General Forum

In 1966 I became a sports fan, particularly of the San Francisco Giants and Dallas Cowboys. I remember going to the convenience store in Del Rio, Texas, and paying my nickel for a pack of either 1966 Topps Baseball or 1966 Philadelphia Football cards. I owned many of who would become HOFers in baseball and football, but out of those the one card that got me hooked and to this day I still look at with much nostalgia is the 1966 Philadelphia #58 Bob Hayes RC. I didn't know it was his rookie card and that phenomena was not even part of my knowledge.

The problem for me was that I didn't own it and was the only card I wanted and didn't have. Between my two friends and me one of us finally pulled the card from a pack, and it wasn't me! I ended up trading for it in late '89 after pulling two '86 Topps Jerry Rice roookies from three wax packs. I immediately - and I mean immediately as I was at the card shop when I opened the packs - traded one of the Rice rookies for the Hayes card and the 1966 Philadelphia #61 Don Meredith card with my LCS.

I collected from '66 to '70, and restarted around '88 until '92, then again in '16 when I joined TCDB.

1981 Topps

what got me started was getting the complete sent of 1988 topps baseball for Christmas. 

 I was lucky, I had an older brother who got me started in 1957, when I was six.   Naturally you follow what your older brother did.    I bought a penny pack of 1957 and got my idol, #2  Yogi Berra.   Later that year, I marked it up with a new invention, the felt tip marker.   Did it to him and Frank Robinson, yes, his RC and some others.   I still have those cards and will post when I locate them.  

nice stories, thanks to all who posted here

my first pack of basbeall was in 75 at 8 yrs old, but my favorite Christmas was in 76 when I got a stack of 10 packs

I thought it was super cool that Hank Aaron was in the pack, but he looked super old to me...because he was!

78 was the first set I completed as a child, before internet, from packs, local card shops and flea markets

I just build a second set of 78 just for fun last year, and lots of good memories there..

mark z

1st time - 1978-79 OPC hockey.  My brother and I insisted on getting hockey cards.  My parents bought a half sheet of cards for each of us at the local Zellers.  The sheet included the All-Star cards with the Stanley Cup finals on the back.  As soon as we got home we wanted hockey cards ... not a sheet, so we took a pair of scissors and hand cut the sheet ... I was 6.

2nd time - a friend of mine in high school was collecting, so I decided to get back into it.  1988-89 OPC hockey, pulled a Brett Hull and 3 Joe Nieuwendyk RC out of the packs I bought.  Traded with the local card shop to complete the set.

3rd time - Two years age.  I kept seeing 2016-17 OPC hockey blaster boxes at the local Wal-Mart after being out of the hobby for 15 years.  My wife obviously noticed and encouraged me to buy some cards if I was interested.  Bought a blaster box and found this website the same week.  The bug has bit again ... permanently this time.  No looking back now.