Mar 18, 2023 3 min read

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Jim Knapp with his grandson Lucas, 8, and some of the cards he will be selling to help pay for his daughter's September wedding. 

Courtesy of Jim Knapp

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This card from Pete Maravich's rookie season fetched $230 in an auction on eBay. 

Courtesy of Jim Knapp

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Also put up for auction on eBay was this card of Wilt Chamberlain from the 1970-71 NBA season. 

Courtesy of Jim Knapp

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Some of the Tall Boy cards from the 1970-71 NBA season that Jim Knapp has in his collection that he is selling to help pay for his daughter Casey's wedding. 

Courtesy of Jim Knapp

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Jim Knapp said his daughter Casey’s original preference for a wedding was something small.

However, that changed.

“Every father plans to have a wedding for his daughter,” Knapp said. “In my case, she always said, ‘Hey, Dad, I don’t want a big wedding; all you need to plan for is a small wedding and maybe a dinner after.’ No problem. I had that money socked away.”

That changed when Casey attended a wedding last August at the Valley View Farm in Waynesburg. She enjoyed seeing a wedding at the barn and became interested in a bigger ceremony at that venue.

So, Knapp came up with a unique way to offset some of the cost with the help of hall of fame athletes such as Willie Mays and Wilt Chamberlain.

The recently retired Bethel Park guidance counselor has a collection from his younger days such of some of the tall basketball cards prevalent in the early 1970s, sets of Topps baseball cards, football cards from the 1970s and even some hockey cards. Knapp said he has about 1,000 left from his collection.

“The ones that I have that are really worth something are called the Tall Boys, the 1970-71 (NBA) series,” Knapp explained. “I was fortunate that I was able to have that entire set.”  

So the South Strabane resident figured why not sell them to help pay for the wedding.  

“I could very easily go into my retirement stuff and do that,” Knapp said. “However, I figured I have these cards. Why not try to sell these off? Will it pay for the whole wedding? Absolutely not, but it will make a little indentation into that wedding.”

He put five cards up for auction on Ebay – Tall Boy cards of “Pistol” Pete Maravich, Chamberlain and Lew Alcindor (now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) from the 1970-71 season and 1969 baseball cards of hall of famers Mays and Nolan Ryan.

The quintet of cards fetched almost $1,000 with the card from Maravich’s rookie season going for $230. The Chamberlain and Alcindor cards brought in about $100 apiece from the five-day auction that ended at about 3 a.m. Tuesday. Knapp admitted he stayed up until 3 a.m. to monitor the auction because he thought that’s what he was supposed to do. 

But wait there’s more.

“A guy from Cincinnati called me who was originally from Bethel Park,” Knapp said. “He’s coming in this weekend and said he’ll buy the whole kit and kaboodle off of me. He’s a collector. He said he’ll take them home and put them in his drawer. He holds on to them. He’ll take them all from me and won’t resell them. He’ll keep them until he dies.”

Knapp admitted he hadn’t really told his daughter about selling the cards to bring in cash for the wedding.

“I haven’t really told her this is how we’re funding this,” he said. “She does know that I was getting cards ready for this guy and thinks it’s really neat. My grandson (Lucas) has been helping we with those cards. He and I just have a great time.”

Casey Knapp, a nurse at Canonsburg Hospital, will marry Matt Presto, a nurse at Mon Valley Hospital, this September. Both are 2010 graduates of Trinity High School.  

And their wedding will be partially paid for by cards of some of the greatest athletes who have ever lived.