Tales of Collecting Folklore

Everyone has those days when something unexpected happens and you pass it on to a friend or family member because it's just too crazy or unreal not to share. In 1996, I had a tale of collecting folklore happen to me. A department store near me was closing it's doors. Although I was sad (because they had great packs of sports cards there), I understood why it was happening. A Wal Mart had opened roughly 5 minutes away from this store and they could no longer compete. My mom and Aunt had been talking about going there to look for decorations and craft type stuff, but I was more interested in going with them to see what they still had left in their sports card section. They decided to make the trip out to this department store, so I made the journey with them. When I arrived it had looked like everything had been picked through and there wasn't much good stuff left. I saw a few packs of Collector's Choice basketball and a lonely pack of Bowman's Best football that had been stuffed in a box of Topps Football and was completely out of place. I grabbed 3 packs of the Collector's Choice and the Bowman's Best football pack. All packs were 30% off, so for 4 packs I am pretty sure I paid less than $6. When we finally got in the car I opened the Bowman's Best pack first. It was the first time I ever opened a pack of this stuff so it was exciting to me to see the shiny exterior. I noticed I pulled a Keyshawn Johnson and it looked different than the other cards, but I couldn't really decipher what was up with it because I was in the back of my mom's Chevy Blazer and it was night time. Any time we drove past a street light I would try to get a glimpse of the card, but I just didn't know what kind of card it was. I put the cards back in the pack and decided to move onto the lame part of the trip which was the Collector's Choice packs. In the first 2 packs I pulled a few rookies of players like Khalid Reeves, B.J. Tyler and pulled a Silver Signature of Eddie Jones. The last pack had a gold signature on the bottom of Chris Smith. Not sure who that guy was, but I was excited to see I pulled one of the hardest parallels (at the time) then I flipped to the next card, also a gold signature! The entire pack was full of gold signature parallels (something I've never seen before)! What made me think of this day was when I actually saw my Aunt at the grocery store last week. I don't see her that often, but when I do it just reminds me of that day. I scoured my small box of basketball cards that I still own and found 2 of these Gold Signature cards that I still have (I sold off the rest when I listed them on eBay when I first signed up in 2001). So scans are below of the day that I pulled a bunch of great cards (from the 90's)...and that Keyshawn Johnson, turned out to be a great pull!

1996 Bowman's Best Keyshawn Johnson Atomic Refractor Parallel RC 

1994/95 UD Collector's Choice Gold Signature Eric Montross & Bill Curley RC Parallels