Pieces of history

Today's theme is history, with some personal history at the end of the post. 

Card Number 563: Upper Deck Piece of History, 2002; #82

"Piece of History" was a high end, relic-heavy 132-card set. This is the base card from the set and it's a very red card.

The century timeline on the card-front is essentially meaningless as there is no reference as to when in the century Tony was active. 

I think this is one of the chronologically earliest cards in my collection that repeated the same photo on the front and the back. 

Tony's career summary is intersected by a one line career stats box. I prefer stats boxes like this on cards issued after Tony retired, but I'm ambivalent about the positioning here.

And now the personal history. I've mentioned before how when I was a kid I went on a holiday to America with my family, where I bought my first baseball cards. I missed some school while on that holiday and the deal was that I had to keep a diary of my experiences and read it to classmates when I came back. 

I recently found that diary, which is mainly a list of things we did and what we ate. One entry covers something else - I think it is the first time I bought baseball cards, in which case I can date that to the 25th March 1987, in a 7-Eleven in Orlando, Florida.

"After Tea we went to a shop called 7eleven where we bought a cool box and some ice and cola to go in. We Bought some sweets and a packet of Baseball cards and a sack of Oranges." [sic]

This is probably the 7-Eleven that made such an impact on me that I've reminisced about it on this blog before.

The next day we went to the EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World. But I was more excited reading about buying baseball cards!

Total: 563 cards