How did you get started in the hobby

[BearBailey]

In 1983 my dad bought a box from a pharmacy he went too,each week he asked if me and my brother were good and if so he gave us a pack. By end of 1983 went to a baseball card show, Brooks Robinson was the autograph guest and couldn't have been better to me. That's how I got hooked, by 1987 I was mowing neighbors lawns and spending all of money on cards.

[tab]

I remember driving up to a gas station drive thru as a kid with my mother. She got her cigarettes and me a pack of cards. I would chew the gum and check out my cards. I then tossed them in the floor of her station wagon before getting dropped off at school(kindergarten). I had tons of 87 topps 88 donruss etc and on into the early 90's. i purchased a couple of wax boxes of 1987 topps baseball for me and my son to open together when he gets a little older. Just to kind of relive my childhood.

[horzverti]

Originally Posted by BearBailey

1987 I was mowing neighbors lawns and spending all of money on cards.

Me too. I mowed lawns from about 1983 to 1988. Three of every four dollars earned went toward my wax pack addiction, but I turned out ok.

[ullmandds]

I first starting buying packs in 1976...began buying complete sets in 1977. My dad knew a guy(mel solomon) in the hobby at our temple and I used to sequester his help to obtain cards I wanted. I once sorted 30 sets for mel in exchange for 1 free one to keep.

My dad would ask his coworkers if they had any bb cards at home from kids who had long left. In this manner I was able to acquire most significant cards from the late 50's-present.

I started attending shows in 80-81 or so...bought my first t205/t206 in 81...a matty white cap.

I sold my childhood collection minus a few cards in 86' to buy a beat up 76 chevy camaro.

Got back into it while in college buying 90-91 UD packs...then got into solely vintage.

[TobaccoKing4]

My dad got me into collecting as a kid but I got into prewar as a kid by playing a baseball simulation game on a website called whatifsports. You'd be able to make a team from players from all different years from 1885-current year. After playing it for a year or so I wanted to get a card of one of the old time players that I was using and ended up getting a T206 Delehanty of ebay. That started the madness.

[nickedson]

I bought my first pack of cards in 1959 and was lucky that my best friend's dad owned a "dime store" that sold cards. At the end of the 1960 and 1961 seasons, my friend's dad simply gave me the leftover Topps boxes he had. So that triggered my collecting interest. I set up at my first card show in Troy, MI in 1972 after my senior year in high school. If there was one "aha" moment in my collecting career, it's when I opened a pack of 1959 Topps and got a Detroit Tigers Red Wilson card. My mom and dad, who were teachers, made such a big deal out of me getting a Tiger that I was hooked immediately.

[CobbSpikedMe]

I started in the early 80's. Dad would take my brother and I to shows and I was in heaven with all those cards. I'd read Beckett religiously and was amazed that the Mattingly rookies were so expensive! Seeing them in person at shows was awesome back then. I'd get packs at a local indoor flea market where one of the vendors was a baseball card dealer. I got my 1960 Topps Koufax from him for $8. Still have it in my set today. I'd buy boxes from him and just loved ripping them open. Of course, every year my parents would buy me the Topps factory set for Christmas. Got out in the early 90's when too many different sets were coming out and I didn't like the designs anymore. Then got back in during college when I got my first prewar cards and was hooked again. Twenty years later and I'm still just as hooked as ever.

AndyH

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

I first starting buying packs in 1976...began buying complete sets in 1977. My dad knew a guy(mel solomon) in the hobby at our temple and I used to sequester his help to obtain cards I wanted. I once sorted 30 sets for mel in exchange for 1 free one to keep.

My dad would ask his coworkers if they had any bb cards at home from kids who had long left. In this manner I was able to acquire most significant cards from the late 50's-present.

I started attending shows in 80-81 or so...bought my first t205/t206 in 81...a matty white cap.

I sold my childhood collection minus a few cards in 86' to buy a beat up 76 chevy camaro.

Got back into it while in college buying 90-91 UD packs...then got into solely vintage.

Pete:

I stay in touch with Mel and he was walking around the National on Sunday -- do you want me to send you his email address

Rich

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Pete:

I stay in touch with Mel and he was walking around the National on Sunday -- do you want me to send you his email address

Rich

thats funny! i last saw mel at a national maybe in 95. He sold my childhood collection for me!!

[jmb]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

I sold my childhood collection minus a few cards in 86' to buy a beat up 76 chevy camaro.

Crazy ! I also got a 76 Camaro in 86 when I graduated HS.

I started buying packs in 75, but the 76 set is my favorite one from childhood.

[billyb]

As a kid in Detroit in the mid. 50s, we lived, breathed and dreamed baseball. I guess I wasn't a collector as a kid, just a saver. But the old story happened, went into military in the mid 60s, and parents threw my cards out.
I did not start collecting until 1984. I was working in law enforcement with Detroit, and was working a specialized unit that worked strictly on home and business break-ins. We got a call from a baseball card shop owner, and he stated his had some baseball card sets stolen and that he believed it was an inside job by a young employee. He asked us to help him find out from this employee, where the cards went.

Sure enough, the next day, when the employee came to work, there we were and got this young guy to confess his wrong doings and where he had sold the 1969 mint factory set. We went to the shop where the kid sold the cards, and the owner of the shop admitted buying from the kid. With a little convincing, the owner turned over the cards, and we returned them to the rightful owner.

In appreciation, the owner gave us each a new set of 1984 Topps and Fleer cards. I got to talking to him about cards my mother had bought several years prior, from a neighbor who came knocking on her door to sell cards, because he needed the money. I told him some of the cards were smaller then the others, and he stated they were probably 75 minis and to look for the Yount and Brett in the set. A couple days later, I looked at the box of loose cards my mother had, and there were cards from 1970 to 80 in the box. And more then a few. Sure enough, there was the Yount and Brett in this 75 minis which was about 75 % complete, as well as a Topps 1774 set also about 75 % complete. I had a ball going through this box of about 4 to 5000 cards with plenty of stars.

I met with the baseball card shop owner and told him what I had, and he invited me to an upcoming baseball card show. I went and I was hooked.
I got to see all the cards I had as a kid and their value, OMG.

It is a great hobby, and when I give kids some free samples, I tell them to put one in their spokes and to have fun with the rest.

[steve B]

I guess it depends on how much collecting counts as starting.

1969 - Bought one pack from the penny candy counter. Asked dad and he told me what they were and that they might be interesting. Got a Reggie Jackson, and dad said "hey this guy is pretty good".
1970 - No cards,
1971- one pack, whatever series had the coin. Danny Cater.
1972- no cards.
1973- Moved to a new town, and the kids I met collected cards, and did some flipping and trading. So I bought cards starting in maybe September.
1974- Got into it a lot more. And into sports in general. Aaron and the HR record, Mays retired the year before but was around for the WS. And the cards showing the older cards! And the Washington variations.

Got the same interest from the 75 MVP subset and started asking around. One kid got a 1968 Ed Matthews from his brother and traded it to me.


1977 Moved to a new town, and asked a kid on the cross country team with me if there was anybody with "old" cards. He said there was an entire store in the center of town. Stopped into Halls Nostalgia on the way home, and was amazed at the number of old cards. Stacks and stacks of them!
eventually that became one of my after school hangouts and they taught me a lot. As it turned out my first job was in the building next door and I got out about an hour before closing. Helped break vending cases into sets for store credit. Even though I moved away in 83 I came back to visit my friends in town and always left a bit of time to stop in.

I've had a few periods of relative inactivity, where I get into other hobbies, or go back to ones I was into before cards. (Stamps- started around 1967-68 same for coins. Was into cars for a bit in college, old racing bicycles starting about 1999-2000, and some dabbling in antique electronics and industrial stuff. Plus a load of stuff I just liked and bought)

Steve B

[Kawika]

I was hooked from Day One. Some adult gave me a small pile of Topps cards in the summer of 1956 when I was six. The vision sixty years later is as clear in my memory today as if it were yesterday. Amongst the cards I distinctly remember a '54 Ernie Banks and a '56 Del Ennis (cards long gone). Used to love the flipping games. Won a lot of cards that way. My Uncle Harry had a smoke shop in Brooklyn. A couple of times he gave me a box of '57 Topps. Imagine busting those packs today. I collected feverishly until 1960 when I switched my interests to Action Comics. Didn't get back into the hobby for a long time. Dabbled a very little bit in the eighties and nineties. There was a card shop on El Camino Real in Menlo Park called Papa's - some of you may remember the store - that I occasionally patronized. Hit things with a vengeance with the onset of eBay in the late '90s. Subsequently discovered Net54 and the card collecting community at large and here I am.

I made this little gif from some home movie footage. It depicts my wiseacre brother Dan "posing" for his imaginary baseball card. My sister Kini, unclear on the concept, is indicating that the extra point is good.

Darling Avenue, New Rochelle, NY 1957