What was the card that started it for you?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by mcreel

1984 Topps Mattingly RC.

As a kid it was 67 Topps Bill Mazeroski. As an adult it was the 84 Topps Mattingly and Strawberry cards that brought me back as a serious collector with money to spend.

[carney22]

It was the 1967 Ken Berry card . . . I was 10 years old, just starting to follow baseball. The first series had just come out, so it was probably April. As all of us grade schoolers were milling around in front of the school, waiting for the doors to open, a friend of mine who'd been collecting for a couple of years and had a stack of '67s in his possession, showed me the Berry card. A posed swinging shot, big blue sky in the background, along with the stadium's outfield walls and other players out for batting practice . . . It had "WHITE SOX," my adopted team, written in big, deep purple letters across the bottom and a (gasp!) facsimile autograph. It was beautiful. I started collecting soon after, and have never looked back . . .

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by carney22

It was the 1967 Ken Berry card . . . I was 10 years old, just starting to follow baseball. The first series had just come out, so it was probably April. As all of us grade schoolers were milling around in front of the school, waiting for the doors to open, a friend of mine who'd been collecting for a couple of years and had a stack of '67s in his possession, showed me the Berry card. A posed swinging shot, big blue sky in the background, along with the stadium's outfield walls and other players out for batting practice . . . It had "WHITE SOX," my adopted team, written in big, deep purple letters across the bottom and a (gasp!) facsimile autograph. It was beautiful. I started collecting soon after, and have never looked back . . .

Great set to start with. Unfortunately for me, '67 was a decade before I arrived on this earth. So now I'm in my 40's and just now for the first time seriously starting to get into '67s...lol

[jason.1969]

As a kid, my favorite old-time baseball player was Ted Williams. When I was about 10, my mom's friend got me an early Beckett/Eckes price guide that had pictures of two Ted Williams cards--

• 1954 Bowman Ted Williams
• 1959 Fleer "How Ted Hit .400"

One was of course on a special page with pictures of the world's most expensive baseball cards, and I can't remember where I saw the other, but I was thrilled to see it was one even I would be able to afford if I ever came across it.

It took nearly ten years, but I finally picked up my first Ted at a card show in college. It was his absolutely glorious 1957 Topps card. I paid $20 for it, which back then was a small fortune to me, but I pretty much carried it around everywhere I went. If I recall correctly, I was also able to nab "How Ted Hit .400" at that same show for only $4.

Although I owned some HOFers from the 1950s and 60s even as a kid, it was these Teddy Ballgame cards that really captured my imagination and turned me into the hopeless addict I am today.