[dbacks08]

Yep, I still have my first card... parents bought it for me when I was about six years old at one of those card shows in the mall. 1992 Fleer Ultra Ryne Sandberg, still in the original toploader and everything.

[zeprock]

I began collecting baseball cards during the summer of 1970 when a Kellogg's 3-D Willie McCovey card fell out of my Corn Flakes box and into my cereal bowl. I remember buying packs and packs of Topps cards for five cents each that year and I eventually put together the complete Topps set. While my friends and schoolmates were tossing them and attaching them to their bicycle spokes, I was much more diligent. I treasured my cards and kept them neatly stacked in a shoebox, all in alphabetical order, held in place with big red rubberbands. Needless to say, the Hank Aaron cards on the top and the Carl Yastrzemski cards on the bottom suffered the most damage from the rubberband marks but I didn't know any better at the time. If a player was traded, I crossed out the name of the team and wrote in his new team's name. When I found Mickey Mantle had retired, I ran his card through my typewriter and typed "Retired" across the front of it. Who knew back then that those little cardboard pictures would someday have value? That was 1970 and I have been an avid collector ever since. I have since upgraded most of those damaged cards and take much better care of them today. My collection now numbers more than 350,000 different cards. My wife has been instructed to put this McCovey card in my shirt pocket when they eventually put me in the ground.

[dbacks08]

Your wife's not a librarian, is she? Because with organizational habits like that, you'd be a fine example for anyone in my Library Science master's program!

I treasured my cards and kept them neatly stacked in a shoebox, all in alphabetical order, held in place with big red rubberbands. Needless to say, the Hank Aaron cards on the top and the Carl Yastrzemski cards on the bottom suffered the most damage from the rubberband marks but I didn't know any better at the time. If a player was traded, I crossed out the name of the team and wrote in his new team's name. When I found Mickey Mantle had retired, I ran his card through my typewriter and typed "Retired" across the front of it.