What was your first set?

mrmopar · #1 08-04-2021, 05:08 PM

1978 was the year I discovered cards, bought packs and that baseball set was the first I completed by hand...in fact, one of the few.
A few years later, I started buying the 3 sets via mail order each year.
I eventually went back and bought 79 and 80 sets, but I have nothing older than 78 to this day.

I bought so many of them that I knew (and still know) most cards in the set by just a portion of the images on the cards.
I don't have any specifics, but it was the beginning of a lifetime passion.

Still one of my favorite sets of all time, probably mostly because it was my first.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

Pure nostalgia time.

I knew little to nothing about baseball when, in early 1978, Scholastic Books sent out their annual fishing net to my 4th grade class. I subscribed to Dynamite Magazine, and in their Happy Birthday Mad! edition that spring, I found a panel of baseball cards stapled into the spine: Darrell Porter, Cecil Cooper, Tony Perez and Al Oliver. I'd never heard of any of them or their teams (for decades I would have sworn only 4 cards were in the issue - I must have quickly discarded the dupes), but I was hooked. I quickly found out you could actually buy packs of these things in the store (I sort of new that already - the previous fall a couple older friends gave me all their Star Wars cards because they'd discovered the 1977 Topps Baseball set).

On my way with my mom to a doctor's appointment, she stopped and bought me a wax pack. To this day I still recall some of the cards it contained - Jose Baez (#311 - for some reason I thought it was the Maine Mariners, until my father corrected me), Sparky Lyle Record Breaker (#2), Rick Manning (#11), Luis Tiant (#345) and George Hendrick (#30).

Because it was my first set, and almost all the players and most of the teams were unknown to me (I grew up in Connecticut, so I knew the Red Sox, Yankees, and a bit about the Reds and the Dodgers), each card made an impression - I can still remember anecdotes about so many (got Pete Rose in a pack driving someplace with my dad - "that's a good card to have" he said).

To this day, paging through my album, I can still identify those I got in packs versus those I had to rely on the doubles in friends' collections for. In some odd way, the cards I had to really hunt for still stand out to visually as somehow "different" as I look at the set.

I can remember the first cards I pulled of each team (Yankees - Ken Clay and Ken Holtzman) as well as the last cards I needed to complete each team (Blue Jays - Otto Velez, Alvis Woods).

I ripped through wax, cello and rack packs, but there were still some cards I could never find. My Dirty Dozen, those that were the most tough to find, were:

1. Mariners Team (not the Maine Mariners, remember...)
2. Checklist 485-605
3. Mike Jorgensen
4. Bo McLaughlin
5. Ed Kirkpatrick
6. Reggie Cleveland
7. Bill Virdon
8. Ed Armbrister
9. Glenn Burke
10. Dave Garcia
11. Rookie 2nd Basemen (Perlozzo, Whitaker, Iorg, Oliver)
12. Mike Paxton

Mind you, I had never seen or heard of any of these guys - had no idea what they looked like. The final hold out was the Angels' Gary Ross. Over the course of the summer and into the fall, I managed to find even the dirty dozen from friends but never could lay eyes on Ross.

Then my dad showed me a magazine he got when he went to a Yankees game with a Renata Galasso add - the entire set, in mint condition, for less than $15?? It took me a while to talk them into it but my parents let me order it. After long delays, we received it in early 1979, but they sent the wrong set! They sent me the blasted 1979 set! More delays, but I finally got the right box and I finally got Gary Ross.

Of course, there was the fascination of learning there were older cards out there (you mean this isn't the first set they made?? Why is Mike Torrez with the A's and who's Dick Bosman?) and new cards when the new year rolled around (you mean they do a new set EVERY year? What's Pete Broberg doing on an A's card?!? who's Carney Lansford?).

I was hooked.

I would love to hear others' stories about their first sets - I imagine there's a story like this out there for every Topps set issued.

Harliduck · #2 08-04-2021, 05:31 PM

I love these threads and reading through each persons stories and journey...

For me it was when I was 9, mom bought a pack each of 1979 Topps cards home for me and my brother who grew up in a baseball loving family and we already had the fever. My first card was Reggie Jackson...I still own the card...and he immediately became my favorite player. My brothers first card was a Mariner...and I was JEALOUS...getting a home team card was huge. It was Rick Honeycutt...and...he still has the card. I got the Mariners team card with the King Dome in my next pack and that was my favorite for a long time. Outside of Reggie of course...

From then on we were obsessed...begging mom to pick up packs as often as she could. Didn't take long to put the 79 set together. Learned of the Bump Wills error at school and I traded away a few cards to get the Rangers version (I had the Blue Jays) as we thought (still not sure) that was the tough one. Everyone seemed to have the Blue Jays version. I thought I was going to be RICH for getting that card. To us it was the upside down plane stamp...

Then my mom made an amazing discovery...she stopped at an old convenient store out of our neighborhood and asked for any packs of cards. The person working the counter said no, but had some in back and sold her like 6 boxes at half price because they were last years. When she came home and told us of this discovery, I was OVER THE MOON. My brother didn't want any part of "last years cards" so I got them all. 1978 Topps packs!! They may as well been 20 years old to me at the time. My brother was 7, what did he know. So I opened all the boxes and was able to complete a set with lots of trading for school. What a score. So at 9 I had two complete sets...

Fast forward to 1981...still getting packs from mom...still putting sets together. I opened pack after pack after pack...COULD NOT FIND Johnny Wokenfuss (Sp?) and Gene Richards. NONE of my school friends had either of these as well. When finally...FINALLY I opened a few packs and got both, set complete. At school I was getting offers after offers for both...no one had either. It was weird, I can't imagine they were single printed in any way or there was coalation regional? I wouldn't budge. My football coach was a big man in town...he was the bench coach for the Phillies and Tigers in the 70's and 80's...had a man cave with AMAZING items...Babe Ruth signed balls, jerseys...you name it. Through him I was able to meet Pete Rose and Milt Wilcox after Mariner games...we thought he was about as famous as it gets. Anyhow...he had just started collecting cards and after practice one day taking me home (back then we would all pile in the back of his pickup truck and he would take a bunch of kids home...crazy to think of that now!) When he got to my house he asked if he could look at my cards. I let him sift through my 81 set and low and behold, he pulled out Gene Richards and said hey, son, your coach needs this card, I'm going to take it. I was not happy, but at 11 years old I didn't say a word...just smiled...and he took it! I went and told my Dad...coach left and my Dad walked him to the truck. When he came back he had my Gene Richards card. He just looked at me and said "son...I don't care who anyone is in life, never get taken advantage of...ever. Here is your card, let that be a lesson".

That one stuck with me. Card was worth a nickel then, probably a nickel now...but everytime I see that dang card a flood of memories comes back to me. Amazing what a little piece of cardboard can mean...and what sometimes people will do to get it...

butchie_t · #3 08-04-2021, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harliduck

Fast forward to 1981...still getting packs from mom...still putting sets together. I opened pack after pack after pack...COULD NOT FIND Johnny Wokenfuss (Sp?) and Gene Richards. NONE of my school friends had either of these as well. When finally...FINALLY I opened a few packs and got both, set complete.

I have a story about a card only in reverse of yours. 1974 Topps baseball Winston Llenas was his name. It seemed every time I opened a pack of cards, I would get a frickin' Llenas card. It was nuts how many of them I had 20+ last time I counted. It could not have been some other loser like Jackson, or Rose, or Bench or any other players of their ilk. Nope good ole' Winston and me.

Makes me laugh every time I see him in that set.

ksfarmboy · #4 08-04-2021, 06:04 PM

My first cards were 1977 football. I tacked the first pack up to the wall. A buddy of my dads soon opened a card store and I learned the value of cards were based on condition. Broke my heart I ruined my cards by pinning them up. I ended up getting many more and completed the set. I still have the original cards with the tack holes. I worked at the card shop and was his first customer. We were too late for the 77 baseball packs but I opened a ton of Star Wars, basketball and football. 1978 was my first year collecting baseball and I had the set. Yaz was extremely tough and I did get one but unfortunately left it at a friends house. I never got another one out of a pack but bought one later. Opened lots of 79s but 1980 was my heyday. I have about 8-9 sets from packs. I even knew the collation from opening so many. Working at the shop one of my jobs was opening a case of cards and sorting them by numbers and pulling the big stars. I chewed so much gum and it was a great job. I still remember the owner reaching into a filing cabinet of 55 Bowman baseball commons, grabbing a huge stack and giving them to me for working a full day. Man I miss those days.

commishbob · #5 08-04-2021, 08:21 PM

My first set chase was the 1960 set and i seem to think I finished it that year. The first cards I ever saw were in the hands of a girl in my Long Island neighborhood in 1958. I was becoming a baseball fan at the age of 7 and those colorful cards made a huge impression on me. the next year I got some packs of '59s in my Easter basket and a hobby collector was born.

In 1960 I set out to gather as many cards as I could and saved every nickel I could for that purpose. I earned some coins doing chores and spent them all on cello packs at EJ Korvettes on every shopping trip my folks took me on. We lived near my Brooklyn-based grandparents and every weekend we were there and just down a block or so was a corner candy/news/cigarette/soda fountain that my grandfather would walk to every morning for the paper and a pack of Camels. I never left that place with a few packs of cards.

My best source was probably my uncle's pharmacy over in Bergen County, NJ. More than once he brought me a full 20 pack box.

The 1960 set doesn't get a lot of love from collectors but it still holds a place in my hobby heart. I rebuilt it just a few years ago and it was a very nostalgic and fun chase. I was reminded of how much i loved those orange rookie cards. Something about them impressed me and I've never lost that love.

And the backs, especially the ones printed on the cream colored stock, are among my favorites of any card backs. Love this set.

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mortimer brewster · #6 08-05-2021, 03:51 AM

In 1978 I was in a local bookstore (ullbrichs) in Buffalo NY and I picked up the history of baseball cards book by Clark. I started looking at the pictures and I got bit by the collecting bug. Purchased the book and occasionally take it off the shelf and thumb thru it. It's pretty beat up

I went home and ordered the 1977 and 1978 baseball card sets out of the Sporting News. I believe it cost me 27.00 PPD. I remember many of the cards being miscut, especially the 1978 Murray rookie. Been collecting ever since, I never really stopped.

My first set was actually 1971 Topps football. Collected the cards in the fall and when football season ended I took my cards to the playground at school and threw them up in the air and watched the little kids run after them.