My pre-war start
I started collecting pre-war by high school, if not middle school. I had started collecting 50's-60's stuff earlier... I purchased my first Mickey Mantle card from a Memphis area dealer when I was around 11-12 years old. I'm 35 now, so my pre-war phase probably started in the late 80's and ramped up through the early 90's. My first T206 was a Jeff Pfeffer from a school mate, but my second was a T206 Mordecai Brown Cubs chest that I bought at a local card show. I think I also got my first '33 Goudey in HS. In college I continued to buy some pre-war including a couple of T205s, one T207, many T206s, and some more '33 Goudeys.
Starting back then you could really only find pre-war at card shows. If I had had resources like Net54, eBay, etc. back when I started on pre-war then I might have a much larger collection today. There's been a ton of $18-25 T206s on the B/S/T boards lately and I would have grabbed those up back then in my buying sprees. Now, with kids and family and living on a Dave Ramsey budget, I'm much more cautious on how much I spend on cards. Still, I'm so glad my eyes were opened to old cards... if it weren't for them I would have surely been long gone from the hobby by now.
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