Meeting The Person That Pulled My Grail Card
In this story:
Most collector’s know how serendipitous the hobby can be. This full-circle hobby moment I experienced at the CSA Chantilly Show last year still leaves me shaking my head when I think about how small a world the hobby really is.
I’m fortunate enough to live a couple hours drive from Northern Virginia, where CSA regularly hosts their Chantilly card show. I ventured up for the weekend, like usual, knowing that these regional shows generally yield at least a few interesting finds for my 90s basketball card collection. People forget that while you may not see a card you are after in a display case, you never know what fellow collectors may have in their personal cases.
On this particular weekend I came to fully appreciate the importance of relationships in the hobby.
After spending hours on the floor I stopped by a friend’s table to catch up. Knowing that I collected Allen Iverson he explained that I needed to see the card his friend had with him. I waited anxiously as he put in a call to try and arrange a meetup.
The meetup was well worth it. His friend had in his possession what most 90’s collectors would consider a grail card from that era. He pulled out a 1997-98 Ultra Stars Allen Iverson Gold PSA 7. For some context, that year Ultra basketball included the 20-card Ultra Stars insert in 1:144 packs. While 90% of the cards had a silver foil, 10% of the print run was instead finished with a gold foil. Needless to say, these cards are rare, so you have to be ready to pounce if one appears.
Fortunately he and I were able to work out a deal for the card and we both went on our way.
The story took an unexpected turn when I got home.
Months later I happened to be talking to my friend, Rob, in one of our local card shops. I mentioned the Ultra Stars Gold Iverson and he explained that he’d actually pulled one back when he was a kid, but eventually sold it.
He looked surprised when I said mine was a PSA 7 - mentioning that his too was a 7.
Could my friend have been the original owner of my grail card?
Rob pulled out his phone to see if he still had a picture of his card. For those that are unaware, PSA includes unique certification numbers on each card they grade. They also publish population reports for each graded card in their database, providing collector’s with valuable details about the rarity of each graded version of a certain card.
If he could find a picture then we’d be able to compare the certification numbers of the two cards. And with only four PSA 7s in existence, there was a decent chance this was the card he’d actually pulled as a kid.
He finally found a picture and I anxiously pulled the card out of my case, scrambling to find the certification number for comparison.
We couldn’t believe it - it was the same card. Years after selling the card it happens to end up with a friend.
Rarely do we know the background or stories of the cards in our collections. Who was the original owner? What did it feel like pulling a card like this? This experience reminded me that it’s those stories that really cement a card’s value and place in one’s collection.
