What was your first set?

[Butch7999]

The three of us here, as young kids, all fell in love with baseball when we attended our first Buffalo Bison (IL)
games around 1960, and soon discovered the Diamond Herd on radio and major league games on TV.
The game became an obsession for us once Post cereals and Jell-O started printing something called
"baseball cards" on their boxes. Like Dewey, we'd been completely ignorant of the entire concept, and
except for the Post and Jell-O sets, we knew nothing of older sets, of Topps, of Fleer and so on -- and
with no other kids in our neighbourhood, nor any school classmates, the least bit interested in such stuff,
we remained woefully ignorant for years. We never completed any of the three editions of Post / Jell-O cards
(some of those cereals and Jell-O flavours were inedible) and we eventually, immersed in box scores
and transaction reports in the local newspaper sports pages, ruined almost every card we did have
by writing, in ballpoint pen, on each card, the team to which each player had been traded, dismally unaware
of new cards issued by other companies and by other means.
We didn't discover Topps until the late '60s, when the grumpy pharmacist at the drug store where we
bought our comix started setting out boxes of packs at the checkout counter. No other store we could
reach by bicycle carried baseball cards, and the pharmacist never ever ordered any fourth series
(another concept of which we were woefully ignorant), so we wasted our allowances gormlessly amassing
boxfuls of doubles and triples of every 1st, 2nd, and 3rd series card... But we did keep them pristine,
and we still have all those Post / Jell-O and late '60s-early-'70s Topps cards...

[ALR-bishop]

In the last issue of the SCD Standard Catalog with both pre and post 1980 listings, 2011 I think, Lemke listed quite a few panels of Topps cards from Dynamite Magazine from the 70s and 80s. Not sure why he listed the panels he did since there were many other panels not listed. I picked up most of the ones he listed and put the panels with my sets.

The first Topps set I completed was 1959, but also had cards from 1956, 1957 and 1958 as a kid

[Vintagevault13]

1974 was the first year that I collected cards. Being in Georgia, I was a Braves fan and enjoyed watching Hank Aaron chase the Babe's record. The 1974 set did, however, lead me to select an unlikely favorite player: Reggie Jackson. Oakland was probably the farthest team from my home, but the 1974 A's cards intrigued me because the team seemed so different and cool. Most of the players had beards or mustaches and the WHITE SHOES were definitely unusual. Reggie's amazing 1974 card made him the coolest of them all in my 8-year-old mind. Combine this with the awesome Playoff and World Series cards in the set recapping the A's World Series triumph, and I became a hardcore Reggie fan. Still love looking at this set because of the memories that it invokes. What a great time to be a kid!

[Exhibitman]

The first set I actually built was a vintage one, 1954 Topps. My next door neighbors' father was a college professor and he used to ask his students for old cards for his kids, so they had this insane pipeline. They showed me 1954s for the first time and I was just hooked. First card I got in a trade with them was a Don Mueller. I really didn't start pulling the set together until I got to Los Angeles. Last three were the two Williams cards (one purchased from the consistently nasty Goody Goldfadden at ADCO) and Hank Aaron, which I got at a show. Most of the set I picked up in lots in auctions at the monthly West Coast Card Club meetings. I sold off that set in a fit of existential angst just after college, reassembled it again in my thirties in higher grade, sold it off when prices ran up on graded cards some years ago, then started on it again. Only HOFers I need now are Banks and Lasorda, but I am not a fan of commons so not likely to finish the set unless I stumble across a find.

[skelly423]

I've picked up the odd complete set here and there, but I don't count those as I didn't build them from scratch. The first set I built myself was the 1950 Bowman.

[profholt82]

1987 Topps. My dad bought me my first pack, and I was enthralled. Those wood grain borders, the brittle gum, the anecdotes and statistics on the back. That summer would mark my first year of little league, and I had baseball fever. From that point on, I would ride my bike down to the corner gas station, we called it Petrol Point, and buy a new pack whenever I scraped a few quarters together. It's still one of my all time favorite sets.

[riggs336]

My first set was 1955 Topps. There were no checklists to let me know about the four missing numbers so I kept buying and buying, searching for those missing cards.

It wasn't until sometime in the early 70s that I realized I had two complete sets and a good start on two others.

[king11]

The first packs of cards I ever received were 1977 Topps - my mother bought them for me. I was overjoyed to eventually get a Rod Carew card - he was my favorite player, and this was the year he hit .388.

The first set I completed was the 1980 Topps set. I traded cards with friends all summer long, and I kept getting closer and closer to completing the set. Right after school started up in late August, I have a memory of opening a wax pack in the back seat of my parents’ rust-brown Toyota station wagon and there it was, the final card I needed: the elusive Ken Oberkfell. I couldn’t believe the card was actually in my hands. A happy memory.

[dealme]

Originally Posted by profholt82

1987 Topps. My dad bought me my first pack, and I was enthralled. Those wood grain borders, the brittle gum, the anecdotes and statistics on the back. That summer would mark my first year of little league, and I had baseball fever. From that point on, I would ride my bike down to the corner gas station, we called it Petrol Point, and buy a new pack whenever I scraped a few quarters together. It's still one of my all time favorite sets.

1987 Topps was where I started as well. I had some Garbage Pail Kids from the year before, but my mom felt that they were inappropriate for a seven-year-old. So to make up for it she bought me some baseball cards. At the time, I was confused because some of the older kids on my street had some 1986 Topps cards, and I liked the design better. So I kept looking for what I thought would be 1986 cards, but kept turning up the wood-bordered 1987 cards. I eventually figured it out. My dad took me to a card show in late 1987 and bought me both the 1986 and 1987 Topps sets. Once I got hooked, he unveiled to me a stack of 1963 Topps cards that he had picked up at a garage sale the year I was born. When I got back into collecting 12 or so years ago, I started with that stack of 1963 Topps and completed the set. I love hearing these stories.

[SAllen2556]

1972. My dad bought me a couple of 1st series packs. It only took me 40 years to finish the set.

Renato Galasso was my source for complete sets when I was old enough to mail a letter. I remember ordering the '79 set with the Bump Wills error card. I also got, I think for a buck, the 1973 all-time leaders cards including card #1. Those are my best chances for PSA 10's. They're absolutely perfect cards.

There was a candy, gum distributor place in our town that would sell to the public. From about 1976 to 1979 my buddy and I used to split a wax box or two every year because, per pack, it was way cheaper, but I got turned off to building sets because I'd buy a whole wax box, or even two, and get tons of doubles and never get a complete set.

I never finished a set by buying boxes or packs in the 70's and early 80's. I had to go to a card show to finish every Topps set I ever started, and I'm still missing about 40 cards from 1981 and 80 or so from 1982.