Dime Boxes -- The Low-End Baseball Card Collector's Journey

posed this question to Fuji on his latest contest round:

How did you first decide to collect sports cards, and when?

Well, now there's a deep subject...
This all depends on which sports cards you are talking about, and if you actually consider NASCAR a sport. I've collected cards for a lot longer than most of you "kids" out here in the blogosphere (merely by being older than dirt), beginning as a kid myself back in the 70s when the Star Wars movies came out for the first time. I bought packs and packs of those trading cards then.

And continued into the 80 and early 90s with some of the DC superhero sets, Disney sets, and many movie offerings.

This is actually the first full box of cards I ever bought!

and I've still got these hologram cards somewhere. My first "Hits"

and a ton of Star Trek, X-Files, and other offerings. Back then, every movie to hit the big screen had a card set to go along with it.

But that wasn't the question. I actually started collecting sports cards back in the early to mid 90s. Beginning with NASCAR cards by Press Pass. They were the first to start with multiple inserts, and the burning rubber cards were some of the first relics I can remember.

My very first redemption card (back when you HAD to mail them in) was for:

which came in a super nice "snakeskin" case

I still have this one somewhere in the house.

Then comes 2009 and the Phillies-Yankmees World series, which got me hooked on baseball. And then in spring 2010, I bought my first pack of baseball cards:

I bought mostly retail packs, but did manage to pull a Matt Tolbert autograph from those retail packs!

Yep, Opening Day got me hooked on Topps again. I only bought O.D. that year, getting the complete 2010 base set for Christmas. I bought more in 2011, and so far, I've managed to purchase less in 2012, which is more a reflection of trying not to spend as much money than any slight against this year's offerings.
So there you have it. Two different sports and the how/when I started collecting both of them.
Thanks for the GReat question ~~Fuji~~, er... Nick!

Have a GReat night, I'm off to see Nickelback in a few hours!
Toby Keith was AWESOME Thursday, even though it was hotter the Hades out there for the concert!
Thanks for reading!
Dawgbones