[75toppsfan]

Well my wife got me into the hobby. I have loved the New York Yankees since I was kid.when I first got married, my wife hated baseball, she just could not see the point.lol.. But I finally got her to watcha few games with me. About 10 years ago she bought me a Derek Jeter autographed card and a jersey card for our anniversary. I loved it, I started collecting card board then. However I had a bad drug habit that was wrecking my life. I took those cards to the pawn shop and sold them both for $60 ! It broke my wife's heart. I got. Lean shortly after that, and always regretted selling them. After being clean for a while I needed a hobby to take up time. I remembered those cards I sold. I told my wife I wanted to go to the lcs and get another Jeter auto. She let me, and I have been hooked bad since. I love this hobby more than any drug. Sometimes the addict in me goes a little crazy for the cardboard to, but my wife is awesome and always knows how to talk me down from the ledge. In a way cardboard saved my life, those 2 cards haunted me and helped me to get clean.

God bless you and your wife! when I started going through my divorce in 2009, I started really buying and collecting alot. I guess it was a way for me to take my mind off of the mess going on around me. It took me back to my youth, when I really loved all those cards. Long story short, I got custody of my kids, it took 18 months and thousands & thousands of dollars but its all good.

[magneto2]

I started back in the late 70's about 78 or 79 my favorite player was Rickey Henderson and since I was a royals fan George Brett. I collected every set from the 80-84 because my dad let bought me cases of cards and helped me make the set. He would also take me to shows and ask me if I like anything. At one show he got me a Reggie Jackson topps rookie and a Johnny Bench rookie. I also got to meet Harmon Killebrew! He was very nice and I did not get his auto... I know.. It was just cool to meet a Hall of Famer. My dad helped me get hooked and I truly love him for it. He passed in 06 but not before he saw me graduate college and get a real job! Miss him and my mom. Fast forward to 08 and I started collecting again. My son who was 14 months at the time was with me at my LCS. Bowman Sterling was just released and I let my son pick the pack. The result is my avatar! Oh and in the same pack was a jersey auto of Montero as well..

[coimbre 21]

I remember holding a 1967 Topps card fresh out of a pack before I was even in kindergarten and asking my dad what the player's name was and for a while after that, I knew the player on the card as Scramski aka Carl Yastrzemski. I lost the Yaz but managed to hold onto another 1967 for some time, a Bob Buck Rodgers. From that point on, I was searching them out, managing to nab a plastic sack full of 1968's from cousins. I vividly remember opening packs of 69s and also getting a deckle edge Brooks Robinson from a vending machine that dispensed single cards. My obsession drove me to sneak single dollars from my mother's purse to buy packs of 70's & 71's, even taking two cents once, yes two cents, enough to buy a topps variety pack containing any combination of two Topps baseball, football, or undistributed 1968 Topps Hot Rod cards. The thievery and hoarding all caught up with me and my mom chunked all my cards up through 1971. All I have left of those cards is a picture of my sister and I sitting among my 1970 stash in our pajamas. I picked right back up in '72 and stopped after 78 when I was more into KISS and Van Halen. Picked it back up in the mid 80's, stopped in the early 90s when all my favorite players were pretty much retired. Started back up again twelve years ago or so, encouraged by my wife who gave me a 1969 Topps Nolan Ryan PSA 8 as a birthday present. Now I really just need to figure out how the hell to slow down.

[fulltritty]

My Dad got me started in 1980 when he came home with 2 boxes of Topps. Like an idiot, I sold all of my cards in 1986 to get money for vacation.

I then started collecting again when I was in the Navy and stationed in Augusta, GA. Three of my friends there were into cards and APBA Baseball, so I got back into card collecting. I also went and sol all of those cards minus my Yankees in 2000.

I then got back into again for good last year in order to build up a collection for my son who was born in 2010. I wanted to have a nice collection built up for him by the time he could start opening boxes. I then started picking up my favorite Yankees at that time too.

[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. Oh yeah. I'm taking it with me.

[beginesj]

When my Mom joined the Air Force I moved to Scott Air Force Base where I made friends that collected Baseball cards. I bought some packs and started trading with my new friends. I remembered in 92 my friends and trying to get one of Score's autographed cards. I gave up the hobby for few years and picked back up in 02 when my oldest son was born. I been addicted ever since.

[chads-cards]

Well the year I was born my dad opened up a card shop lol. I pretty much learned how to walk in the store and the first things I ever touched were cards...it was hard NOT to get hooked. I spent alot of my childhood either playing baseball or in my dads shop talking about baseball.

[coimbre 21]

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. Oh yeah. I'm taking it with me.

I can see why, those Kellogg's cards were mesmerizing the first time one ever laid eyes on them. I had a good laugh about your Mantle story.

One of my favorite cards I traded for as a kid was a 1964 Ray Sadecki, with the Cardinals, but like you someone was compelled to update the card, in this case with one of those old label guns with the harder plastic, sticking a Giants label over the Cardinals name.

A friend of mine in college came back to school one day with two shoeboxes full of 1966 Topps that had belonged to his older brothers, all in crisp condition. Mixed in was a stack of older 50s cards, one being a 54 Bowman Mantle with the name Steve written across Mickey's head, upside down, in dull pencil causing very deep indentations, and the E's in Steve were backwards.

[chipper4president]

Glenn Hubbard got me addicted to cards. My Dad used to take me to games every summer when I was a kid. Tickets were fairly cheap at Fulton County Stadium and you could sit just about anywhere you wanted because the Braves weren't very good back then. Our favorite spot to sit was right behind the Braves dugout so that we could see all of our favorite players up close. Every now and then the players would say hi, give balls to the kids, or sign an autograph. I was a shy kid and never really went down to fight the crowd. Before one game Glenn Hubbard tossed a ball up to me. It was total shock and awe for me and the only thing that I could talk about until my Dad and I went to our next game. I used that time buying baseball cards so that I could get one for him to sign at our next outing. All of the Braves went in neat little stacks with the rest being thrown haphazardly into a shoebox. For our next game I took only one card to get signed. After all, Glenn Hubbard was my friend, right? Well regardless of my childhood fantasy, he did sign that card for me....and from the minute he put ink to that card I've been hooked. Thanks Mr. Hubbard!