On April 5, 1984, in Las Vegas against Utah, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took a pass from Magic Johnson and scored on a skyhook, his 31,420th point, passing Wilt Chamberlain as the league's career scoring leader. By the time Fleer made this card he was in his seventeenth season.
The 1986-87 Fleer set runs alphabetically by last name, and Abdul-Jabbar comes first. So the set that holds the Michael Jordan rookie at #57 opens with him, at #1, and his sticker is #1 as well.
First in the set, and the card the top of every stack wore down.
The photograph shows him in the Lakers' gold, number 33, wearing his goggles, arms raised among Philadelphia players, inside the red, white and blue stripes and yellow frame of the famous design.
Being first has a cost. The top card of a stack takes the dings, and the rubber band around it takes the rest, so #1 is one of the harder cards in the set to find sharp. Centering and chipping along the colored borders trouble every card here, and the set is among the most counterfeited in basketball.
It is not a rookie card. It is a card of a man who had already won four championships and six Most Valuable Player awards, opening the set that started the modern era of basketball cards.
