New member

[brewing]

Welcome. You have come to the right place. This is a great online community.

I'm also a Tiger collector, working on a 1952-1987 run. Still need some from 57-66.

[tigerfan]

Thanks for asking! I grew up in a rural area. I was 10 in 1954. I had begun to listen to baseball games on the radio, and I was hooked. One day I walked down to the local mom and pop IGA and saw the topps packs. Had no idea what they were, but they said baseball cards and bubble gum. Five cents a pack. I did not have many nickels, but I bought one pack.

Even now it is hard to describe the way I felt when I saw those vivid colors. They were so vibrant and crisp, and I even recognized some of the players. As I said earlier, I immediately fell in love. I was thrifty even then and saw the value in buying a 24-pack box for a dollar instead of individual packs. However, one dollar was tough to come by and I did not have the patience to wait until I had it. So I literally spent the summer collecting old glass coke bottles and returning them for a refund. (Remember eight-ounce cokes?). I would turn in 20 coke bottles to Mr. Wilson in exchange for a box of 1954 Topps cards. He only asked that I wash them out before recycling them. (I found many buried in ditches where they had been tossed from cars.)

The other thing I did that summer was to convince my seven-year old sister to buy nickel packs so I could trade my gum for her cards. I never missed the gum and she never was a baseball fan. Worked out fine.

That's the story of me and 1954 Topps.

[Volod]

Hey, thanks for the anecdote, TigerFan. It really took me back to my own misspent youth. Wish I had had enough financial sense to go for boxes instead of packs, but I was only seven when I started on the '52 Bowman set and didn't even imagine that I could buy in quantities larger than packs. Most of the M&P stores in my area were run by crusty old guys who wouldn't even condescend to talk to a kid, let alone deal with one. But, I know what you mean when you recall the mysterious thrill of opening your first pack at that age and being grabbed by the color and crispness of the cards, not to mention the bubble-gum dust and aroma. Great memory.