I started with stamps as well. Mostly US, and like Ted, stamps from Greece (my grandparents were immigrates from Samos).
I'm not sure I was a baseball card "collector". I bought cards with collected glass pop bottle deposit money. They were played with, traded, used and abused. I still have them, but they are very well loved
So even the cards I buy now are used and well loved, since that's what I remember from my youth.
Having relatives that served during WW1 and WW2 sparked an interest in military history. I still collect and research items that vets brought back with them, along with divisional and unit histories. While serving in France during WWI, Harry Truman often wrote to his fiancé Bess Wallace. In one correspondence he wrote, “I heard a Frenchman remark that Germany was fighting for territory, England for the sea, France for patriotism, and Americans for souvenirs.”
Tim