there. Frank Thomas had his, and on the back was Fred McGriff. I had to have this card. I was 10, and Frank was the center of my baseball world. As it was, he was the first player I followed over the course of his entire career, and will always hold that special place in my baseball heart. So lo and behold, my dad shells out $100 (!) and buys me the card. Oh, those were the days, before eBay and the like.

[swarmee]

My entry: Always loved opening packs of baseball cards when I was a kid. My dad loved to make things out of wood, so when I had too many cards to fit in a shoebox, he made me a 3x800 card wooden box to store them in. I would spend hours sorting them by team, set, player, etc.
When the '89 Fleer Billy Ripken card got out (I was 10), I showed it to my parents and told them they should invest in this card. It was about $50 at the time. They bought a copy and put it away for safe-keeping. When the card went up to $120 a few months later, I recommended they sell the card. They decided not to. It's still somewhere in their house. I learned the concept of a "fad" and "taking profits" that served me well when Ty Beanie Babies were popular: I made $2000 by buying and selling the retired toys and cashed out when I saw the first down arrow in a price guide.
Dad passed away last year, but I still have the wooden box and store some of my T51 graded card set in it! ;-)

[frankbmd]

There was a chubby nine year old kid, who was starting his 1956 Topps collection buying penny and nickel packs not far from home in Clearwater, FL.
In the spring of 1957 he got an autograph book and started going to Phillies spring training games after school. The elementary school was about a half mile from Jack Russell Stadium, where the Phillies were based in 1957. After school he rode his bike to the stadium and if the game was in the fourth inning or later, admission was free. After the game the kid would go to the visiting team's bus and solicit autographs from the players on their way from the locker room to the bus.

One day the Dodgers came from Vero Beach. After the game not one Dodger would sign for the kid on the way to the bus. The kid was dejected standing by the bus when a window opened and a voice was heard, "Hey kid, give me your book." Reluctantly the kid passed the book and ballpoint pen up to the open window. He then waited for what seemed like an eternity. He became convinced that the bus would leave and he would never see his book again.

Then the bus door closed and the engine started. Then the window opened and the book was returned. Imagine the kid's relief.

I still have that autograph book and can share some of what I found inside.















and another catcher



whose signature would change forever in less than a year.

[midmo]

[egri]

I got started as a fifth grader in the fall of 2005, after seeing a display at a silent auction that had the 2005 Topps card of ever member of the 2004 Red Sox and a picture of them celebrating. A few weeks later, at my local card shop, I met another collector, who gave me Bobby Doerr's address and that got me started on autographs. I was so excited to be writing to a major leaguer and teammate of Ted Williams that I forgot to include a SASE! Mr. Doerr was kind enough to fill one out and send it back to me. I collected for about five years after that, then took a break, and have been back at it for just over a year now.

Thanks for the contest.

[Stonepony]

Originally Posted by unamuzd1

A highlight of many Christmases, when I was a kid, was finding that one box under the tree that looked like it would contain clothes, but instead contained plastic pages filled with early- to mid-50s Topps and Bowman cards. My dad's collection was stolen out of the storage unit beneath my grandparents' apartment some time in the 70s, and every year he would buy a few lots of cards from the era he remembered, which he would then split between myself and my little brother for Christmas. And every once in a while, he'd go further back, and put in some Goudeys or t-cards.

The cards I can look at and say, "Dad gave me that," are still some of my favorites.

Nice

[GasHouseGang]

I started collecting seriously in 1977. The hobby was just starting to become a business and I collected the current set and started working my way back through the Topps sets. I collected steadily until 1990 until the production of all the various sets and subsets got completely out of hand. I just lost interest. But in 2006 I attended the National in Anaheim with a buddy and got hooked again. By this time I had some more money to spend and I decided to just collect what I like, not sets. I've even moved back into prewar, and now it's more fun than ever.

[D. Bergin]

When I was an 11-year-old 7th grader, I started a Baseball Card Collecting Club in my Middle School. Got the vice principal to announce it over the PA and everything. Got at least a dozen kids to join. We had a meeting in one of the classrooms after school once a week, trading cards back and forth, playing flippsies or knockdowns with the cards we didn't care about.

We instituted a dues policy and collected enough money to buy a couple of unopened boxes of new releases through an advertiser in SCD that we would split up between ourselves in an end of the school year meeting. This was around Spring of 1982 and Fleer and Donruss were still cool novelties to us.

When they finally came in my "friend" who helped me start the club decided he wanted to keep all the cards for himself. He gave everybody their money back and told them the cards got lost in the mail or they were out of stock or some such nonsense, throwing me under the bus in the process.

Everybody rightly lost interest and it was disbanded shortly after. It was a sad day for me.

Not a happy story I guess, but one I think about a lot concerning my involvement in various aspects of the "hobby" over the years. It was a mistake for me to not stand up to my "friend", and a lesson I hopefully learned from at a young age to carry over into my later life.

[Sean1125]

Originally Posted by unamuzd1

A highlight of many Christmases, when I was a kid, was finding that one box under the tree that looked like it would contain clothes, but instead contained plastic pages filled with early- to mid-50s Topps and Bowman cards. My dad's collection was stolen out of the storage unit beneath my grandparents' apartment some time in the 70s, and every year he would buy a few lots of cards from the era he remembered, which he would then split between myself and my little brother for Christmas. And every once in a while, he'd go further back, and put in some Goudeys or t-cards.

The cards I can look at and say, "Dad gave me that," are still some of my favorites.

Congrats, random.org chose you!

[bnorth]

A bunch of great stories guys thank you for sharing.

Here is mine. Back around 1975( I was 6) my much older cousin gave me his stacks of 1960-66 cards before he died at a very young age of a rare brain disorder. I put them in a drawer at my great grandparents house and never touched them for a little over 10 years because I couldn't have cared less for baseball.

Around 86 my little brother started collecting and I told him about my cards and we went and looked at them. I was amazed at how much the Mantle, Mays, and other cards where worth. Well long story short I found a person playing I liked and fell in love with collecting and baseball. From that day on I have been buying Wade Boggs items and whatever else has looked good to me.

I sold and traded most of the cards my cousin left to me except one beat to heck 66 Mantle that when I got it was mint and it is going nowhere.

unamuzd61 congrats on the $250 store credit from Sean!

[Jayworld]

I've posted this elsewhere on the forum over a year ago, but I thought it would be appropriate to re-visit for this particular post:

My mom never threw anything of mine out, and she supported me collecting cards (and helped me with my collection as a kid) by stopping at the neighborhood 7-11 back in the mid-1970s to pick up a few 25 cent packs. She even helped me by adding to my "savings" to purchase my first complete Topps set (without buying from packs) in 1979. I remember perusing Hobby publications, and the best price on a new set was from a "Leon Rock" for $9.99 plus shipping (whereas other dealers were $13 and up generally). When the set took a long time to arrive (over 3 months), I remember my mom always giving the seller the benefit of the doubt.

Years later, my mom was cleaning out some of her old purses, and she found an unopened pack of 1976 Topps baseball cards that she had evidently bought and forgotten to give me. This was in the early 90s. It was fun opening a pack of cards over 15 years old!

She passed away May 4, 2013. I still miss her.

[unamuzd1]

Originally Posted by Sean1125

Congrats, random.org chose you!

Thanks, Sean! This is a great thread. It reminds me why I fell in love with this hobby to begin with, and why I keep coming back to it.

And I know a couple of cards that my dad talked about having in his collection, that I'll be looking for in your store. They obviously won't be "his," but that's okay.

Thanks again!