General Forum

Starting as a second grader in 1980, I'd walk to the 7-Eleven down the street and buy packs of Topps cards for 25 cents a pack.  Cards were then stacked in a big pile and rubber banded together 

It was probably the grocery store. 1986 Topps when I was 5-6. I would get a pack every time I went shopping with my mom. I didn't start amassing mass quantities until 1988 when I would also pick up Donruss and sometimes Score or Fleer (though I feel like those cost more?). My grandma started buying me a hand-collated set of Topps baseball and football that year for Christmas or my birthday from a local card shop. Still have those sets, though I don't collect football anymore.

Started out in the 90s by going to Meijer and picking up some Upper Deck football cards and some Pro Sets that apparently never sold in the early 90s and had been sitting on the shelf for 3-5 years. I vividly remember a group of us finding a spot on the playground everyday where we would trade cards with one another. The entire group were Ohio State fans, so if you had a Joe Germaine, a Robert Smith, a Cris Carter, or an Eddie George you had a lot of leverage in your trades. I had a Tim Biakabituka card. I don't remember what it looked like, but it was eye catching with foils and colors that made it stand out. I traded it to somebody for an Eddie George card. Later he found out I traded him a Michigan player to him, and he complained to the teacher about it. After that, we were no longer allowed to trade cards on the playground, so we traded them on the school bus instead.

1973- Lawsons (convenience store chain), Inkster, MI. .10 a pack.  Great memories pulling those old stars while chewing all that Bazooka & Fleer gum.  

Late '80s corner store in Montpelier, VT. Cards and gum! What a deal!

Great topic! When I was in fourth and fifth grade, I used to get cards from two places: a little convenience story/gas station, and a drug store called High-Kel Drugs. Both were within a block from my elementary school.

After school, a friend of mine and I would get picked up by either my mom or his, and before heading home, we would stop at High-Kel Drugs, which was an old-fashioned drug store with a lunch counter. We each would get some cards and then get a coke to drink at the counter while we opened our packages of cards.

If I wasn't getting picked up at school for whatever reason, I was supposed to walk to the local library and wait there for mom. When I did that, I would stop at the convenience store.

The convenience store closed in the mid-1980s when I was in college. The 1982 Topps football cards I have for trade are from the last batch of packs I bought from that store. That location has been many things over the years, but it's now a UPS store. The owner of High-Kel sold out in 1985 to a chain store called Big B Drugs. It's now a CVS Pharmacy.

Whenever I'm back in my hometown, I always drive by to see how that particular area near my elementary school is doing, and it's fun to remember how much I enjoyed going to those two places to get packs of cards.

My old man picked me and my brother up from a movie in 1988 and we still had a few dollars burning a hole in our pockets so we asked if we could stop by the Mini mart and grab a candy with the leftover money we had.  Well turns out that cardboard pictures were more of an addiction than candy.  I bought a pack of 1988 Topps and still remember that rush of adrenaline getting a Detroit Tiger in my pack.  Wasn't even close to being one of my favorite players but I still had to have all the others.  Damn you Darrell Evans!!!

My gateway drug was Garbage Pail Kids Series 2.  I remember saving my allowance and buying as many packs as I could from the local 7-11.

It was 1979. Our local pharmacy carried sports cards. I bought my first baseball packs that year. By 1981 I would take my $5 allowance and walk down to the store and buy as many packs as I could. I would walk home opening packs and chewing gum.

It was at this store in Del Rio, Texas...

as a 3rd grader. The first packs were 1966 Philadelphia Football cards and were a nickel a pack.