My story--part 1 The Beginning

I still remember the day I bought my first pack of baseball cards. It was 1981 and I had 50 cents in my pocket to buy some candy at a small family store down the block from my house. I lived in a small town in central Texas, with a population of about 2000 people. We didn't have much to do except ride our bikes or swim in the local pool, but I digress. My friend's dad owned the store and when I walked in my friend was behind the counter ripping open something. He turned to me and said something about how cool these cards were and I should get some. I spent 30 cents (plus 2 cents tax) and bought my very first pack of baseball cards ever, a pack of 1981 Fleer cards. I can't tell you every card that was in the pack, but the one I remember was this one:

I was only 11 years old and lived in a small town in Central Texas, but I KNEW who Steve Carlton was and I was hooked! The quest was on for any money I could find to buy more packs. My friend would open nearly every pack that came through there, but when I had money, I would buy up the rest. The choices varied from Topps to Fleer, depending on what the truck dropped off. It wasn't until I went to a neighboring town that we discovered the 1981 Donruss cards. They were on sale for the unheard of price of 8 packs for a dollar!! For someone who "only" got 3 packs of Topps or Fleer for that price I was in heaven. That first trip netted me 40 packs of 1981 Donruss. Again, I don't remember all the cards I pulled, but I recall getting a Yogi Berra card. Yogi Berra, Yankee legend!! The three card manufacturers had created a monster and I could not wait to buy more packs. That hasn't changed after all these years. I would continue buying cards in varying amounts up until 1991. I bought a ton of a cards in 1988. Many of those were 1988 Score cards. What could go wrong with buying a new product, it's bound to be highly valuable. Unless it is mass produced like every other product of that time. When 1989 rolled around, I still bought a ton of cards, but I stayed away from Upper Deck because I felt I had been burned by Score the previous year. Brilliant right? That's why I have a stack of 1989 Donruss Ken Griffey Jr's and not a single 1989 Upper Deck Griffey Jr. Like a lot of people, I stopped buying cards in 1991 because of the incredible over production of cards. I'll pick up with where my collecting picked up in the next post.