What was your first vintage baseball card??

[Blunder19]

Always love to hear how others got hooked... I was wondering if you would share the following...

What was your first vintage baseball card?

Do you remember how you got it?

Do you still own it?

Mine was a 1959 Topps Sandy Kofax... my dad bought it for me at a local card show... I sold all my cards when I was in college cause I needed the cash.. thankfully the kofax was the one card I refused to sell.. still own it to this day.

Jamie

[FrankWakefield]

First pre-war card was Bridwell in that sweater from the white border set, I think.

[t206hound]

Mine was a beater T206 Tris Speaker from a sports card shop in Virginia around 16 years ago. Didn't buy another one until 2005 at which point I was primarily a flipper. Took another five years for me to get hooked.

[Ronnie73]

Not really vintage but in the early 1990's at a show, I bought a 1955 Topps Charlie Silvera card for $5 in EX condition. At the time, it was my oldest card and I still own it today. I didn't start to be interested in older cards such as T206's until a few years ago. I remember always seeing them at shows in the late 80's early 90's but just didn't know anything about them and what to look for. It was pre internet days so becoming an expert wasn't just a click away.

[packs]

My first pre-war was a T206 Miller Huggins Hands at Mouth. I remember I bought it at a Gloria Rothstein White Plains show in the late 90s. I was probably 12 or so. I'm pretty sure it was the show where Joe Dimaggio and Ted Williams were signing for about a hundred bucks each. Still wish we got one but we thought that was crazy at the time.

Still have it. Would never sell.

[zljones]

My first vintage cards I obtained when I was 10 years old. I had:

1979 Topps Walter Payton
1975 Topps Hank Aaron card#1
1975 Topps Bucky Dent All Star Rookie
1969 Topps Reggie Smith
1969 Topps Johnny Bench A.S. card
1963 Topps Bobby Richardson reprint that I swore was real back then
1962 Topps Warren Sphann
1955 Bowman Don Larsen

I was very vintage card deprived I mainly just spent my time drooling over the black and white photos in Beckett Magazine or drooling at the local card shop. I still have the 75 Aaron, 75 Dent, 69 Bench but the rest were all stolen from me by other kids. My mom bought the Aaron, Bench, and Smith card for Christmas because she knew I wanted a 54 topps Hank Aaron but she could not afford it so she did the best she could, and because of that I charish those cards because of how special it was to me that she tried to make me happy. Too bad punks stole my 69 Reggie Smith that she bought for me!

[John V]

I had a shoebox full of my childhood cards from the 60s. So, the first card that I purchased "as vintage" was this Carey. $5 from local dealer. Still have it.

[bcbgcbrcb]

'59 Topps Bob Gibson RC

[scmavl]

My first vintage card was a '54 Topps Heinie Manush I got at a card show when I was 12 or so. I still have it.

I don't remember what my first pre-war card was. Maybe a '33 Goudey Arky Vaughn?

[Lee17]

My first vintage card was a '54 Al Kaline my father bought for me in the early '90s. I was only 10-12 at the time and liked it, but didn't love it. It's funny when you look back and I cherished an '89 Griffey over it at the time.

[Chris-Counts]

Shortly after I started collected in 1970 at the age of nine, I came to the conclusion that older cards were more interesting than new cards. Over the next couple years, after my brother and I had acquired older cards from garage sales and older kids, we had an example of every Topps set back to 1953. I got a catalog from Larry Fritsch and ordered a 1952 Topps card of Johnny Mize for about a quarter (I still love the pose!). Finally, in 1974, I attended my first card show and picked up a sharp-cornered lot of T206s for a buck each (HOFers were $3). I also paid $2 for a '33 Goudey of Bing Miller ...

[kkkkandp]

WG5 National Game near mint John McGraw purchased January 14, 1995 at the Parsippany (NJ) PAL baseball card show. Proudly, I am still the owner.

[triwak]

My childhood collecting years were 1968 (when I was 7 years old) - 1974 (when I discovered girls). Still have everyone one of those cards. But one glorious weekend in 1972 (I was 11), a buddy and I found a garage sale while riding our bikes. A man had a HUGE cardboard box containing hundreds of cards from the early '50s - '60s. Selling them for a penny/card. Below is some of what I came away with before he kicked us the hell out of his garage! Wish I had offered him $20 for the whole box - bet he would've taken it. Only spent 24 cents, which is all I had. Not too bad of an investment for an 11 year old.

Apologies for the multiple post-war scans, but this was a fun trip down memory lane for me. :-)

[alanu]

1933 goudey yellow ruth beater that I traded for at a show was the first goudey era card

first earlier card was a Eddie Collins beater Cracker Jack that walked into a friend's card shop and I bought it from him

[kmac32]

1922 E 121 series of 120 Elmer Miller picked up at National in the late 80's and yes, I still own it. Now slabbed in SGC 20 condition. He is also a distant relative so DNA in baseball hooked me.

[Jantz]

Great thread topic!

Before my days of buying on Ebay, I would buy modern cards every now & then from a gentleman named W.S. Morrell, who ran a mail auction from his home. You had to get on his mailing list and you would receive maybe 10 photocopied sheets of paper with a list of cards up for auction. Each card had a minimum bid and you would have to call and place your bid before the auction ending date.

Now I can't remember the exact reason at this time, but I missed placing a bid before the ending date, so the next day I gave him a call to see if the card sold, which it hadn't. We got talking and I told him that I would wait for his next auction and place a bid. Then he ask me "You've bought from me before?" and I informed him that I had bought cards from him for 2 years now. To which he replied "I'll tell you what, you can have the card now if you want it. How about $100 plus $5 for S&H?" I couldn't reply fast enough!

So a week later my first vintage card arrived and I wasn't home. I drove up & down the streets looking for my mailman while holding that pickup slip like it was the winning lottery ticket. Three streets later I found him and claimed my prize. It was a SGC 84 1961 Topps Mickey Mantle MVP card.

Sorry for the long version, but I wanted to build some suspense.

Do I still own it? Nope, sold it about 3 years ago to buy more T206s. Oh well, I enjoyed it for over a decade and now someone else is enjoying it.


Thanks for bringing back some good memories.


Jantz

[z28jd]

My first vintage card was a GD condition T206 Bresnahan portrait I bought when I was 16 from the Larry Fritsch museum in Cooperstown. Damn right I still have it, wouldn't sell it for 100x the $42 price tag I paid for it. I live 6 hours from Cooperstown and probably looked at that card for 5 of those hours on the ride home

[Blunder19]

Originally Posted by z28jd

My first vintage card was a GD condition T206 Bresnahan portrait I bought when I was 16 from the Larry Fritsch museum in Cooperstown. Damn right I still have it, wouldn't sell it for 100x the $42 price tag I paid for it. I live 6 hours from Cooperstown and probably looked at that card for 5 of those hours on the ride home

cool story!

[Vegas-guy]

Mine was also a '59.. but mine was Mantle. My first job was in a baseball card shop, I was only 14 so by law couldn't be "paid" in cash so I worked for cards. Most of the time I just got boxs of wax packs to open but when the Mantle came in on trade I had to have it, I had to work 4 weekends just to get it, I kept it for over 10 years sold it and started a '55 topps set.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Blunder19

Mine was a 1959 Topps Sandy Koufax...

Funny, because when I started "going backwards" mine was the 1957 Koufax.

Doug

[matty6]

I bought an unslabbed T-205 Arthur Devlin on Ebay for $30 about 10 years ago. That started my collecting of T-205's. I sent it off to get graded, and it came back an SGC 70.

Been hooked ever since. Sadly, I no longer have this card...

[rainier2004]

1959 Topps Musial - First pre-war was 1933 goudey sam byrd

Got my musial when i was 8 yrs old w/ Dad at a local show, and like Jamie damn right I still own it and have it on display. The byrd was bought exiting my first national 5 or so yrs ago. Couldnt ever sell these cards...

[CubsFanCurt]

As a kid I loved the '56 Ernie Banks but couldn't afford it. In my 20's I finally got one. First pre WW2 card was a t206 Chance

[HRBAKER]

June 1991, won a '39 Playball Gehringer from a Kevin Savage auction out of SCD.

[ValKehl]

When I resurrected my childhood 1955-1960 Topps & Bowman collection (that, thankfully, Mom didn't toss away!) in the mid-1980s, I started going to local shows and acquiring cards to try to complete these sets as well as earlier and later Topps & Bowman sets. It was then that I first learned that pre-War cards existed! One Saturday, I drove over to Bill Higgins' store in nearby Maryland, and I traded him some 1960 Topps (in pristine condition, as I recall) for my first Pre-War card (see pic below). By the early to mid 1990s, my collecting focus had changed to Pre-War cards.
Val

[sycks22]

I remember buying very beaten up '64 Topps Mantle / Mays. I think I got both for $40 at a show when I was 12ish. I thought I got the deal of the century.

[Chris-Counts]

When I first started collecting in 1970 at nine, I knew nothing of vintage cards, By the following year, I began discovering the cards of the 1960s. I found a '68 Mantle at a garage sale and thought I had unearthed a historic artifact. Over the next two years, after visiting many more garage sales, my brother and I had a Topps card from every year going back to 1953. Next, I received my first Larry Fritsch catalog and ordered up a 1952 Topps card of Johnny Mize for about 15 cents. Then came a trip to Goodwin Goldfadden's store and my first card show (Anaheim, 1974), where John Parks was selling sharp-corned T206s recently soaked from an album at $1 each for commons and $3 for HOFers. I bought Chase, Lajoie, Magee, Bradley and Three-Finger Brown. I also picked up a 1933 Goudey of Bing Miller for about $2 ...

[Big Ben]

Cool thread!

My first Pre-War card was a T206 Fred Merkle throwing that I spotted at an antique shop in the early 1980's for $2.

My first 1950's card that I bought was a 1952 Topps Bob Feller that I purchased for $5. The card has a pin hole in it, and a couple of years later, I had Feller autograph the card.

Good times!

[ullmandds]

By vintage...I presume this means pre-war...my first pre war card was/is a t206 matty white cap in f-g shape I got for $2 at a local card show in the NJ area in the late 70's.

A few years ago I acquired another matty white cap that was gorgeous...ended up grading sgc 70...which I sold...I still have the beater...and probably will til the day I die!

[Blunder19]

Originally Posted by Chris Counts

I found a '68 Mantle at a garage sale and thought I had unearthed a historic artifact. ...

Thats hilarious!...I did the same thing when I was little the first time I found a halfway decent baseball card at a garage sale.. it was a dave winfield rookie for $2.. I walked around holding it like it was a fossil for the rest of the day I love the rush you get when you found a great deal on a vintage baseball card.

now i just take out some old cards and have them next to me while watching the show american pickers on the history channel.. they dig for antiques and so do we...

[bbcard1]

T206 Snodgrass batting purchased from Card Collector's Company.

[brob28]

My first two were acquired at the same time a 1951 Bowman Gil Hodges and 1954 Topps Warren Sphan. A kid in my neighborhood's Dad gave him all his old cards and the kid decided to sell them instead of keeping them. Not sure what the Hodges cost, but I paid him a nickle for the Sphan. That was in about 1980. I can't remembner what else I got, but my only regret is I did not buy the entire shoebox from him! Still have both cards.

[steve B]

Sort of two parts for me.

In 74 they had the Hank Aaron specials showing all his cards. I told a friend of mine I'd really like to get some of them. he said his brother had some, but not Aaron and he'd see if he could get one. But I'd have to swap somereally good cards.

A couple days later I swapped what was probably a fistful of 74s, likely all As and Red Sox for a 68 Matthews. It's pretty beat but I still have it.
(Ok, it was only 6 years old at the time, but I was 11 and my oldest card was from 1969. At the time it seemed like an ancient card)

Around 77-78 I had moved to a new town and Halls was on my way home from school. Wow, stuff that was very old, T206s, boxes full of cards from the 50's and 60's all sorts of fascinating stuff. I wanted T206, they were 1.50 and they'd mounted them on 3x5 cards with a piece of 9 pocket page, and the cards had some stats typewriten on them. Must have been a few months later, they weren't doing the 3x5 card thing anymore. One day I stopped in and they said "look at this before you buy something" It was a truly awful T206 Beckley. Polar bear, no stains, but totally beat. Held together by tape. But it was only 20 cents! And they'd set it aside just for me.

I still have that one too. It got me started on older cards, and although I didn't know it at the time, it taught me a great lesson about how to really run a hobby business right.

Steve B

[Howe’s Hunter]

Saw it at the Burlington Arcade antique store in Lincoln. I couldn't move away from the case. The next day, we went back and bought it as my anniversary gift, which was the next week.

It is one of only six of the original collection I had that I didn't sell when I decided to pursue Howe's collection. The others are the portrait versions of Tinker/Evers/Chance and a Johnson/pitching that were all my 10th anniversary gifts, and a Bliss portrait my son picked for me as a Father's Day gift when he was three.

[deadballpaul]

Waler Johnson T206 (hands at chest)

[Jcfowler6]

My dad gave me a '59 Clemente about 30 years ago now. Yikes time is flying by.

My first vintage card I got in a trade on my own was a 53 Pee wee Reese bowman. I got it for a couple of doc goodan rookies in the late 80s.