Oldtimers on this board?

[steve B]

Most of you have me beat by a decade or more.

First collecting baseball thing- 67 or 68 Coke caps. Went to a party with my parents and the bottlecaps had pictures inside! Rounded up a few pockets full, but just before we went home mom made me toss them all. No way I was bringing home a bunch of dirty bottelcaps. (I was 4 or 5)

Next a pack of 69 Topps, opened it with dad in the car and he remarked how one of the guys was pretty good. Reggie Jackson. Still have that card.
Next pack was 71. Got a Danny Cater coin which was really cool to me. Still have that one too.

Didn't really start collecting cards until late 73.

[deweyinthehall]

Got my first cards in the spring edition of Dynamite Magazine through Scholastic - 1978 Topps Cecil Cooper, Tony Perez, Al Oliver and Darrell Porter. I was hooked from then on. A friend of mine said something like "you know you can packs of them in the store?" and it was all over.

Can still remember a few cards from my first pack - Rick Manning, Sparky Lyle RB, Luis Tiant, Jose Baez (had to ask my mom how pronounce that one) and George Hendrick.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by steve B

First collecting baseball thing- 67 or 68 Coke caps. Went to a party with my parents and the bottlecaps had pictures inside! Rounded up a few pockets full, but just before we went home mom made me toss them all. No way I was bringing home a bunch of dirty bottelcaps. (I was 4 or 5)

You should then show your mother your present day collection of the Baseball Coke caps and tell her what they're "worth" now!

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

You should then show your mother your present day collection of the Baseball Coke caps and tell her what they're "worth" now!

I did at one point.
Western Ct probably had yankees or mets, I have a pretty good collection of Red Sox plus a few others.
Slowly working on having the set from all Boston area bottling plants.

Shes in a home now, and it's hard to tell just how much of anything she gets.

[KJA]

I remember turning 8 and getting into cards thanks to 86 Topps football, Jim McMahon card in particular, my favorite player at the time. Didn't really start collecting baseball until 88 Topps. Those set designs really bring back lots of fond memories.

[nolemmings]

1966 Mankato MN, Ben Franklin at the Tempo shopping center. Rode my bike the 2 1/2 blocks, pulled a Sandy Valdespino in the first pack, although it may not have been the first card.
I was thrilled to nab a Twin, coming off their World Series appearance, even if he wasn't exactly the straw that stirred the drink. This is my card, but obviously not the one pulled that day:


On the other hand, this one was pulled around that same time, and I still have it:

[mark evans]

I collected only two sets as a kid -- 1958 Topps football and 1961 Topps baseball. I threw out the football cards after completing the set but still have the baseball cards, which I bought with my allowance at a Peoples drug store in the Wards Corner neighborhood of my hometown of Norfolk, Va.

[lumberjack]

An older boy (he was eight) gave me Topps cards of Sam Jones and Jackie Robinson as they were "doubles." Hey, why would you want TWO.

He said you could buy them at Kresge's in downtown Pontiac (Michigan).

My father took me there and sure enough there was a box of Topps cards right next to the weird-ass orange drink machine that kept the juice swirling from the top down.

We bought two packs and as I remember it, most of the cards were either Cleveland or the Browns and for the life of me, I have no idea what the wrappers looked like.

I was so thrilled by the idea of the cards that I had no idea those were drawings.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by mark evans

...which I bought with my allowance at a Peoples drug store in the Wards Corner neighborhood of my hometown of Norfolk, Va.

Did that People's drug store have an old fashioned soda fountain or luncheonette counter?

[todeen]

Originally Posted by raulus

Used to ride my bike down to Safeway after school. Rip some wax and watch the kids with serious cash play pac man. 1987 Topps was pretty fly!

Originally Posted by KJA

I remember turning 8 and getting into cards thanks to 86 Topps football, Jim McMahon card in particular, my favorite player at the time. Didn't really start collecting baseball until 88 Topps. Those set designs really bring back lots of fond memories.

Goodness, don't we all feel young. You're the only two in the 80s! But I'm the first to admit my first pack of cards was 1991 Topps at just 5 years old. I didn't know nothing about nothing! A couple years later I learned the name Ken Griffey Jr, and Lord have mercy, I owned a couple! And then I was hooked!

Going back to the present conversation, I believe my mother worked at a drugstore soda fountain: Newberrys. It was either in Walla Walla, or Spokane. I would need to look into that a bit more. Eventually she went to work at JCPenneys, and she met my father selling tires at the Penneys auto store. He set up a kegger just so that he could invite her.

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[BioCRN]

Originally Posted by todeen

Goodness, don't we all feel young. You're the only two in the 80s! But I'm the first to admit my first pack of cards was 1991 Topps at just 5 years old.

1982/83 is when I first started to collect, and I got up to speed with hobby knowledge by 1985.

The amount and types of pills in my daily day/night medication pill box says loud and clear I'm no longer young, but given most of the talk on this thread I don't think I'm part of the old timers club yet.

That's fine. I can wait.

[John1941]

I bought my first packs in 2016 if y'all want some perspective.