How did you get seriously into collecting???

yankeeno7 · January 7, 2009 3:59AM

I was getting packs of cards since 77/78 but my true leap into collecting vintage was when I was 13 years old and my mother came home from a seminar in Massachusetts with a 1961 Topps Mickey Mantle and 1961 Topps Whitey Ford. From that moment on, I was addicted!

I'd be interested in hearing everyone's turning point of when they went from casual to serious collecting...lets hear it!

lawnmowerman · January 7, 2009 4:28AM

I was an abused child. Nobody liked me, not even my family. I was teased on the bus and forced to sit in the corner in school just because I looked diferent.

So, instead of becoming a serial killer, I decided to start collecting baseball cards when I was 10

I still wonder if I made the right choice

yankeeno7 · January 7, 2009 4:35AM

Is that why you went into mowing lawns? Thinking that every blade of grass is a head you are chopping off? You are a sick puppy!!!

jivan · January 7, 2009 4:39AM

My brother and i started our "serious" collecting in 1975.. we bought a set of bseball thru the mail for 10.00.... then we bought the 71,72,73 baseball sets from a dealer for 35,25,18 respectively.. then at the end of the 76 baseball season, we went into a huge store and bought all of their baseball cellos for 5 cents a pack.....In 77 we bought 2 vendor cases for 75.00 each and made 27 sets.. we had to top that so in 79 we came across a lady who had been a jobber, selling baseball cards and had some leftover wax and racks.. we bought 24,000 unopened cards for 120.00... Been fun ever since....did not even want to get into hitting the flea market near me and buying brick lots of 50's 60's mint baseball at 10-20 cents per card.. you could shave with them!!! ahh the memories.. thanks for letting me share.. ivan

pswebauctions · January 7, 2009 4:39AM

I put together a 1979 Topps Football set when I was a kid. Then stopped collecting. Wish I had continued at least until 1986 (Montana, Elway, Marino, Rice RC's). I got back into collecting after college and had some income to pay for cards. I sold off my 1979 doubles and bought into some of the Topps FB products at that time. What got me seriously into collecting again was the 1992 Topps football set and the Insert Gold cards. I always like that set - 759 individual players profiled including Favre's first Topps card. It is I believe the largest and most complete football set ever produced.

I still love this set and am putting together a high grade PSA version. Check our my set on the registry My 1992 Topps Gold set

While this set probably will never be worth what I am putting into in grading costs, I am plowing forward nonetheless.

If any of you have any 1992 Topps Gold FB cards you are looking to off-load, I am looking to buy any you may have. I'm specifically am looking for Series 1 (1-330) and Series 2 (331-660) but consider High Number cards if the price is right.

PM me with what you have (approximates are OK) and how much you want for it.

Paul

mmsportscards · January 7, 2009 4:40AM

great thread-

My memories were being 10 cracking cases upon cases of 82 fleer and donruss with my dad, he was a small time dealer in our area. Great story was when I was 12 pops was setting up at a flea market guy and his kid came up with a binder chuck full of mantles no rc everything but and 3 aaron rcs to boot well over 300 mantles. Hashed out the deal like 12 84 donruss sets 750-1250 bucks and the satin yankee jacket of my dads back and some other stuff tossed in. That was are little secret as mom would have killed him as that was about all his bank acct in the day.

Then in 85 it was taggin along at shows at 13 he'd give me 20 bucks to spend on whatever I thought was hot. Well I picked cory snyder, mcdowell at nickels and mcgwires at 20 cents I must have bought over 200 mcgwires he was tellin me to buy more snyders lol.

Then I got into dale murphy and mccovey and clemente I had a hoard and I mean nice stuff even had an eye back then. Id go to shows many new me as the kid that wanted to trade some dealers would even have stuff set aside at the age of 14 for me. Well it all came to an end when my brother came to one show with us and got me distracted, we were playing gauntlet walked out of the arcade without my cards and they were gone in within 5 minutes UGHHH bummed lost like 12 murphy rcs' and 6 mccoveys rcs and a whole run up to 70 and few clementes. It was like 100 cherry cards.

Then came jr high and high school, card days over GIRLS and SPORTS. Had my dad as a coach and teacher in a rough town didnt work out to well for us.

After all my crazy days 16-24 as we drifted apart I started back up for thats what we used to do and it worked grew close again buying selling stuff on ebay (collection management) over the years and collecting again. We did that for about 5 years collecting 52's-56 and then he got a job at the bank and didnt have anytime. I moved to fl and allsgood again.

He's pretty much gave me the collection other than the mags and memorabilia, after selling all the vintage for him. When he comes down he's like a kid in the candystore seeing hiend 70's and 80's sets. He wasnt to big on centering. His favorite statement, isnt this MINE lol. No dad those are still in your basement huh he replies all those sets yeah dad. He left me a decent collection of like 3-10 sets of everything from 80-97 mountains of stuff I'll never get to unless I move back to mi.

SO THANKS DAD for all the memories and retina failure!!!

Excuse my ramblin

Cheers, Gator

I

Stone193 · January 7, 2009 4:42AM

The boom of the early 90s and a son at collecting age got me to focus more and the rest is history.

I always get a kick out of those who call themselves "serious" collectors or better - "advanced" collectors. I mean - I expect a heart surgeon to be serious about what they do - but a hobby? Just put in the category of "guy who collects" when there's no game on TV.

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!

mike

IchiroDeported · January 7, 2009 4:51AM

I started buying packs in late 86' just for the heck of it; my friend needed 86 Red sox cards and i saw rack packs at the grocery store. i bought some; ripped them sold the singles for more than I paid for the racks. Thought, hey I can make some money on this stuff. Next year my cousin and I started setting up at card shows; I was still in High School at the time.

Two years later I was promoting shows and doing mail order stuff (with ads in Sports Collectors Digest/ Beckett etc.)

Then for 3 years i set up exclusively at flea markets on the weekend and paid my way through college. Then we went into a recession, manufacturers overproduced everything and that was that.

The only thing i really enjoyed keeping was the vintage stuff; could care less about the new junk, even today. My favorite sets are the 55 topps double header, 51 Bowman and 61 topps.

I didnt restart my collecting seriously until about 6 years ago.

PowderedH2O · January 7, 2009 4:53AM

I've been collecting cards since 1972 when I was 7. I was also collecting comic books and autographs too. I stopped collecting comic books about fifteen years ago when the greedy comic book companies tried to suck every last dime from me by having new issues come out with nine different covers and also with special issues all over the place. I couldn't keep up. I stopped collecting cards for several years for the same reason. One of my true joys was to build a set from packs. I remember the joy of getting a 1978 Jeff Burroughs and a 1980 Topps Bobby Bonds and a 1983 Topps Willie McGee after buying pack after pack looking for them. With packs at $2 each now, and a variety of inserts in every pack, I can't do that anymore.

My first bit of serious collecting was on a bit of luck. In the mid 70's I had a friend that traded his dad's baseball card box within the neighborhood. I was able to acquire about 50-60 cards from 1952-1960 as a kid. In 1981, my best friend's older brother took us to an arcade. In his car he had lots of baseball cards. I mentioned to him that I had a collection and like most 21 year olds, he pretty much blew off his little brother's 16 year old friend. A couple hours later I was asking him about his collection and he mentioned that he had a complete 1952 Topps set except for the Ed Mathews. Yes, it could be afforded by a 21 year old back then. Anyway, I told him that I had a 1952 Ed Mathews and he laughed and assured me I didn't, since it was such a hard to find card. I described my card to him and he immediately drove us to my house so he could see the card. He literally let out a scream of joy and told me that he would load me up with great cards to have this one. I agreed and we went to his place and he gave me about 30 Ex-Mint star cards from 1959-1963 including all the Musials, 1962 Mantle, a Yaz rookie, and a nice variety of Hall of Famers. He also gave me a HUGE stack of 1956 Duplicates. I would guess it must have been about 200 Ex-Mint cards.

Unfortunately, I had to sell these cards a few years later to put myself through school, but I never forgot the joy of having them. So now I try to collect my favorite sets from years gone by.

1989FleerBillRipkencollector · January 7, 2009 5:19AM

Stumbled on a FF card that was lacking ink. Later realized there was no great source of info on it and many thought there was 6 versions when I quickly found more than that.

perkdog · January 7, 2009 5:40AM

When I found out about PSA.

Im not kidding either, its funny because I often wonder if I stumbled upon say SGC first would I have been an "SGC guy" and stuck with them instead of PSA...

2003 I moved into an apartment in my girlfriends home town and nearby was a magazine/tobacco/newspaper store- working at the jail I have many weekdays off so out of boredom I would go to the store to get a can of dip and check out the magazines, I stumble upon an SMR for the very first time and became very interested in the Graded slabs and thought it was the best idea in the world, I then discovered Ebay and shortly after these message boards and I have been "seriously collecting" ever since.

calaban7 · January 7, 2009 5:46AM

<< <i>I was an abused child. Nobody liked me, not even my family. I was teased on the bus and forced to sit in the corner in school just because I looked diferent.

So, instead of becoming a serial killer, I decided to start collecting baseball cards when I was 10

I still wonder if I made the right choice

>>

Dexter, I watch your show often. No you did not make the correct choice, so give me all of those E. Smith cards.

We're you fed with a slingshot , while siiting in a corner ? If not , you might want to drop the line about the abuse and your family not liking you. Get over it.

mcolney1 · January 7, 2009 5:50AM

Spring of 1973, my best friend Jimmy Yee introduced me to sportscards. He had a bunch of 1972 football and hockey and I just fell in love with them (Ted Hendricks and Tony Esposito). I would take my lunch money, hide in the cafeteria so no one would see me ducking lunch so I could use the money to buy cards. Every Saturday I would walk to his house, about 8 blocks, then we would go to 7-11 on Lake City Way and buy cards, Zots and Sluprees. My first packs were last series 1973 Topps baseball. I had several Schmidts, but all well worn.

Continued to collect through high school - same story, girls, sports and college interrupted things. I do remember going to a show in Lynnwood where a guy was selling 1986 Fleer basketball boxes for $11.00 each. I got two complete sets and an extra Jordan. Traded them all away for crap and traded one set for a 1984 Donruss baseball set - what was I thinking????

Fast forward to the last few years. I have really reduce the size of my collection. Sold off doubles, crap, etc over the past three years on eBay. All I have left is what I'm interested. Definitely moved to quality over quantity.

Tony

Goot · January 7, 2009 7:00AM

When I was younger me and my dad always went to the card store/ flea market and collected cards. I always enjoyed getting new cards, but never took it too seriously. I would have my parents buy me a few packs when we went to walmart but nothing too major. I still have about 5 binders from my earlier collecting days. Two are baseball (one for AL, one for NL), one is football, one is hockey, and the other is basketball. Just about all of the cards in those binders are either dinged, creased, or commons, but I don't see getting rid of them anytime soon. My childhood still exists in those things.

Around the time I was 15, I started to buy packs/boxes more often and was hooked once again, only this time much more serious. I didn't really have any "turning point", but I joined these forums in March '07, set up my own ebay account, and have since been enjoying this great hobby!

nam812 · January 7, 2009 7:18AM

<< <i>.........then we would go to 7-11 on Lake City Way and buy cards, Zots and Sluprees........ >>

+1 for Zots. Mmmm

mmsportscards · January 7, 2009 7:26AM

zotz and 3 liters of mountain dew and of course playin wiffle ball with a full mouth of nerds

bman90278 · January 7, 2009 7:29AM

My father used to buy me cards back in the early 70's and I started buying cards as I got older. I believe I stopped buying cards in 84 or close to that and a few years later I sold many of my prized HOF and star cards to a card shop. In the last few years i got back into cards as I wanted to get a great collection going to save for my 3 year old son Wyatt...Or that's what I've been telling my wife.lol My original plan was to save all of the wax packs and rack packs unopened so me and my son can rip them together when he gets older...Now thanks to this message boards I couldn't resist and ripped most of them. lol

Brian

BigDaddyBowman · January 7, 2009 7:37AM

It depends on what "serious" means. When I was a kid growing up in the late 70's..early 80's I was a pretty hardcore collector. Every spare nickel went to packs, and most free time was trading cards or sorting cards. I was a pretty serious collector..at least as much as a kid can be. I remember fondly the days of raiding Mom's coin jar, riding our bikes to Fox Drug store and buying packs of cards and lemon heads candy.
I took a few year hiatus in high school, and started up in the early nineties collecting Dallas Cowboy cards. My goal was getting every card the Cowboys ever had. I came close to that feat....still have the albums of those cards..every once in a while I look at them...its funny how I can remember where and when I picked up most of those cards.
I would have to say my late college years..around 1992 is when I became very serious collector in regards to collecting vintage (pre1960) football cards. The film 75 Seasons:History of the NFL really ignited my passion for vintage football. Talking manlove here... LOL...I fell in "love" with Sammy Baugh and the other players of the early years of pro football. During the 90's I accumulated a nice collection of raw bowman football that I picked up at the local shows. Many of those cards are long gone now...as the near mint cards of the 90's shows turned into PSA/SGC 5's!
I would have to say that I REALLY became serious as a collector when I got started ebaying...and thus became entrenched in the graded card universe. I was fortunate to get hooked on ebay during the infancy stages (around 1999-2000), so I picked up quite a bit of great graded cards for low money.

I think it is important to note that the price of the card should not denote "seriousness" of collecting. I was just as passionate as a kid as I am now about collecting....my discretionary income is just a little better now

Its kind of funny...I can think back to my college years and going to the local store and hemming and hawing at dropping $25 dollars on a 54 Otto Graham.....now I rarely buy anything less than $25.

WinPitcher · January 7, 2009 8:37AM

My mother took away my lil blanket too soon.

Steve

TheCARDKid · January 7, 2009 1:07PM

I got "serious" into it, about 1987, 88. It was a combination of factors...

-Only 4 major sports to follow. No X games, golf wasn't that popular, motorcross, etc. It was easy to follow baseball. Dont know if I'd start collecting today, given things are so scattered. But no internet, basic tv/cable you could follow the games, some heros! (Mattingly, Sandberg). Pre steroids. Pre scandals. It was the perfect combination of factors to get kids into collecting.

-I've always loved the variety in cards. I think everyone starts with modern cards. Then you go backwards, and it's "cool" to get a card from 1970 or 60. And I got some reprint cards, those historic baseball greats. I'd devour the stats and players (like hack wilson, gehrig, etc).

-Then price guides, Beckett.

Pre 87 it was casual. I would trade cards in elementary school (wonderful memories). 87 Topps was sort of a landmark. It had so many rookies. Like Wally Joyner, Mike Greenwell, etc.

Then things peaked around 89-91/92. I was going to maybe 6 or 8 shows a year around southern california. Around 93 I started getting out of it, burned out. But still subscribed to SCD. Then "rediscovered" cards, and psa around 98/99.

HighChopper · January 7, 2009 1:18PM

Would lay on the floor in the living room looking through my dad's 50's sets in plastic sheets.

He seemed to have a story for each player. Man's knowledge of baseball history is amazing.

Thumb through those sets every once in awhile when I'm home. Still feel weird about handling his cards as he was pretty freakish about condition even when I was a kid in the seventies.

He did buy me two baseball wax boxes for my birthday in October of '74. We ripped and put together a set. I remember pulling the San Diego/Washington cards. Johnny Grubb I remember was a tough card to locate.

Only collected sets from then on.

Remember wiping out on my bike with a stack of about 100 '75 Topps baseball cards. After the blood and tears dried, my mom and I went to retrieve the cards. They all had little gravel indentations as cars had run them over a few times. Good memories.

JVette · January 7, 2009 1:58PM

I collected when I was growing up in the 60's and Mom threw them out when I moved out and went to college. Started collecting again when I graduated from college - mid 70's - focusing back on the cards I collected growing up. I still remember the day that I did my monster trade for the 1961 Mickey Mantle All-Star High Number - a card that was valued at more than $100!!!

Sold completed EX sets of 1961, 1968 and 1969 Topps baseball in mid-80's to come up with the down payment for our first house. The mortgage company questioned how I increased my savings so rapidly and I told them I sold my baseball cards. They said they would need a statement from the people I sold my cards to. I then said I lied - I actually sold drugs. That got me a slug from my wife.

Moved to collecting coins for a while - and then about 10 years or so ago - started back on collecting cards. Working on several sets from the 1950's and 1960's - but can't get into trying to collect the 1961, 1968 or 1969 sets - as I can't get over already having them completed and selling them.

FWIW - Jack

Ahmanfan · January 7, 2009 4:10PM

<< <i>I Its kind of funny...I can think back to my college years and going to the local store and hemming and hawing at dropping $25 dollars on a 54 Otto Graham..... >>

Nothing funny about it, it bites! ha ha.
John

How did you get seriously into collecting???

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