Just for fun.... How many still have their first card?

[Mountaineer1999]

Here's mine... or one of mine as my brother and I only got one pack in 72 and Yaz was the lone star. This poor old baseball card came from hard beginnings surviving our musty little house and the wrath of a 5 and 7 year olds.

[Gr8Beldini]

Funny you should mention it. 1971 Topps... My first pack (or packs - my parents might have bought me two) I pulled Jerry Crider, Frank Johnson, and Aurelio Monteaguado among others that I don't recall, though I'm pretty sure there was a Pinella as well. Was just thumbing through a stack of childhood beaters and came across the cards (all but Pinella). Cool.

[nolemmings]

This one was not in the first pack I ever opened, but I would bet it was in the first ten:

[bnorth]

The last time I seen my much older cousin was when I was 6-7 yrs old. He gave me all his cards, around 3-400 of them. They ranged from 61-66 and included several types including Topps, Post, Batman, Monster Laughs, and a few others. I still have most of them. I got them around 1975 and they just set in a dresser drawer for 10/11 years till my brother got me into collecting.

EDIT: After seeing Todd's 66 Mantle above I have a sad/funny story. Most of the 66 Topps cards I was left were in NrMnt just pulled from the pack condition. In my early 20's I was dating a girl and her little brother who was in about 7th grade knew I collected baseball cards and asked if I had any Mickey Mantle cards. I said I have an amazing 66 Topps card. He asked if he could take it to school the next day and like a dummy I said yes. When I got the card back it looked worse than the one in Todd's post.

[DHogan]

The nuns in 3rd grade took all the cards that they caught us with in 1967. That could be why I've never seen any retired nuns around. My mother never threw any of my cards out. My father, he would throw my stuff out of the window.

[mrmopar]

I have all of my cards from childhood, but I don't have a "first" card that I can ID. I first bought packs in 1978, so it is one of many well loved 78 Topps baseball cards.

I'll show this because that is what I did to some of my cards then. The photo cropped a little funny, but it is a mini card, thanks to me cutting off part of the border.

[Collectorsince62]

Summer of 1962. I rode my bike to the neighborhood drug store and bought my first pack of cards. Guisti, McLish, Lemon, Gotay, and Horlen. I kept them together in a rubber band made from an old inner tube. The rubber band is gone but those five are still together and they mean as much to me as the most valuable cards in my collection.

[Volod]

Funny, the very first one is the only one from childhood I still have. Was walking down the hall in grade school and saw a kid slam his locker shut and hurl something at the floor. Walking past it, saw that it was a pasteboard card of a ballplayer i had never heard of. In fact, I had never heard of baseball cards at the age of seven. But, something about the tools of ignorance, the name Robinson and the sadness of his situation made me pocket the find. Studying the back of the card brought the realization that there were whole sets of cards that were issued every year. I stashed Mr. Robinson in a photo album where he remained until I found it more than 30 years later in my mother's remnants. She had tossed all of my other cards, but missed that one.

[hcv123]

The first cards I remember having were from 1972. I had a shoebox full of them. By 1975-76 I was much more into comic books and had started going to shows. I took my box of 1972's (pretty sure I had a Carew in there) to a comic book show and traded them for next to nothing. :-(

[Shoebox]

First pack of cards I ever received was a pack of 89 Donruss. I remember it had a Ryne Sandberg in it because I was a Cubs fan. I carried them in my pocket everywhere for the next week. Don't still have that card but still have a pristine example of the card in my avi that was pulled from a pack that first year as well.

[pawpawdiv9]

Yep, actually mine was a album/starter set from Sears at Xmas time. They were those TCMA all time cards of all the greatest players.

[Mountaineer1999]

These were great guys, thanks for sharing. There was nothing like opening up those fresh packs as a kid and hoping for a Stargell card.

[David W]

One of my first cards is the one with my User Name written on it.

In my circle of friends we all wrote our names or initials on the cards so we would not get them mixed up when we played with them.

[KingFisk]

Wow, what a great idea for a thread. I'm sure I still have this card somewhere buried in a box, but I remember this was the first card ever laying eyes on, after my mom bought me a pack of cards when I was 5...also in the pack was Dan Petry, Darrell Porter (an All-Star!!!), A's team card, and some others I don't remember...but here was number the opener....great memories..

[NateMack]

Picked up this beauty in about 1989. It was my first vintage card and one of the coolest ever because it was the card where Maris broke the record! I bought it for $4 I think at a card shop in Tucson, AZ called The Sportspage. I collected all the usual junk from the late 80's and early 90's, but this was my vintage card...

I can still remember finding the card in a stack of vintage and really being torn as to whether $4 bucks was going to set me back a ways...

ps: I dont know why my pics end up the wrong way, any help would be appreciated

photo(5).jpg

[NateMack]

Sorry double post

[steve B]

First pack was in 69, there was a drugstore that had penny candy and sometimes dad would let me go with him and pick out something. That time I saw the baseball card pack and asked what it was. Some gum and baseball cards?? What were those? So I bought a pack. We sat in the car and opened them, dad looked at them and said "hey this guy is pretty good". They went home and into the toybox for a while, I don't think I did much playing with them. Didn't buy any in 70, one pack in 71 for some reason, maybe to get the coin.

late 73 we moved to a new town and the kids I met were into sports. And collected cards. After getting a few, I remembered my old ones and searched the toybox for them. A couple of the 71s had survived, and the 71 coin. And one of the 69s, the one dad said was a "pretty good" player.

Reggie Jackson.

Still have it, haven't upgraded, not even as a second card. And yes, it's in "spent 4 years in a box with tinkertoys, hotwheels, and Tonka trucks and some other stuff " condition.

Steve B

[almostdone]

I don't remember or have my very first card. I know the first time I was exposed to cards was in 1978. My brother had a horrible accident and while hospitalizd someone brought him a box of cards to open. We read and studied those cards for years. I learned my love of the game and statistics from those cards.

I do know the first vintage card I ever owned and still do own it. In 1993 I was just out of college and in a new but temporary job (21 years later and I'm still there). A coworker who was about 15 years older than me, Joe, was a collector. At the time I was into all the new stuff and bought it up at a fantastic rate. I was showing my newest pulls to him and explaining how awesome it all was. He was polite but didn't seem to get was I was so excited about.

The next day Joe told me that if I ever wanted to be considered a true card collector than I have to have a "real Mickey Mantle". He pulled from his pocket a 1968 Topps Mantle in horrible to crappy condition. I was blown away. I didn't know what it would sell for, probably around $20, but I knew I owned a Mantle.

I found out about ten years ago that Joe went onto become a pastor in Florida and then suddenly and tragically died leaving a wife and two children. I think of him and his generosity to a young, arrogant card collector every time I see that beat up Mantle in my display case. At that point I started looking at vintage and eventually never bought a new pack again.

Drew

PS At some other point in some other thread I'll share two unbelievable stories that Joe shared with me about two different run ins he had with two different legends of the game.