Your First Raw Complete Set

05GHBRETT

1980 Topps Baseball in MN/MT condition @ 12YO

I've still got the set

First complete team set was 1979 Twins

Searched but didn't find a raw topic started

lawnmowerman

1981 Donruss. Loved that set when I was a kid!

Bosox1976

1974-75 topps Hockey. Two packs at a time.

MikeyP

1988 Topps Baseball. I had four of the cards autographed last year. They are Tom Lasorda, Wade Boggs, Dwight Gooden and Bo Jackson. This was my favorite card.

Orioles

1981 topps baseball. Couldn't pull Mario Mendoza from a pack for the longest time. Seemed like i opened 100 packs to find that card. put them all by team in my "topps sports locker".

PhilG

1994 Pinnacle Artist Proof set.

80sOPC

84-85 OPC hockey is the first set I built from wax as a kid. I don't remember opening wax any older as a kid.

EchoCanyon

1974 topps

vintagefun

83 Fleer. Still have it. One of my least favorite sets, but at the time it was a huge accomplishment for a 12 year old.

Splatt

1974 baseball. I think I kept them in one of those cardboard Topps lockers, or did those come later?

mrmopar

1978 Topps basaeball

slum22

Going into the memory banks. Pretty sure it was 1989 Pro Set FB.

TNP777

<< <i>1978 Topps basaeball >>

+1

bigdcards

86 sportsflics.

handyman

1979 Topps Football, Still got it.

MikeyP

<< <i>1978 Topps basaeball >>



Mr. Mopar, that was the first set of baseball cards that I ever collected. I wrapped rubber bands around the cards and stored them in a shoebox back then. Yes, an actual shoebox. My friends and I would flip our cards against the classroom wall at school during our lunch period in an attempt to win them off of each other. I never completed the set. That is why I am working on it now.

HeadsUp38

1985 Topps--completed it in 1990 when I was 12 years' old.

Craig H.

Wink

Wink

1960 Topps baseball. Still have it....miracle it wasn't thrown out.

Dpeck100

1985 Topps factory set from JC Penny.

cardsfan73

1987 Topps Baseball

jfkheat

My first sets were the highly desirable 1988 Donruss, Fleer and Score sets. I think I still have them. My first vintage sets were 1970 Topps baseball and 1969-70 basketball. I still have both of those.
James

jrboles

1983 Topps baseball with the final cards purchased at my first ever card show from Dan ("I'm on a budget and not afraid to use it") who is a contributor to this very board. I remember being surprised when John Mayberry wasn't in the common bin and I had to plop down a full dime. Can't remember the other guys but I do remember it being very satisfying to have my first one complete.

gemint

1976. Put it together busting pack after pack from the candy store at the end of my block. $0.25 salary from vacuuming the carpets was quickly converted to two packs and 5 gummy fish.

Dboneesq

Collected a lot as a kid in the late 60s, but don't remember ever putting complete sets together.

The first set I put together was a 1967 set. Back in the 80s I went from show to show, every Saturday and Sunday, putting the set together card by card. I still have it and I think I'll hold on to that set for a very long time.

MikeyP

<< <i>1985 Topps factory set from JC Penny. >>



Does that count?

jmaciu

1975 Topps Regular Baseball in Excellent condition. I had misplaced this set, from my childhood, for many years. I literally found it 2 weeks ago. I actually treasure this set more than my higher grade one, because my grandmother purchased it for me.

lawnmowerman

<< <i>Collected a lot as a kid in the late 60s, but don't remember ever putting complete sets together. >>



Get some Ginkgo Biloba. I hear it helps with issues, such as memory, associated with old age.

Ya know Doug, you really need to stop giving us all this ammo

heritage

The first set I ever completed out of packs was 1975, What a summer that was.

PaulMaul

1974 Topps baseball. Believe it or not, I wrote to Topps begging for a Jim Campanis to complete my set and they came through! Much like Charlie Brown with Joe Shlabotnik, I tore through way too many packs until I finally realized the odds of getting the one card I needed were way too slim.

Ltl509

1980 Topps. By the way all the checklists and team card checklists on the back are colored in. That's what they were for, right?

BaltimoreYankee

1975 Topps. The last card I needed was Rick Auerbach, which I found in the street, torn in half. Still have the set, with all the wounds from pitching and flipping (and the Auerbach card, scotch taped together).

nearmint

Nice topic! Mine was a 1970 Topps football set. I remember that Greg Cook was the last card I needed to finish it.

LarkinCollector

85T BB

bishop

1959....but my cars are not "raw". They are in their natural, intended, free from plastic prison state

Nathaniel1960

1986 Topps Baseball via wax packs, 35 cents each as I recall.

svtPONY95

1971 Topps baseball........

Purchased wax packs from the local drug store and every week from the canteen at my local little league games and practices. I remember it taking so long to what I believed was a complete set that I was still trading 71 football cards to finish my set in 72. It was some 10 years later that I realized that the set was not as complete as I had thought at 643 and that I had never seen the 7th series cards as they were never for sale at the Edge wood little League canteen.

Wow !!! What great memories.

mmicco

1985 Topps Football

Indy78

1979 Topps Baseball, sort of. I busted open wax packs and racks to put the set together minus 2 cards (Steve Renko and Ed Kranepool) back in 1979. I "lost" the set in 1995, and it was found by my mom in her house last fall. I went on Sportlots a few months ago and completed the set. I must admit, I replaced a few of the marked team cards with unmarked ones.

Downtown1974

<< <i>1988 Topps Baseball. I had four of the cards autographed last year. They are Tom Lasorda, Wade Boggs, Dwight Gooden and Bo Jackson. This was my favorite card.

>>



Great memories. I remember buying packs of 1981 but the 1988 set was the first set I put together. I remember opening them and going through them slowly seeing a gold trophy in the corner hoping it was a Mike Greenwell. I had a binder of Greenwells, Wally Joyner, Mattingly, Canseco, McGwire. All the greats from that set. Life was so simple.

Dusto

I was never focused enough to sort the cards and always just pulled out the star/rookie cards of the era. Twenty-six years later, I still can't bring myself to sort and complete a raw set. I prefer already assemble sets that someone else put together.

ghooper33

1987 Fleer basketball was my first set built from packs from our local has station. My little brother stupidly traded his 86 Fleer basketball cards to help fill in the gaps of my 87 Fleer set... I still hear about this from him besting his older brother!

cpamike

Even though I collected both 1975 and 1976 simultaneously, I finished off the 1976 set first. The 1975 was put together from rack packs and the 1976 from wax packs.

BaltimoreYankee

<< <i>I was never focused enough to sort the cards and always just pulled out the star/rookie cards of the era. Twenty-six years later, I still can't bring myself to sort and complete a raw set. I prefer already assemble sets that someone else put together. >>



Dusto - You're missing one of the major fun parts of having a set: building it! Back in the day, I'd take my cards, sort them into piles by hundreds, then each hundred by 1-49 and 50-59 then each by 10s. I am an accountant so maybe working those numbers was the start of my career.

cpamike

<< <i>

<< <i>I was never focused enough to sort the cards and always just pulled out the star/rookie cards of the era. Twenty-six years later, I still can't bring myself to sort and complete a raw set. I prefer already assemble sets that someone else put together. >>



Dusto - You're missing one of the major fun parts of having a set: building it! Back in the day, I'd take my cards, sort them into piles by hundreds, then each hundred by 1-49 and 50-59 then each by 10s. I am an accountant so maybe working those numbers was the start of my career. >>



LOL, this is exactly what I did too. I actually still enjoy doing that.

MikeyP

<< <i>I had a binder of Greenwells, Wally Joyner, Mattingly, Canseco, McGwire. >>



I had a binder full of Don Mattingly cards. I have no idea where it is now.

BaltimoreYankee

Mike - Baseball cards led us both to CPA status

LarkinCollector

<< <i>

<< <i>I was never focused enough to sort the cards and always just pulled out the star/rookie cards of the era. Twenty-six years later, I still can't bring myself to sort and complete a raw set. I prefer already assemble sets that someone else put together. >>



Dusto - You're missing one of the major fun parts of having a set: building it! Back in the day, I'd take my cards, sort them into piles by hundreds, then each hundred by 1-49 and 50-59 then each by 10s. I am an accountant so maybe working those numbers was the start of my career. >>


+1, except the accountant part.

cpamike

<< <i>Mike - Baseball cards led us both to CPA status >>



Definitely true, there are a lot of CPA's on the board. That is a great idea for a thread, "What do you do for a living?"

schapko

1985 Topps for Christmas 1985 when I was 9. My dad told me two kids split a vending case and made and sold sets out of them. Still have the set in a binder and upgrade the cards as a slowly open up new packs.

Jakt

1986 Topps.