How long you collected as a kid ?...

[abothebear]

During ages 5-7, 1984 - 1985 I loved the baseball and football cards my dad brought home for me. But it wasn't until the fall of '86 that I started "collecting" (before that I played with the cards, wrote on the backs, and stored them in a 1972 Olympics bag that my aunt gave me. I was just thinking the other day how the 1987 Topps set was the first set I remember waiting for the release and being excited about the new design. The wood panelling often gets panned, but I will always love it.

I stopped collecting baseball cards when MLB went on strike. I collected basketball and mostly hockey cards for a couple more years, but I moved into comic books almost exclusively and was pretty much done with both by the time I graduated from high school. It was a good long run, ages 5-17 broadly speaking, or ages 7-15 as prime collecting years.

[Jantz]

Ral

Your story is almost identical to mine, except the years would be 1976-1979. I collected all three sports then. Still have all my cards, except one.

I decided two years ago to finish one of my sets that I started back then. Found the last few cards for my 1979 Topps set at the Strongsville show last month. 31 years later and its finally finished!

Like your comment about "other things". So true

Jantz

[glchen]

I started in 1982 at age 9 and basically continued until 1990 before starting up again last year.

[Peter W Thomas]

Started with 1949 Leaf after 1st grade ended and walked to Cashman's store on Rt 9 in Natick Mass with Bob Olskansky. Picked up pop bottles from construction site between school and Cashman's and turned them into Leaf's - still have the cards. My step-granddad saw them and gave me about 50 goudeys that were canceled as a promption that was being run at the drug store he worked in Worcester. They were punched through the trademark. Still have those also.

[tedzan]

My first BB cards were acquired in the Summer of 1947 when I was 8 years old. They were pulled from the BOND BREAD packages.



Like Peter Thomas, my first color BB cards were the 1949 LEAF's. But, only the 1st series of 49 cards. Peter was very fortunate, since the very tough
2nd series (49 cards) were available in his area.

Collected 1948 - 1952 BOWMAN's (BB and FB and WILD WEST cards).

In the Spring of 1952, I was very excited when the TOPPS cards were available. My very last pack of 1952 TOPPS cards was acquired in the Fall of 1952.
It included this Mickey Mantle. In 1977, I recovered my collection of sportscards from my youth. Fortunately, my folks stored the cards in our attic (when
I was away in the Air Force in the early 1960's).



TED Z

[bh3443]

I opened packs of EVERYTHING starting in 1967. I got more into it in 1968/69 when I completed my first sets which were 1968 Topps BB, FB, and the hockey and basketball from the fall and winter. I opened lots of non-sports, too.
By the time 1969 arrived I was buying a dozen or more boxes of every series of Baseball to make up multiple sets. I continued opening packs and I still do today. My passion has always been in "older cards."
I started scouring the neighborhood for older cards in the late 60's and did quite well.
My favorite childhood sets are: 69 Topps BB, 68 Topps FB and 68-69 Topps hockey.

[PolarBear]

I started with non sports in 1977 (Star Wars). I only collected sports for two years, 1980 and 81 football. I never did collect baseball and when I got back into cards a few years ago, I started a football set, then discovered the wide world of vintage baseball, and got interested in baseball history. I still don't care much about, or watch much, modern baseball.

If football had the same array of pre war cards that baseball does, I'd most likely collect those. As it is, there's only a couple of isolated issues. Football cards didn't really take off until Bowman started issuing them.

[ullmandds]

I began collecting cards in 1975-1976 at the age of 6-7...I first acquired a small stash of 1970 topps...which led to buying packs in late 1976 or so. I started compiling sets in 1977 and did this until 1982 when the market was becoming crowded with sets other than topps. My dad would ask his coworkers if their sons(who had gone off to college) had any bb cards they didn't want...and through this I was able to acquire most significant cards from 1957-present. I had a huge bider or two with hof'ers and stars of the day...all in sheets in chronological order.

I purchased my first t206 at a card show in 1980 or so...and had a handful or two of vintage(pre-wwII) cards when I sold my collection in high school to fund the purchase of a bitchin' camaro. I kept maybe 30 cards from my childhood collection.

In college my roommates and I started buying packs of upper deck cards which led me back to the hobby.

I vowed to never buy cards I once owned so I went in the direction of vintage...and haven't looked back.

[Exhibitman]

Now, boxing cards, slightly different story. I was at a show in the 1990s after I'd come back to L.A. after graduation and I saw 1948 Leaf cards for the first time. I was thumbing through them and I picked up a Barney Ross and Benny Leonard. I knew Ross's name and I saw that the back of the Leonard card made reference to his being Jewish, which I thought was interesting. I picked up the cards and took them over to my parents' house to show to my father as curiosities--Jewish boxers after all. He took a look at the Ross card and said "I think my cousin Ray fought him." First time he'd ever mentioned it and it totally blew my mind that we had an actual athlete in the family tree as I can barely walk and chew gum together. I pressed him for details but he didn't have much, so I started researching. I first used my trusty old Beckett multisport book, which had about a dozen sets in it, to target Ray Miller cards, and Ross and Leonard cards and anyone else who sounded Jewish (of course, I had no idea who was what--I looked for Sammy Mandell cards--he was Italian--and passed up Joe Choynski cards--his dad was the publisher of one of the more influential Jewish newspapers, from S.F.). Shortly after that I found my first boxing Exhibit cards at another show. Bought a group of 1920s-1950s from an obnoxious loudmouth dealer who I'd normally have walked away from but I had to have those cards. Got a Marciano, a Louis and a Jack Johnson, among others.