Hoops Hobby

I enjoy going to card shows. While just a few years ago they were a quarterly affair in my area, they’re now more like 2-3 times a month within a reasonable driving distance (for me that’s under an hour away).

Even though they occur pretty frequently, it’s tough for me to make it to a show in a family with 4 children, including 2 under 2. The show with easiest access is at the local mall, and sometimes we take a trip to the mall as a family and I have a little while to look around. That was the case this past weekend.

First thing that stood out to me was the percentage of the show that was Pokemon. It was easily over half, and likely more than 2/3 pokemon to 1/3 sports cards. Narrow down the focus to basketball cards and we’re looking at just a handful of tables.

So while I didn’t have a ton of time, I was actually able to hit every table with basketball cards and dig into boxes that looked like they might have something for me.

Much of the basketball was the very familiar ultra modern stuff. I do collect Pacers inserts and refractors/silvers from some of those sets, but I didnt’t come across anything I needed.

One table I found toward the end of making my rounds was the ideal table for me. Boxes of 2000s era cards to dig through, and I looked at every card. This dealer was a Knicks fan and so we talked about their run, the return of the Pacers this coming season, Mitchell Robinson’s departure and his impact- it was a pleasant interaction.

I’ve thought recently about adding David Harrison rookie year cards to my Pacers rookie year binders. Right now it starts with Austin Croshere in 1997-98 and includes Al Harrington, Jonathan Bender, Jeff Foster, Jamaal Tinsley, and ends with Fred Jones. Tinsley and Fred Jones were when I was really hitting my stride in making trades in online message boards and starting to use eBay to build my collection a little bit. I would also attend regional card shows with my dad and sometimes my best friend.

Now, to most, this looks like a David Harrison base rookie card, maybe numbered to 1000~ cards like many rookies from sets of that era.

Being a Pacers collector, the Harrison card caught my eye, and I might have bought it even if it was just the base rookie card, for $1. But to my surprise when I flipped it over, it turned out to be a parallel card numbered out of 50, and while still not a very valuable card, was happy to come across it, especially in person.

This renews my enthusiasm for my rookie year card project. If I do add Harrison to my rookie card binder, it’ll give me another year of rookie cards to chase. I only have 35 Harrison cards in my collection so far, and about 1/3 of those are not rookie year cards. I’ll have a lot of work to do to fill those pages.

And when I do add those 24 cards, I’ll be glad I attended a card show in July 2026 to rescue a /50 Throwbacks card from the wild. A show worth attending.