I have one card in my collection that will never be for sale. Now, that doesn’t mean I won’t listen to offers. It’s just that the meaning of the card, not too mention how it was acquired, far outweighs money and I refuse to advertise it in any way “for sale”.
The Story
Every truly great NFS/NFT card that exists has a story to back it. Some call them PC cards or the “focal point of their collection”, but most that we adorn with the NFS (Not for sale) or NFT (Not for trade) tag, have a story that adds to the mystique of the card. Allow me to tell you mine…
I was all of 11 years old and it was Christmas time. The morning was moving along like many Christmas mornings would for children fortunate enough to experience it. I qualified as fortunate, but this Christmas morning was slightly different. What I would receive would stay with me through my journeys into adulthood.
As I rifled through the sea of gifts, found my own and opened them, while playing elf and haphazardly distributing the appropriate gifts to other family members, the exhaustion of a long Christmas morning, coupled with the early rise started to set in and there were only a few gifts left to rip open.
As the morning typically starts, I rooted through my stocking, as stockings are always first, and found my two or three packs of 1985 Topps baseball cards, along with a Swiss Army Knife and a pen. I scouted out and cracked open the Nintendo gaming system I was hoping to receive, along with a game or two. Now we were down to the final few boxes. These were typically gifts that felt to the shake (yah, I shook my gifts) like clothing, or to an 11 year old boy, less exciting treasure.
I grabbed a gift from grandma. It would no doubt be a pair of pants or a new shirt. Through the wrapping paper, the box had that department store feel. That sort of weak card board box supporting a heavy clothing item. I opened the gift, largely assuming the surprises of Christmas morning were long gone.
In the box lay a pair of brand new, stiff as a board, Levi jeans. I think jeans back then were made of a material that took about 20 washes to soften the fabric. I remember some friends who wore jeans that actually looked like they incorporated some sort of laminate on the surface. Stiff as a board and very uncomfortable. Yet, here we are, I was right, clothing again!
The last gift was a World magazine, accompanied by a year long subscription. Yippee! The morning was over and it was a pretty good Christmas all-in-all. I was about to go open my 1985 Topps packs that I received in the stocking, when my mom started cleaning up. She asked me to stack my clothes in a pile and she would take them to the wash. This is when it happened.
I went to fold up my jeans and held them up in front of me with the back pockets of the jeans facing me. Just as I was about to fold them over, I noticed something sticking out of the top of the back pocket. It looked like a paper bag or envelope. I figured it was a tag of some sort, so I reached in to pull it out and low and behold it contained something stiff, like card board.
The envelope did not seem to belong in the pants, and my assumption was that grandma accidentally left a small greeting card or gift tag in the back pocket. She left something alright, but it wasn’t a gift tag and it wasn’t an accident.
I reached in, grabbed the item from the envelope, and on first glance I was left only to gasp. In my 11 year old hand, pinched between my fore finger and thumb, was a 1954 Topps Al Kaline Rookie Card. Being a Detroit kid, and growing up hearing about the man that was to that point, a modern day Tiger legend, made collecting Al Kaline cards a favorite past time of mine.
Present Day
That moment is etched in my brain and probably takes the cake for coolest Christmas morning experience. Every time I look at the card, I imagine my grandmother stuffing it in the back pocket of those jeans with a smirk on her face. It still sits proudly encased in a 2 inch thick screw down. I don’t think I will ever remove it.
The strangest thing? I don’t even keep it with my collection. It sits elsewhere, in a drawer, away from anything card related with a few other cherished items from my past. I suppose that is the difference, it sort of transcends the collection to some degree.
I don’t care about the condition, because it has always looked the same to me. I thought about grading it but my fear is it will take away the original presence of the card. Encased in a PSA slab it will look like all the others. Not like it will grade well anyway, but if I don’t intend to sell, what’s the point? No, this one is for pure enjoyment and unless someone makes an insane offer, it is NFS/NFT forever.
Thanks for reading! Do you have a NFS card in your collection that would take the moving of mountains to sell? let us know!