Childhood baseball card memories.

[bmattioli]

Hey Scott, hope is well for you..

As a fellow CT resident and collector I remember going to the local Food Bag and get 7 packs for a whole dollar and opening and trying to build sets with all being wrapped in elastic bands.

I had a paper route at a young age delivering the New Britain Herald for the .10 cent tip and loved to buy Twinkies and other Hostess products just for the cards.

Wore my Jim Rice homemade Jersey till it was in shreds..

Played Wiffleball and other Baseball games all summer long..

The Summers of 1975 and 78 were unforgettable.. GO Sox..

ETC ETC..

[judgebuck]

I remember playing Park League and Little League baseball and then discovering baseball cards in 1958. From 1958-63, I would go to my grandfather's auto repair shop, which was located across the street from a small grocery store. Every time I went to the shop, we would go across the street and he would by me a few packs. I remember one occasion, in 1960 or 1961, he bought me a whole box of 24 5-card packs.

Also, during this period, I would get Post Cereal cards from the cereal boxes at the grocery store. A friend and I would trade often, but he sold all his cards years later to a younger friend of his. About four months ago, that friend sold me his collection which contained many of the cards I had traded to my friend. I had personally cut many of the Post Cereal cards in the collection myself some 57-60 years ago (I recognize the rough cut from my mother's scissors). Thankfully, the collection still had the Post Cereal football cards as well.

Also, I remember getting a few 1961-62 Fleer basketball cards and flipping them against a wall with a friend. I still have these cards.

[BabyRuth]

I remember driving back from the Baseball Hall of Fame in late summer 1972 and my brother and I were in the back seat of the Chrysler Newport with no air conditioning unwrapping our souvenirs from the Hall, a full box of cards each!!
It was glorious stuffing our faces with Topps gum.

[GeoPoto]

I guess on this board this is more or less a confession because I never really collected cards as a kid (I was 10 in 1963). I do however remember amassing a 100+ "bankroll" of cards. We used them mostly for gambling. I don't remember paying much attention to who the players were. I'm sure we were sensitive to the big names, but they were few and far between, as I recall. My only vivid memory involved a game of "touchies" in which I and an opponent miraculously extended the pile until it was the area of a kitchen table top (100+ cards in my memory). Eventually, the other guy somehow missed the pile and I walked away with most of his cards.

[dabigyankeeman]

The oldest cards I remember opening a pack from is 1955 Bowmans, and I remember how great I thought it was that the cards looked like little color tv's which at that time virtually nobody had!!!

[cardsagain74]

I had a double dose of childhood memories from cards. First, the packs of baseball and football cards that I bought as a little kid from about '81 to '85. I still remember going to the corner store whenever we'd visit my grandparents in the neighbor town, and buying cards while playing Moon Patrol (both were a good use of funds). My favorites were the '81 Topps baseball cards, because of the caps on the front. I still like those.

Then there was the renaissance (if a 15 year old can have that, though it felt like it) of getting involved again when the boom/junk wax era hit five years later. I was elated to find that my "old" cards from my "younger" years had become fairly valuable. Learning that you have about $1000 worth of something is not something that usually happened to a teen then, and the fact that it came from something I really enjoyed made it all the better.

The best part of that was finding the Montana rookie that (like many of the cards) was stored away in an empty Velveeta cheese box.

[thatkidfromjerrymaguire]

Originally Posted by cardsagain74

The best part of that was finding the Montana rookie that (like many of the cards) was stored away in an empty Velveeta cheese box.

Haha...not sure if Velveeta secretly used this as a "value add" marketing ploy, but those boxes were PERFECT to store baseball cards in. I think I still have my 1986 Topps commons stored in a Velveeta box somewhere.