30 Day Challenge 7: A card I bought in person and the story behind it

Before I get into today's post, a thanks to Chris aka The Collector. Got the package today! I'll have a proper post up as soon as I can, but likely in a few days. Luckily, I have all 30 of these Challenge posts written and ready to go so I just had to add this message to the front of one.

================================================================================

This is a tough one. Most of my card collection I bought in person- the majority of my collection was purchased between 1996-2006, before I even had an Ebay account, so most of my cards were purchased in person. And the story is pretty much the same for all of them- I didn't have it, so I fixed that problem. That's pretty much the story of roughly half my collection, LOL. The other half being cards I received as gifts or in trade.

Choosing one that has some sort of meaning other than "I saw it, didn't have it, wanted it, could afford it" is a challenge, but again I will dip into my NBA pool and show a card I have shown before. The majority of my collection is NBA, so these posts have been trending more to the NBA, and this is a card that does have some added meaning to my NBA collection Wait, let me correct that. This is a card that has added meaning to my collection, but it's not an NBA card. Instead, I will show my first ABA card!

The last time I posted this card, back in 2015, I remembered it was important to me but I didn't remember why. Now I do...because, thankfully, I thought to write down why it was important in my paper listings. This was, in fact, my first ABA card! Interesting that it came from 1972-73 Topps, the 70s set I have the least of. Back when we used to have almost weekly shows and multiple shops, and I was building up my collection, I always gravitated towards 70s cards. I primarily learned the history of the sport by collecting vintage cards, from before I began collecting or in the case of the 70s cards, before I was born. But the 1972-73 set was always the toughest to find. To put it in perspective, I've completed the 1971-72 set, and also the 1975-76 through 1979-80 and 1981-82. I can't afford to complete 1980-81, and I'm working on- slowly- 1973-74 and 74-75. I have hopes that I can complete them some day. I can't afford to complete 1972-73 thanks to Dr. J.'s rookie card, but I'm not even close...it's a 264 card set, I have only 94 of them. In 21 years of collecting! And while it's true I was away from the NBA from 2006-12, since I came back I've added over 100 cards to my collection from 1974-75 and 1973-74 each in that time (granted most of the 1974-75 were a gift from Mark Hoyle, but I did find a dealer with a stash of them a year or two later)

I don't remember when I got this card...but I remember where. The Baseball Card Shoppe in Fishkill, NY, which is where I sourced my first 1970s cards from. It closed in either December 1996 or January 1997. But I must have gotten it earlier in the year because 1996 was a peak time for card shows, so for this to be my first it had to have been in either February or March- April at the latest. I began collecting the NBA in February, and the card show season started in March, which is how I'm figuring this. Unfortunately, I didn't begin to keep track of when I got any cards until right around Christmas 1998, so the exact date is lost. The fact that we went to the store every week eliminates any chance at guessing.

Who would have guessed this would be the longest post in the series so far?