In my early teens I've discovered Some like it hot and fell for Marilyn. In France we didn't have cards everywhere at all. I started to read many books about her and learned about collectible Sports cards of her husband Joe DiMaggio.

Years later my husband and I entered a doll store because they had Marilyn dolls. It was my first time in this store, and I looked everywhere as they had many collectibles. In the back I saw some boxes with a photo of Marilyn. Only a few wrappers remained and I bought all of them.
It was so exciting to open those wrappers and discovered great cards, including shiny ones. It was from Sportstime and soon found more online. Later I've discovered NSU and that there was cards for movies and series and so much more.

Opening my first NSU was an exciting dive into a brand new world. Many boxes and cases followed, discovering a great community and years of fun opening all these wonderful packs.

These are some great stories, keep em coming...

Jademaliburoad, loved your story, made me think of finding Scooby Doo cards in Moscow. Glad you got to chase your passion for Marilyn.

quote:

Originally posted by cardscout182:
Jademaliburoad, loved your story, made me think of finding Scooby Doo cards in Moscow. Glad you got to chase your passion for Marilyn.

Thanks! I ended up buying boxes of Marilyn cards. Then discovered NSU and movie and TV series cards.
Always a pleasure to open packs, reminds me of panini stickers when I was a child. Opening packs, trading stickers in the playground

When I was in 2nd - 3rd grade, I remember getting Odd Rod and Wacky Packs stickers and putting them on my school notebooks, but I didn't really collect them.
I started collecting comics when I was about 11 or 12 (I'm 59 now). One of the dealers I bought from, Gary Walker in Nashville, offered me a job when I was 13, helping sort, bag and price comics. He set up at flea markets in the area, and I would help set up at them and work the booth on weekends. Later on he opened a shop (The Great Escape, which he sold just a couple of years ago) and I worked there until I was in college. I collected comics throughout that period but more or less gave them up when I went away to school.
I often rode the bus to work, and a coworker lived near me, so we'd meet at the bus stop on days we both were scheduled. It was near a Stop-N-Go mini-mart, and that store carried candy and cards and such. In 1978, they carried Donruss All-Pro Skateboard Sticker-Cards. My coworker and I recognized that the art on these was done by a Filipino comic artist we both followed -- Alex Nino. This was the first set I actively completed. I also picked up a few Star Wars cards when they were new.
Although I gave up on comics, I still went to flea markets and card and comics shows regularly, and started picking up older cards -- mostly Arm & Hammer bird cards, and tobacco cards. In 1985 I graduated and got a job and with it came some disposable income, and I started getting serious about tobacco cards and other things. I'd find stuff that I didn't recognize, and would write to Chris Benjamin (the author of the old Sport Americana non-sport price guides, and an eventual co-founder of NSU) for help ID'ing them and became friends with him.
As part of my job, I traveled around the country and would visit card and comic shops and antique malls. In the days before ebay, this was a productive way of picking up cards.
In 1997, I saw a special with Ricky Jay on HBO. This revived a childhood interest in magic, which became my main hobby. I'm still interested in cards, but primarily only as they relate to magic and magicians. I've still got all of my old NS cards, but don't actively collect generally any more.