General Forum

Been seeing that a lot of us are much older and either retired or close to retirement. Chuck got me thinking what Card or event got me collecting and would be interesting to hear how others got thier start or what Card is the one that made you want to collect for any sport or non sports. Mine was the summer of 1972 and I was just learning American sports had recently moved to Michigan, I remember going to Tiger Stadium with a group of others. I had my Mitt as any young boy back then always had ready to catch balls hit your way, back then the parking lots were not as high security and before the games we would gather outside to see our favorite players or get autographs. 

Continued...... 

I was given a few cards of the Tigers and A's who were visiting, I had no idea who the players were without looking at cards. so when Reggie Jackson and Joe Rudi saw I had cards they went and signed them, for a young kid this can make or break you and I almost cried as I want them to sign my mitt not the cards I was just given so I know I had to been crying, but afterwards I held on to those cards for many years and became an Oakland Fan and even played on Little League team which had thier colors. that is how I fell in love with baseball card collecting and then came the Hockey magic a couple years later.

It was 1988. I was 4 years old. I was already a huge Monster Truck fan and that was the year the Leesley Bigfoot set came out. I got some, no idea where anymore, and that kick started my collection. That same year my brother gave me his Star Wars duplicates and for years I thought they were my first, but he remembered that he only gave them to me after I got the Bigfoot cards. I wrote up a 3-part, year by year history of my card collecting back in January to celebrate my 30th anniversary collecting. This is part 1. I've never stopped collecting although what I collect has drastically changed over the years. 

My Dad just started buying us rack packs of Topps in 1981 after we had moved to Tulsa and they had a cool place called Toys R Us.  Opened them up and marked the checklist. I dont think I ever finished the set.  Then I really got into the scratch-off cards that remind me of lottery tickets now.  My brother has collected cards since he was 1 year old. I would have been 6.

I remeber in the last 50s having approx 20 cards. (basebal and airplanes)  Do not know  who what where they come from.   We just had them.  Some way along they got lost.    Early 80's son started collecting Garbage Pail Kids.   I talked him into football.   When he quit I keep going.

I came back to collecting in early 1993 when some friends got caught up in Shaq Attack, we ended up hitting all the local LCS for 1992-93 Stadium Club packs looking for Shaq rookie cards.

1st time - Mid '80's - had friends that collected and so I started buying packs. Never was serious although I did ask for (and received) the factory sets for Topps Football in 1985 & 1986.

2nd time - 1989 - Nolan Ryan joined my hometown Texas Rangers and I became a die-hard fan of his. That started me collecting for real. That spiraled out until I was collecting several players, including Troy Aikman. In a tale for another time, my request for a 1989 Score Aikman RC resulted in my grandmother becoming a rabid card collector as well.

3rd time - 2009 - Started collecting TCU Horned Frogs in all sports. I think it was a reaction to trying to break out of the funk from my mom's passing the year before.

In grade 1 I saw that some of my classmates had some series one 73-74 OPC hockey cards. It was family routine to visit my grandparents every Saturday night. With some aggresive begging, my father bought me a couple of packs. But they were series two with the dark backs. Nobody would trade with me. The following year I completed the full set of 396 by pack, trading, and being very good at card games. My first baseball cards were 76 OPC. Got halfway through that set. Nobody to trade with in the summer in a hockey town.

It was Garbage Pail Kids that got me started collecting cardboard. My mother had collected baseball cards as a kid (that collection long thrown away) and tried to stear me away from the GPKs with a rack pack of 1987 Topps.

It worked. 

In the early 1990s I went to my first Braves game. The Padres where there and just wiped the floor with the Braves. Of coarse Tony Gwynn was just hitting everything that every pitcher threw at him. From that point Tony Gwynn was my favorite player and I started hunting down his cards. From the year 2000 til around the beginning of 2016 I was on a break.  

It was the fond memories of hunting down Tony Gwynn items to add to my collection that brought me back. 

I may have mentioned this before but I would definitely say 1962 was the year, and likely a tie between the 1962 Canadian Post Cereal edition and the 1962 Topps. Alpha-Bits was the obvious favorite cereal ( and perhaps for that reason still might possibly be) and as for the Topps I actually don't recall how but no doubt a corner store in the neighbourhood probably was the recipient of many a nickel. (just imagine 5 cents and the gum was a bonus!) By 1965-66 I was hooked by all accounts and remember both years playing the (I believe) 10 cent machines at the local exhibitions (summer fairs).