Who collects them? Who just used to?

What were your best cards? How many did you have? What did you like to collect?



I stopped when I was around 15. I buy a couple handfuls of packs of Topps every year still just for nostalgia though.

My best cards were (all rookies): Joe Montana, Wayne Gretzky (Topps, not OPC...dammit), Jerry Rice, Dan Marino, John Elway, Mark McGwire, Raffy Palmiero, Eddie Murray, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Ray Bourque, Mark Messier...goddamn I had a lot from 1979-1986. Just about anything from those years I had. Except Jordan, I never did get my hands on any early Jordans.

I had 5-6 cards from the same set that famous Honus Wagner card came from. They were beat to hell, cost about $10-$20 each. Cool to have those old tobacco cards.

I really loved completing sets the hard way, through packs or boxes.

I stopped partially because I was a surly teenager who was trying to get away from being a kid, and partially because I could see even in 1992 that cards were becoming an industry and not a kids' hobby anymore and it was sad even then. It's terrible now.

i stopped right before the hobby took off into unreal money making scams land....all these "game used" cards, its all bullshit. I have a friend in the industry who tells some unreal stories, like how he literally watched a dozen players play THREE downs of football in a mini camp scrimmage, took off their jerseys and handed them to an Upper Deck person to be made into "game used jersey cards".....total crap...anyway

ID say my best cards are a Marino rookie, which has to be the best one ive ever seen condition wise, as the 84 topps set was just horrible with centering, a Montana rook (which has a thumbtack hole so its worthless), and a bunch of cards that used to be worth hundreds, but are now worth NOTHING, like my 84 Mattingly and Strawberry rookies, Cal Ripken jr fleer rookie, and the entire 86 topps traded set with rookies of bonds, canseco, and a few i cant think of. the set used to eb worth like 90 bucks but these days its gotta be about 10?

I collected from 86-94, mainly baseball and hockey. I always got some cool stuff, nothing too fantastic. My best card was always my 1950 Casey Stengal. Back then i used to subscribe to beckett and was obsessed with what every card "was worth." Then, like the guy who posted above me, it got ridiculous- every old man out for a buck was involved with it. It lost its fun.

I totally stopped for a while... Now though, i dont care what its worth. Whenever im at Target i buy a pack of cards. Doesnt matter which sport. Its enjoyable now, i dont care what each card is "worth". Its just for the fun of it. Unlike Koufax though, i enjoy the "game worn" and autographed cards. I know the game worn are a joke, but i like them. Its fun to pick a winning pack. I also like the Bowmans best football cards... every pack has an autographed rookie, and you can buy them individually for like $2 off ebay sometimes. I dont care that a Quentin Jammer Autographed card isnt worth anything- its fun to say i have it.

Im glad i was able to return it to fun. I pulled a Burt Wooten Autograph the other day

hey I think they are cool too, and I collect every eric karros and dodgers/rams/knicks ones i can get my hands on, but when i found out how 90% of the stuff is obtained it kinda took away from it a bit.

my favorite is an autographed kurt warner card that supposedly has a piece of the pants he wore is super bowl 34....and i have 47 eric karros game used jersey and bat cards. so i guess i cant complain

I collected from 79-83 almost all baseball cards. I have 3 Rickey Henderson rookies and 2 Cal Ripken Future Stars rookie cards (fucking topps later came out with an additional rookie card which took away from the value of the other card). A few Phillies sets including whole sets from Burger King(Topps) cards.

I also have a few whole sets of the baseball sticker books which were popular in the early 80's.

Sounds like my collection. I worked in a card shop in college, so I really got into this for awhile there. I still have a lot of my cards, but I sold off most of them. I had all of the Topps baseball complete sets from 1982-1991, Fleer 1985-1991, Donruss 1984-1991, and Upperdeck 1990-1991. I also had a bunch of the Fleer Extended, Topps Traded, and Donruss Rookies sets from 1984-1986. I also had all of the Topps football complete sets from 1976-1985. I also had the 1984 USFL set. I traded all of these for baseball cards. I never really got into basketball or hockey.

Best single cards used to be a 1984 Fleer Extended Kirby Puckett and the 1976 Topps Walter Payton. I also still have about 8 1990 Upperdeck Ken Griffey, Jr's.

Hey AS, did you used to shop at Pacific Trading Cards? I did a lot of damage in that place.

was a hard core collector of baseball cards from about 69-91...I have a few complete sets from the early to mid 60s as well....My favorite has to be the Clemente rookie card I bought in mint condition in the early 80s for $40......last I checked it was pushing 2 grand.....that was a few years ago though....I have no idea what they are worth now..they just sit in my parents basement...she knows not to get rid of them though

Mostly baseball, occasionally basketball. I was really big into it from 95-97, and I amassed a pretty extensive Ripken collection (of course ), with some really cool inserts of his and some one-of-500 or so oversized cards from conventions and whatnot. I was such a frequent visitor to my town's baseball card shop that I became really good friends with the owner, since I would spend all day during the summers talking to him about baseball and new cards, etc. Since I was still buying cards with my allowance money and money I got from chores and whatnot, I could never really afford any of the really expensive cards and either got them as gifts from my parents or the old fashioned way through the luck of the draw. So, when the owner of it passed away about 5 years ago, he'd had a Ripken autographed ball set aside for me, which is still one of my most prized possessions.

Even 5 or 10 years ago, $5 was expensive for a pack of cards. Now, it's the lowest price you'll find. Heartbreaking.

I traded 3 worthless kevin maas rookie cards for a 1982 Ripken Fleer rookie which at the time was worth sixty bucks.

tom feola was a douchebag hehe

I have the Topps Ripken rookie with the other two guys on it. At one point, it was worth decent $$ - not sure what it's worth now.

I've got tons from when I was younger... no really good ones, but a bunch of rookie cards from the early 90s. Guys like Jeff Bagwell, Manny Ramirez...

My friend has some really good rookie cards in perfect condition... Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr...

Yep, way back when, that was a widely counterfeited card. I never saved up the money to buy it because I was afraid of getting a fake.

That is the Ripken rookie future stars card I have also. I have 2 of those. They would have been worth so much more but Topps came out with an additional rookie set at the end of the year so the future stars isn't worth as much as it really should be.

I went through a binge of baseball card collecting in 1991-1992. As a result, somewhere in my mind I have extensive knowledge of the names of players that played during those two years.

my collection would probably be worth alot more if every other kid my age had not been collecting cards around that time too. i have a binder somewhere with all my best cards, maybe some rainy day when i'm in need of cash i'll have it appraised.

I collected cards from every sport from the late 80s up until around 2000. I stopped because I didn't see the fun or the value in it like some of you had already said. Plus it got a bit expensive. I'm sure I have a few rookie cards from the current crop of stars, but I don't have any rookies from the likes of Ripken, Bonds, McGwire, Jordan, Gretzky, or Lemieux.

My most prized pull is probably a '99-'00 Upper Deck Game Used Jersey card of Kobe Bryant. I'm not sure what its worth now, but at one point it was $400. It's probably a lot less now considering the market is diluted with memorabilia cards.

I have a lot of Jordan cards, some of them are worth some money, but nothing worth more than $50.

And like little_secret, I'm thinking about getting my collection appraised in the near future. Does anyone have any advice about that?

I have a ton of cards, but the icing on the cake is Jordan's 86 Fleer.

i loved collecting them. my prize is 4 jordan rookies. i have all the topps nfl, mlb, from 82-90. then in 90 when all these other companies came out i quit. still have all of them in boxes and binders everywhere. moved on to comics and autographs.

No "Ripken" collection would be complete with out the infamous Billy Ripken "Fuckface" card. Did you have that one?

i have it.