Flash back to 1984.
The radio was filled with the sounds of Bruce Springsteen, Van Halen, Lionel Richie and Tina Turner.
Parents were battling over Cabbage Patch Kids in toy stores.
It was an epic year in movies, too, as "Ghostbusters," "The Karate Kid" and "Beverly Hills Cop" were all released.
The home was starting to turn into an entertainment center, though that 40-inch Panasonic TV or that Apple Macintosh computer would cost you $2,500.
And for $15, you could easily get a lower-level seat to see a 21-year-old rookie named Michael Jordan playing for the Chicago Bulls.
On a Friday night in mid-December, excitement was in the air as Jordan, averaging 24.8 points a game in his rookie campaign, came to New Jersey for the first time.
Despite not winning a playoff series in their first seven years in the NBA, the Nets were drawing a then-solid 8,500 fans per night at Brendan Byrne Arena, thanks to names such as Michael Ray Richardson, Buck Williams, Otis Birdsong and Mike Gminski.
Jordan's presence added 5,500 more on the night of Dec. 14, 1984.
The rookie scored 34, but the Nets came away with the 111-109 victory in a game that was never seen as that special in the years to come.
Jordan himself would likely never remember it.
A hidden gem in plain sight
Last Saturday, I spent most of the morning going back and forth on what number I was going to throw out with three seconds left in the auction.
A ticket had caught my eye on eBay, labeled as this in the lot description: "1984-85 NJ Nets vs Chicago Bulls 12/14/1984 Ticket Stub Jordan Rookie 34 Points."
A dream ticket I thought would never arrive was here.
Buying cards is easy. Simply type in the name of what you want, and it comes up. Buying tickets, in some cases, comes with a journey, and it is equally satisfying grabbing a good one as it is to discover one.
The Bulls-Nets ticket was at an absurdly low $1,058.55 with five hours remaining, which was a little high for an auction with that much time left.
The last 25 tickets that have sold from Michael Jordan's rookie season (excluding his debut ticket, first dunk, Air Jordan game debut and playoff games) have sold for an average of $1,056.
I'd somehow managed to avoid the biggest obstacle: Tony Gaspari.
Gaspari is a genius ticket collector and observer. He runs Hall of Stubs on Instagram, and he often points out "mislisted" tickets. This is in his wheelhouse. A seller listing a ticket without listing why it's relevant. But Gaspari is quiet on this one for some reason.
The second biggest obstacle? Buyers trying to make private deals, which is against eBay rules. Private deals don't really happen much with cards, but with tickets — especially when the seller doesn't know what he or she has — it happens more often.
What sellers don't realize is there's enough of a market in tickets, the better move is likely always to not take a deal and let the auction run. Like in May, when a seller listed a ticket on eBay as Hank Aaron's 25th home run game. It sold for $10,000 because enough people knew it was also Sandy Koufax' debut.
I later learned Billy Staples and Mike Duquette, who were selling the Bulls-Nets ticket, received private offers up to almost $2,000 for this ticket. They decided to pass.
So, why is this ticket so special?
Well, for the first time cllct can say with certainty: It's the game when freelance photographer Noren Trotman took the pictures that wound up on both of Michael Jordan's rookie cards: 1984-85 Star No. 101 and 1986-87 Fleer No. 57.
Searching for clues
The sleuth work happened behind the scenes by interested card and ticket collectors for years, but a post last May by Australian collector Matt Cassidy of JordanCards.com increased the chatter.
Question: At which game(s) were the photos for Michael Jordan's rookie cards taken?
The easiest thing to do would be to contact Trotman. His phone number is easily found, but he has never returned a call or a message.
Initial sleuths on the case started with the same obvious points Cassidy laid out.
Jordan is wearing a rookie away jersey for both the 1984-85 Star and 1986-87 Fleer cards. The Bulls only wore that "Chicago" script jersey for one year. So, the pictures must be from the 1984-85 season.
The opponents in each card were the New Jersey Nets, wearing their home white jerseys.
The Bulls played at New Jersey in the 1984-85 season on Dec. 14 and Jan. 16 and April 13.
Cassidy then looked at the lineups from those games to notice distinctions.
On Jordan's 1984-85 Star card Jordan is, ridiculously, getting a rebound, having boxed out a guy with an "M" to begin his name in a Nets jersey. That's Dave McKenna, and he only played in one of three games – Dec. 14, 1984. So, that was a quick solve.
Now, to the Jordan 1986-87 Fleer card, which was a significantly harder riddle.
Jordan is hanging in the air. The internet has never featured a highlight from that dunk. And our initial sleuthing, which resulted in getting a clip from UNC-Wilmington's digital library, fell short.
Our ask to Chicago news leader WGN failed to produce any video.
We know Jordan was wearing Air Ships and not Air Jordans in the December game, but you can't see his feet in the shot on the card.
Other parts of his body didn't provide much in the way of clues either. Jordan was wearing a black leg brace for both the December and April games, and no leg brace in January, but MJ's rookie card photo obscures not only his shoes but his legs as well.
The big breakthrough?
Those Starline posters that us '80s kids had in our rooms.
The 1987 Starline poster includes the exact image from the 1986 Fleer card and credits Trotman for all the photos on the poster. The 1988 Starline, also licensed from Trotman, includes Jordan in the air in the script Chicago logo and the crowd matches to the 1986 Fleer card photo.
You can tell from the photo Trotman was in a nearly identical spot — the colors of the crowd match from the white to the red to what winds up to be a very helpful and unique teal grouping, long before the Charlotte Hornets came into the league.
The other clue in the 1988 Starline photo is Jordan was wearing Air Ships, which he wore for his first 10 regular-season games before playing one game — against Dr. J and the Philadelphia 76ers — in Air Jordans. He then returned to Air Ships for the bulk of December before permanently switching to Jordans. That alone eliminates the other two Nets home games.
And pictures from the January Nets game, including what turns out to definitively match to his rookie Fleer sticker, have him in Chicago 1 Jordans.
"It was a lot of fun detective work slowly piecing the bits and pieces together," Cassidy told cllct. "It was a challenge I would tinker on when I had spare time now and then over many weeks. Each new piece of evidence I found would spur me on to the next until a picture started to appear."
Ticket selling for a good cause
Dec. 14, 1984, was a big day for Billy Staples. A media member was taking the former New Jersey high school basketball player to Brendan Byrne Arena, where he was promised he would meet rookie Michael Jordan.
Staples watched the game that night and like every game he saw, kept the ticket.
For 40 years.
Looking to raise money for Best Inc., Staples' charity that sends kids in need of aid to colleges in Pennsylvania, the organization posted the Jordan ticket last week.
"We were definitely surprised to see the ticket go as high as it did," said Duquette, who is Staples' cousin. "We figured it would get around $1,000, but were shocked by the attention that this listing received shortly after posting it."
The auction hits the finish line
As the auction neared its end, I isolated myself from my family in the guest bedroom of my house, pondering what my final bid was going to be in the last couple seconds.
I projected I was going to pay around $6,500, helped by the fact others thought the date was still up in the air.
But I couldn't risk it.
Before the auction ended, I got a direct message from Rick Mirigian, a well-known, eagle-eyed opportunist. "What's up with this Jordan ticket?" Rick wrote.
The higher price set off alarms. I'm friends with Rick, but I couldn't risk a response. I'll call him after I win.
I have to win this ticket. It's what I call a "crossover."
Like the Air Jordan debut ticket I own, which last sold for $75k, thanks to its crossover with sneaker heads, this is the ultimate ticket for card collectors, and it matches to both of his rookie cards.
In the final 10 seconds, the price doubled to more than $2,000.
I loaded up "$20,001" as my final bid.
The auction hit zero. The familiar eBay buffering, which is always nerve-wracking, seemed to take an eternity.
"Congratulations, you won! Next complete your payment"
The final total was $4,938.99, plus $3.86 shipping.
When all was said and done, the final price came out to $5,270. I was thrilled.
I called up Mirigian and said, "I'm sorry."
I sent a direct message to Gaspari.
Me: "I prayed all week you wouldn't see the eBay ticket auction."
Gaspari: "I saw it."
Me: "You would have killed me."
Gaspari: "I bid on it and lost."
Me: "So, you didn't point it out because you wanted it for yourself."
Gaspari: "Yes. I was hoping nobody really knew. Like you."
I later learned Shaun Dougherty, one of the OG's in the space and co-host of YouTube show "Talkin' Tickets," was also bidding.
Hours later, the well-known Facebook group "Booger's Tickets Stubs" had a post by ticket collector Jeremy Scheuch: "Anybody in here win this monster?" with a picture of the ticket I just bought.
Among the comments were people saying it was a crazy price for what it is.
And I think it is. There's no way this ticket is worth as little as I paid for it ... especially since I was told my purchase was going to be used to send two kids to school.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.