What was your path to what you currently collect?

[old-baseball]

My first vintage cards came my way as I was working on a set of 1974 Topps. My grandmother found my dad's cards as they were cleaning out the garage at the house that they had moved into while my Dad was in the Navy during WWII. It's hard to believe that they lasted as long as they did in a cardboard box in an unheated, detached garage. The box was filled with 1933 through 1935 Goudey's, a few Tattoo Orbits, some Delong's and a bunch of non-sport stuff. I really didn't start collecting these sets until the mid to late 80's, but the cards and his stories of seeing Ruth and Gehrig in Cleveland as a boy sparked my interest. Here's a couple of cards that survived the 30 long years in that garage.

[kmac32]

Kevin,

Pretty impressive in my opinion. How did you get into E121?

[rainier2004]

Kevin - NIce story

[old-baseball]

Ken - the E121's were completely by accident. In the early days of Ebay I was buying anything that seemed like a decent deal. There was a seller that had several lots of both Series of 80 and Series of 120 cards and I bought several of them. Shortly there after Clean Sweep had a huge lot of Series of 80 cards that I bought for a relatively cheap price. At that point I was hooked. Unfortunately I sold several of cards that I chasing today - they were in lesser condition and didn't fit with everything else that I had. Still kicking myself for that.

[alanu]

Collected when I was a kid up until about 1972 when I was 11. Got back into it in the late 80's and mostly collected Clemente and Ripken and did some shows. Started collecting vintage in the 90's but mostly collect anything now, vintage to about 1967, that catches my eye.

[ghooper33]

I was mainly a 1950's Topps & autograph collector, but I have recently began a journey into pre-war cards after a buddy and I decided to build a T205 set together after buying a couple at a show. (We also thought it would be fun to make a point to have our families vacation together using the National as an excuse).

Being new to genre I have purchased as many different cards as I can find. After sampling different cards I have settled on the T207 set for myself.

[ls7plus]

I'd collected cards as a kid, beginning in 1958, as I recall, and continuing through 1969, and got back into them when a younger attorney in my office used to bring his cards in from time to time, circa 1989 or 1990. He was into new cards, which were of course all the rage at that time, and I initially gravitated in that direction also, although simultaneously buying back some Mantles, Mays and Aaron cards, etc. But I really didn't know much about pre-Topps cards until Alan Hager came out with his "Guide to Rare Baseball Cards 1886 to Present," in 1993. While Mr. Hager was certainly a controversial figure in this hobby's past, the book, if one disregarded the prices he quoted, was really quite informative regarding the incredible variety of cards from days long past that were out there, along with his expressed opinion of their relative rarity (which was not always accurate, but decently within the ballpark, IMO, in most cases). I was just fascinated by these cards, and the quality photo reproduction of examples from each set that Hager included. Been buying pre-war ever since!

Happy collecting,

Larry