[kerryandbeth]

1975:  my dad gave me his collection that I tacked to my bedroom wall as a mural
1980:  found boxes of 1977 & 1978 Topps in an abandoned attic of a house when I fell through the roof
1985:  bought my very 1st packs...Fleer
1993:  put my very 1st complete set together
1994:  hooked on the hobby and starting buying multiple products and going to hobby shops and shows
2009 thru 2011:  temporary halt to the hobby
2012:  joined Beckett online and started trading
2017:  very 1st online break
2018:  very 1st case purchase
2020:  wondering what is next

What is your hobby history, and what do you plan to do?

[zeprock]

1970:  Got a 3D Willie McCovey card in my Corn Flakes. Showed it to my cousin who showed me his cards.
1970:  bought my very 1st packs...Topps.
1970:  hooked on the hobby.
1971:  completed my first set, 1970 Topps.
1981:  Discovered my first LCS.
2001:  Discovered Trading Bases, an online trading site and began trading online.
2001:  Designed my website, launched it and increased trading online.
2001:  joined Beckett online and started trading on Beckett.
2020:  Status quo.

[crazyforkinsler5]

My hobby history...

Christmas 1987: Got my first ever baseball cards when my grandmother gave me the green Topps Christmas box that year. Still have it and the set to this day and won't get rid of it. 

1990: The collecting high of my youth as I was in 8th grade, and we'd go eat ice cream every Friday. The place was next door to a Piggly Wiggly, so I'd go buy rack packs of Fleer and Donruss every Friday. 

1994: Got out of the hobby for as it was my senior year in high school and didn't want to collect cards. 

1996: Got back in and started busting packs and trading again. 

2001: Sold everything while I was in college. 

2004: Got back into collecting when I graduated and got my first real job (unfortunately, I missed the huge basketball year of 2003-04). 

2012: Built my first vintage set, 1958 Topps. I was into it for $500 and sold it in April 2013 for $1,500 to fund the first trip to Disney World for my wife and I. 

2013: Opened a booth at an antique store to sell a lot of my cards. Lasted about 4 months before the antique store closed.
 
2015: Got into my first group break. Was my birthday and I bought a Rangers spot and pulled a Nolan Ryan autograph. 

2015: Also the year I busted my first case. It was Bowman Chrome, I paid $1100 for it and sold everything in the case for under $300 (so a loss of $800);

2016, 2017: Tried busting cases again with base Topps. Broke even both times, so decided that wasn't for me. 

2017: Opened a hobby shop that was open about 8 months before I couldn't make it any longer. Closed down and became a collector again. 

2020: Been getting back to collecting (buying, selling, trading) and not worrying so much about flipping and making money. Also been working on some vintage sets that I like (57T and 62T mainly)

Future: Will probably sell all of my modern and focus solely on vintage. Although I'm not sure I want to continue building sets. I'm not sure I want to waste money on commons and high numbers of guys I've never heard of, so thinking about getting into graded stars and semistars to have more substance to my collection (more quality over quantity).

[DrMitchJ]

Wow, that’s a great question:
Sept 1966: My sister is born and my Mom is still at the hospital, so my Dad has to bring me to school for the first time. Before he drops me off, he bribes me with some Topps packs so that I go to school without a fuss. Now I can flip cards with the cool kids at lunch/recess.
Sept 1967: My grandpa bribes me with some packs of Topps if I get my hair cut at his barber. Still have those cards till this day.
July 1968: move out of Brooklyn to the ‘burbs and my new friends teach me how to collect deposit bottles and cash them in to the deli, then go next door to the Candy Store and sporadically buy baseball cards and / or comic books.
1969-1972 buying and collecting baseball cards but I gave up the flipping game because the cards get ruined. Stored my best cards in cigar boxes and took them out during Yankee games ... found the players from each team and arranged them in the batting order.
1973 gave up collecting cards and started collecting and reading comics 100%. Gave all of my 1973 cards to my younger brother so he could leave my older cards and other stuff alone.
1985-1990 Started collecting cards again. Organizing sets was a very calming activity during the stress of Chiropractic school. Quit because I was out of school, but all the different products coming out kinda drove me away. Too much $$$ to spend.
1995-2010 occasionally pick up a pack here and there in the hopes of getting a Jeter or a Mariano Card
March 2011: spring training was starting up, and while in Target saw Heritage packs in the cool ‘62 design. Picked a pack and pulled a Brooks Robinson Auto and I was hooked again. Started playing the Topps diamond dig game online. Joined Beckett after a while. And the rest is history.
2011-present: The past few years I’ve been buying nearly everything. Did some online case breaking, bought a couple of cases for my self. Lately, I’ve been slowing down, mostly due to funding issues and space constraints. I might step away from actively buying and may start grading and selling cards to help fund new card purchases.

[rjcj2017]

1988 - I got 3 packs of 1988 Topps baseball at a batting cage and was mesmerized by the Alan Trammell card I pulled. Still think the Tim Raines from this set is one of the nicest cards Topps has ever made

1988 - Made the wise decision to spend the $20 my grandparents sent me for my birthday on more packs of 1988 Topps baseball at the LCS, rather than the 3 for $1 packs of 1986-87 Fleer basketball they had sitting next to the cash register, or the $20 Michael Jordan RC they had sitting in the showcase

1988 - Got one of those Hygrade collecting kits for my birthday, the ones with the sheets that had extra PVC in them

1989 to 2011 - Collected anything and everything retail; got most of my 1980s star RC collection on birthdays and Christmases at the beginning of this era. There were two LCS that I frequented, pulling my 2003-04 SP Authentic LeBron James auto RC out of one of them. In the second best decision since the 1988 LCS debacle, I sold it shortly after LeBron and the Heat lost the 2011 NBA Finals, because I figured there was no way he was ever going to win an NBA title, much less go back to Cleveland and win one.

November 2011 - On my grandma's first birthday since her passing in January, I bought one blaster of Bowman Chrome at my local Target (it was the only one left) and pulled Bryce Harper's prospect refractor auto/500. I almost passed out (seriously) and recovered in time to join Beckett that night to show it off

2012 to 2018 - In the era before idiot retail sharks, I mightily ascended to the throne of Retail King, pulling retail autos of Kobe Bryant, Anthony Davis (RC), Kris Bryant/10 (RC), Ken Griffey Jr. and Derek Jeter (traded to Doc), among others. Made some very good buddies on this site. 

Summer 2018 - Purged roughly 350,000 cards, not by choice

Fall 2018 to Fall 2019 - Drastically reduced my spending, focused more on trading

Fall 2019 - Went back into comfort/coping buying when my father-in-law was diagnosed with brain cancer and died a short time later; the Zion Williamson basketball RC craze fueled much of this

Spring 2020 to current - Strongly, strongly considering retirement ... hobby is not an option for me and retail has become truly miserable and stressful dealing with all of the idiot hoarders that have moved into my area.

Great thread Kerry!

[jplarson]

Excellent thread and responses so far!  I'll illustrate my sports card collecting.  Green = heavy collecting, light green = light hobby/retail purchases, red = not collecting at all.



Some notable points in my collecting:

1991 - pulled an Upper Deck Michael Jordan SP1.  Coolest card I ever pulled from my youth, naturally from picking from packs at the bottom of the box at a Shell gas station.  This is also the year I moved from rural Illinois to Chicago.
1993 - I attend my first and only NFL game, a preseason game at Soldier Field where the Bears beat the Cowboys 23-21.  I remember a concessions guy walking around with subs and it RULED.
1990s - don't remember when but my local card shop had a quarter machine to get cards and I always used my pocket change for a couple pulls.  Got my 1986 Topps Jerry Rice rookie from that thing.  I ran 6 blocks home in utter excitement.
1998 - I moved to Iowa.
1999 - I moved the hell away from Iowa right back to Chicago.  Technically the Bulls team was blown up the previous year but MJ was still appearing in products for the 1998-99 run.  The lockout served as the death knell for me and basketball.
2000 - I attended the Chicago Sun-Times Sportscard Convention at the Rosemont Horizon (now the Donald E. Stephens Center).  I paid $150 to get my authentic NFL ball signed by my childhood hero Joe Montana.  My brother thought he was kind of a jerk lol.
2001 - I moved up to Wisconsin.  Thank goodness the Bears went 13-3 that year.
2002-06 - I'm in college and no time/money for cards.
2007-10 - student debt is crazy.  I join the Beckett boards for a second time with this current username.  Forgot the password to my old account, MajerleKerr0925.
09/14/2008 - I watch the craziest game at Miller Park in Milwaukee ever.  The "home team" Houston Astros take on the visiting Chicago Cubs and Carlos Zambrano throws a no hitter as the Cubs dominate 5-0.  I still have the ticket stub to the game.  It's the height of hilarity that the neutral site was Miller Park as we refer to that as "Wrigley North".
10/28/2008 - I complete 1999 Topps Finest Refractor set with Daunte Culpepper the last to join.
2010 - I decide to focus my collecting primarily on Topps Finest, looking to build all the base sets I can.
2015 - Topps no longer has an NFL license
3/3/2015 - I complete the 2000 Playoff Absolute Leather & Laces set.  It's a full memorabilia set and the last two added are Tim Dwight and Bobby Engram.  The former accidentally found on SCF after randomly scavenging flickr/photobucket accounts and the latter a bit of luck from a Bears super collector selling his collection on ebay and willing to break off Engram.
08/03/2020 - I post in a thread recounting my hobby history and reading about fellow collector's journeys.

[rjcj2017]

Bonus points to JP for a helpful infographic, LOL

[bonds20001]

Bought my 1st pack in the womb and pulled a Clemente RC..was hooked ever since!!!
Seriously..started buying packs as a kid in the 1960s..along with monster models and airplanes made of cheap wood with rubber bands..anyone remember those??

Lost interest with school etc until 1991 and a friend got me involved and have been collecting ever since..He was a Marlin's fan and we were stationed in FLA at the time..great time to collect.  

I was born in NY and my dad was a Dodgers fan..so....I had to be a Giants fan..followed them in the paper everyday and got want cards I could in the 1960s..great players..Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Dietz, Hart etc etc..

Still a team collector to this day..

[kerryandbeth]

Thanks for sharing!  Interesting stories with some humor.

[rjcj2017]

Thanks for sharing!  Interesting stories with some humor.

There really should be a prize for the best one.

Not saying I would win, but, you know ...