What made you start collecting cards in the first place?

chris777

Any stories? My older brother started me out in the 80's.

SDSportsFan

While I really don't remember what provided the impetus for me starting to collect cards, I presume it was San Diego getting the expansion Padres in 1969. I started buying packs of Topps baseball cards in 1970 when I was 7 years old. I also started collecting football cards a few months later, beginning with Topps' 1970 set.


Steve

Mickey71

My bother was collecting since 1975. I remember seeing the 75 Aaron he had. The first packs I ever got were 1978 Rack Packs with Pittsburgh Steelers on the front. I remember getting Franco Harris and Bradshaw. My eyes lit up. The store was going out of business. Rack packs were ..................... 8 cents each. They had baseball too for 8 cents.

Those were the days.

jeffcbay

My older step-brother (by 10 years) was leaving for the Army in 1985, so he gave my Brother and I all of his cards (1977-1984). I still remember the best of the boxes were a couple Henderson RCs and a 1982 Fleer Ripken that was beat up and written on. I still keep that Ripken card in my WALLET, because it's officially my first Ripken card.

PhilG

Gum

Stone193

In 1985, I came home and told my wife - I needed a hobby.

I looked around - walked into a sportscard shop in St Louis - I was stationed there at the time - and the rest is history.

What go me more seriously involved was having my son get interested around 1990.

Pigs

In 1974 my older brother bought a few packs of cards but he just wanted the gum. Gave me the cards and I've never stopped.

melvin289

Ah, the summer of 1961. I saw ball cards in the Walgreen's drug store and started buying them. Bought Topps baseball and a few football packs and Fleer Baseball Greats. Also bought Civil War cards and Funny Valentines. I always thought my mother had thrown them away but found them in a cigar box in the mid 80's. About this time I bought a few packs of '86 Donruss and put together a hand set of '86 Topps. Collected until '91 and went back to coins.

My love for baseball was enhanced by the Saturday Game of the Week with Dizzy Dean and Peewee Reece brought to you by Falstaff.

Ron

morganmantle

In the mid-late 80's i started collecting baseball cards and mostly cards i bought in this store called plaid penguin, which is funny, anyways i had some nice Pete Roses, Jose Consecos, Ken Griffey jrs, a couple kids stole my cards specifically my f*** FACE RIPKEN miscut card with the swear word showing, so for a kid that was amazing to own, and some neighbor kid swiped it and i didnt know which one, also i all my pete roses got swiped or i was dumb and traded for some toys, and also a michael jordan 2nd year card was gone and i had a few others, also these cards were given too me

stevek

Because I liked it.

billwaltonsbeard

Strictly for the chicks

Brock21

1971 my mom and sister bought me a pack of cards, and I started collecting then.

I still have a bunch of 71-73 cards with my name or intitials written on the back,
that was what we did so no one could swipe our cards. I was a Cardinal fan, and
so I collected mainly Cardinals. I'd trade to get Cardinals. You want my 73 Mays?,
OK give me Luis Melendez, Jose Cruz, and Ted Sizemore and you got a deal.

I've still got some of my friends cards with their initials on the back.

I got a baseball record book in 1973 and learned about baseball history, and
started trying to collect older players. I'd go to yard sales, flea markets, antique
shops and ask for ball cards. People would give me cards for free or next to
nothing, Topps, Post, Red Man, etc...

Everything was 5 cents a card in the 70's, then Beckett came out around 1980
and prices jumped. Rookie cards became the craze, and Hall of Famers
went for more than others. I quite collecting when I went to college in the 80's,
and started up again circa 1986, going to get rich on Topps cases and wax
boxes, which hmm...... didn't work, I've still got all those 87 boxes not to mention
a few 90 fleer and Donruss ones as well.

Kid4hof03

In 1979 a cousin gave me his football card collection. It was a box full of 1970's stuff, I remember the Staubach rookie and 1972 Gale Sayers pretty vividly. I then bought my first pack, 1979 football and from there was hooked.

Hallco

My little brother bought cards at the 7-11 for many years. On a hot Saturday in the summer of 1993, he asked me if I could give him a ride to a local card shop. As it turned out, Brian McRae was there signing autographs. I decided to go with him, had an awesome time and got bit by the "bug".

itzagoner

what made me start? no one made me, i decided, ME!

how dare you infer that someone else could control my thoughts to the point that i would be coerced into initiating a habit that i may never be able to completely break?!?






























Uncle Bob.......it was a giant box of randomly disorganized late 50s & 60s baseball cards handed over as a gift and within 24 hours they had been separated into All-Star teams for dice baseball.

zep33

Stephen Strasburg's birth

bobbybakeriv

I used to run to the grocery store for my Mom quite often when I was little (two or three times a week, it seems). On my tremendously arduous and dangerous bike ride back home, she would reward my heroic efforts by allowing me to buy a pack of baseball cards at 7-11 with some of the leftover change. I think packs were ten or fifteen cents back then (mid 70s)? Needless to say, I loved going to the store for her.

RonBurgundy

My brother collected cards, then hit his teenage years and forgot about them. I got curious looking through them, then noticed some '78 Topps for sale at the local grocery store. Rack packs. My mom bought me one of those racks one day and the rest is history.

cincyredlegs

My dad came home from the flea market in 1976 with a box full (probably 1,500) baseball cards. Mainly 1975's but a few hundred 1973's were mixed in. I was 5 and my brother was 3. We sorted the cards by color, team, position, etc.....about a thousand times. Of course we wanted to take care of them and snuggly wrapped a rubber band around them.

A few years later when I had a better concept of the game and players, I started looking through them again. Found several 73 Mays', 75 Aarons', two Brett and Yount rookies as well as a Schmidt rookie. Needless to say, none of them would ever end up in a PSA 10 holder.....or PSA9, PSA 5. Maybe a PSA1 or 2. Still have them all of them.

hammered

In the early 70s, my brother and I were baby-sat by this teenage kid who would bring his shoe box full of baseball cards for us to play with (it would keep us busy). We'd spread them out on the floor and look at them, and talk about them. We loved them. As soon as we were old enough, we started buying our own. The first packs we bought were 76 rack packs at Newberry Drug Store in Ventura, CA.

PowderedH2O

A kid in my apartment complex named Chris Autrey was showing me the new 1973 football cards. He was a year older than me, so I decided that it must be the cool thing to do, so I started buying them. I could afford two packs a week. In about my third week of buying them, I got a Les Josephson sideways action card. Another kid from the apartments didn't collect black players ( I have no idea why), so he traded me all of his cards with black players for the Les Josephson. One of the cards was OJ Simpson, who in 1973 was as good as there has ever been. I hoarded about 300-400 cards and never stopped.
I suppose if I ever see Chris again I should give him a bill for the tens of thousands of dollars he has cost me over the years.

WinPitcher

I blame it and everything on my mother.


Steve

Tabe

When I was 4 (1976), my brother, another kid & I - well, they - bought a bunch of 1976 Topps packs. My mom tossed those and I thought nothing about cards for several years. Then for my 10th birthday, I got a few 1982 Topps racks. That was the start for me. Been collecting, off and on (off for the moment), ever since.

Tabe

captainthreeputt

I am 46 years old and my brother is 48 years old, and we were big sports fans, so we started collecting together in the late 60's to early 70's. After about a 25 year layoff, my 9 year old son saw my collection and he became hooked! The quality time we spend together now is priceless!

NCDOLFAN

I was 9 in 1971 when the Dolphins went to SB VI. My friends and I became very aware of football and started our collections in 1972. When the 73's came around, I didn't like the card layout and I quit.
Flash forward to 1991 and finding my old '72 collection and it's value, I located my nearby card shop and the hottest thing was 1991 SC football. Been afflicted ever since.

RookieWax

Went to a local card show in 1980 and saw how cool the cards looked in the 9 pocket pages on the dealer tables...and I was hooked. I probably spent more money on the 9 pocket pages than I did for the cards that went in them during that era.

ChrisStufflestreet

It was Star Wars that hooked me. When I was 5, I began getting the Kenner action figures. At some point, I began buying the cards as well and trading them with neighbor kids.

By 1979, I still had non-sports interests (Wacky Packages, Mork & Mindy, Superman, etc.) but that was the first year I really began busting baseball wax.

cardexpert1980

I bought my first pack of cards in 1989. 1989 donuss and i got a chris sabo Dkings card at the time it was worth 50 cents i was so happy i was hooked ever since. then on my 10th birthday in 1990 i went to my fav card shop with my dad and he bought a cello pack of 1980 topps baseball cards and i pulled a Rickey Henderson Rookie card to this day that has been my favorit moment in my collecting life. cause at that time the henderson rookie was the card to have I was so happy i was jumping and yelling so happy. I couldnt belive how lucky I got. to this day i have that henderson rookie it was perfectly centered to i sent it in for grading last year and it got a 9.

elsnorto

Like most things I have done in my life... it was a woman.

She was named Jaclyn Smith and I was completely smitten with her to the point of spending the bulk of my allowance on Charlie's Angels cards every week.

By the time I finished off the set, I had tons of dupes and one fateful day on the bus, I traded one Cheryl Ladd card (of her presumably naked, covered only by a strategically place giant palm leaf, as the Angels went deep undercover at a nudist colony to save the world) for around 300-400 sportscards cards (mostly 1976-1978 Topps football).

With Charlie's Angels soon off the air, but my card habit still in full swing, I switched to sports cards.

Jaclyn, if you read this... call me.

Snorto~

HoofHearted

I just remember going to the local drug store back in '62 and buying packs with my neighborhood friends. We had a local team's ballpark in our backyard with a center-field light standard set up there. I could climb up on it and watch some baseball. I remember finding a baseball or two in the backyard after a night game. Also the Twins had just moved to Minnesota in '61, so baseball was a hot topic.

Guess that's why the '62Ts are my childhood favorite.

Thanks for asking!

chris777

I like reading all your stories. Thanks everyone.

BugOnTheRug

I was forced at gunpoint as a child to collect cards or else; hence, I collected cards.

dodgerfan

In the summer of 1987 the trading card frenzy hit , I remember going to Triple Play Sportscards In San Pedro and buying a Beckett with Mark McGwire on the cover , along with a couple of packs of Donruss and Topps , My cousins and I would have all day trading sessions , Man those days were fantastic! , Now the whole world is jacked up , with economic depression , pestilence , locusts , etc

nightcrawler

<< <i>I was forced at gunpoint as a child to collect cards or else; hence, I collected cards. >>





Awesome.

stevek

<< <i>I just remember going to the local drug store back in '62 and buying packs with my neighborhood friends. We had a local team's ballpark in our backyard with a center-field light standard set up there. I could climb up on it and watch some baseball. I remember finding a baseball or two in the backyard after a night game. Also the Twins had just moved to Minnesota in '61, so baseball was a hot topic.

Guess that's why the '62Ts are my childhood favorite.

Thanks for asking! >>



Your Registry set - Very nice!

Musky1011

the sound they made on my bicycle in the 60's
My mom used to yell at me for using her clothes pins....she should have yelled at me for using the cards instead

TNP777

the first cards I can recall opening from packs were 1976 Topps football as a 10-year-old. My Uncle Bill used to buy me a few packs now & then from Bernie's Liquors in Merced when he made his alcohol and deli run. After that summer was over and I'd gone back home to Astoria, I was over at a friend's house in Astoria and got a peek at his almost-complete '75 Dodgers mini set - thought those were pretty darn cool. I truly caught the bug in '78 - the Dodgers were very good at the time, and I really fell in love with just about everything about the design that year: red white & blue all-star shield, cursive team fonts, game on the back. I've mentioned this before, but to this day if you give me any player's name from that set, I can usually visualize the card in question. I picked up a big chunk of my original '78s on my yearly trip to the grandparents' house, and then some more back home in Astoria at the local Newberry's. I bought a lot of cards as a yute at that Newberry's.

I lost interest in cards around '83 as a high school junior, and then started scratching my collector's itch in 1991 or so. Joined OBC in '96 and really got back in. Glad I did. I've got some great (to me) cards and met some really cool people along the way.

lsutigers1973

1979 Topps Dale Murphy

HoofHearted

<< <i>

<< <i>Guess that's why the '62Ts are my childhood favorite.
>>



Your Registry set - Very nice! >>



Why, thank you, sir!

It's always fun to hear how people end up doing what they do. I work with computers and it's amazing the route some people take to get to where they are.

Love the stories so far!

I've shown this card before. It's one my cousin and I always threw in when we traded. We thought it was one of the ugliest cards ever. To find one of these in mint or better now will put you at your "Witts" end!

hammered

That explains why there are so few high grade Witts out there - it's such an ugly card, no kid wanted it

pdub1819

1965 Roberto Clemente, it was the only card that wasn't stolen from me when I was in the 4th grade (1986). I had received a large amount of '65 Topps including Mantles, Mays, Aaron helping my mom's friend clean their house. I took them to school and then they were gone. The Clemente was all that was left. Then when I was in Junior High, I sold the Clemente at a garage sale for $25! I've always regretted it and one day hope to get at it in at least an 8. Of course now, I collect because I like it.

MeteoriteGuy

My brothers collected.

I remember sorting 81s.

Collecting by 86.

jaderock

For me, I bought cards to play "knock down" in elementary school....then I grew up and forgot all about it.

Then ebay came along and bam that's how I got restarted...f'ing ebay!!!!!!!

CarsonPalmer

my mom bought me a beckett and some packs sometime in the 90's and I've been hooked since..