The 22-Year Search Is Over!

The year was 1996.

The setting was the local card show hosted by the LCS owner.

My father and I had been walking throughout the show checking cards out and kept hearing great things about a product called 1996 Pinnacle Zenith football. We didn't always have a lot of funds, but we tried to purchase a new product here and there when we could. We mostly spent time at cards shows interacting and trading with other collectors. I miss all of these things today as there is no LCS, card shows or other collectors in-person to trade with in my area.

So we headed for the LCS owner's table, he was the only one to set up with boxes and packs of cards, to find us a few packs to open. Sadly when we had gotten there, the card show king Ted, who seemed to had have endless money, had bought the last few packs of the box. As we started to walk back awaym Bubba, as we all called the owner, asked us if we needed something and we explained how we wanted to open a few packs of Zenith but it was gone.

Luckily for us, it really wasn't as he opened up a brand new box for us to buy packs from. I am not sure which one of us was more giddy, my father or I.

So we each snagged a couple of packs, my strategy was to take one from the front and one front the back and we began to open. It was a tradition for our small local card show that purchasers did their opening there for others to see.

The foil wrapper was fun to peel and was the most unique thing I had opened to that time. I slowly took the cards out and was immediately in love. The base cards looked superb. The black background with a nice gold football touch. This is like nothing I had seen before.

 

   

The rookie cards didn't look as impressive, but still had a nice design and technically they were not rookies since they were from the 1995 class.

 

As I started going through the cards in my second pack, my father went hitless in both of his, I noticed something a bit shiny in the middle. It's always been a thing if I see a hit of any kind in the middle of a pack, I always go around it leaving it for last to have a slow reveal with. As I slowly peeled back the card that was sitting on top of the pull, I saw the words Z-Team...then it had a blue/white uniform and then when I fully revealed the card, holy moly! I had hit an Emmitt Smith Z-Team!! It was not only of the hottest player of that time, but the card was not an easy find. 1:72 packs or 1:3 boxes. I was blown away. It was by far my biggest hit of my young hobby career at the time.

I immediately had offers from Ted, what a surprise, and my best friend Brian's uncle who was a big Cowboys fan really wanted the card as well but I wouldn't budge. It was my big hit. It was a sweet looking card. I vowed never to let it go.

Well, that was all fine and dandy til I moved out of my parents house and mistakenly left it behind. My father suspected I no longer wanted it and sold the card. I didn't think of the card once I moved out, I was in my hobby dark years of not collecting because I thought a girl was more important-bad decision by the way- and pushed the hobby to the side. But, after a couple of years , I came back.

So I went back through my collection and realized that the Emmitt was missing and my father apologized and let me knew it was gone. The biggest problem was after I found that out, there was no more LCS, no more card shows, and no collectors around. The person he had sold it to had moved as well. I didn't have internet access or even knew of eBay. I just had to take the loss and realize the card was gone possibly forever.

Years had passed and I had actually forgotten about the card. I had come on here to start blogging back in 2012 and as I was retelling some of my stories, I started to remember the Emmitt Smith that got away. Which also brought back my love of my favorite collecting era.

So I began a journey of trying to find it.

There were still no LCS or card shows, but at least this time I knew about eBay thanks to my wife. So I began to search. Some were overpriced, most were the promo versions. There were very few of these out there and I wasn't going to overpay for one even though I desperately wanted one. Then I looked to trading, nobody had one available. It started to look like I wasn't going to be lucky finding one at all.

Earlier last week however, one popped up at a fairly reasonable price. I checked, double checked and even triple checked to make sure it wasn't the promo version and was the one I had wanted. It was the correct version and I felt a huge sigh of relief.

So here it is for the very first time in 22 years in my hands to now officially stay there. I present you the 1996 Pinnacle Zenith Emmitt Smith Z-Team!!

 

I know this isn't the hottest card on the market today or even has the value it had years ago, but to me, none of that matters and never has. What does matter to me most in this hobby is the memories and nostalgia attached to those. Those are things much more valuable and this Emmitt Smith card even from a Giants fan will always have those.