I don't think I acquired any single "holy grail" card as a kid. The Ozzie Smith RC was my dream card in the 80's until I finally got one in 2009. But my most memorable childhood card acquisition... That would be visiting a card show at the mall with money in my pocket when I was about 14. A vendor had a 5K-count box full of cards marked at 10 cents each. I went through that entire box and pulled out every single Ozzie Smith card that I knew I didn't have and a few I knew I did have but knew they had BV's of several dollars. I think it was 60-70 cards. The seller saw how excited I was to find all these cards of one player and gave me a deal of only $5 for the lot. Since I still had money left, I also bought my 1st-ever 100-count box of Ultra-Pro Platinum 9-card pages for another $10. That purchase got me to over 100 different Ozzie cards (the 1st player I ever hit triple digits for, as well as later being the 1st to 200, 300, 400 & 500).
Another memorable one would be trading a few 1992 Topps Gold cards to my cousin for a 1971 Topps Joe Namath card. It was a little worn and I didn't care about Namath or the Jets, but I wanted it b/c it was 7 years older than me. It's the first vintage card I ever owned (even though it wasn't called vintage then). I still have that card and it's still in the same snap-tite case I put it in after I got it. I later put the case in a team bag though.
NO PWE's EVER!!! PLZ PM me 1st before sending any offer. ONLY selling cards as of March 2024. No trades or purchases right now.
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Largest total PC card collections by Team, then Athlete (as of 3/22/24):
STL Cardinals (MLB) - 8810; Carolina Panthers - 2888; GB Packers - 1790+ cards
Mark Martin (NASCAR) - 2038 cards; Jimmie Johnson (NASCAR) - 1875 cards; Jeff Gordon (NASCAR) - 1594; Ricky Rudd (NASCAR) - 839; Ozzie Smith (MLB) - 707