Eric Zitter is the greatest ticket collector of sporting debuts.
You name it, he has it.
Mickey Mantle. Jackie Robinson. Pete Rose. Jerry West. Wilt Chamberlain. Michael Jordan. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Magic Johnson. Larry Bird. Dan Marino. Joe Montana. Jerry Rice.
But Sunday, he steered off his sports debut path to buy a gem — the first ever paid concert for U2.
Debuts in sports, though rare, are obtainable.
Concerts are more of a crapshoot. They happen in smaller venues and not many fans hold onto the tickets long enough.
Like many young bands, U2 started in high school and had a different name (Feedback) when it played at St. Fintan’s Assembly Hall on April 11, 1977.
The kids from Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin didn’t show immediate brilliance that night. It would be another six years until they broke through when their “War” album hit No. 1 in the United Kingdom.
In 1984, a 12-year-old Jason Smith was wowed by U2, who he had seen on VHS tapes from the Red Rocks Amphitheatre just a year before.
“‘Boy’ became the soundtrack of my life,” said Smith, now 53, living in Ohio.
While vacationing in Clearwater Beach, Florida, in 1999, Smith noticed a pile of tickets at a music store. He was hooked.
He bought some U2 tickets and then spent nights on eBay buying more. Over time, he was able to get all 107 concerts from the “Joshua Tree” tour in 1987.
With the early gems coming from shows in U2’s native Ireland, Smith, who sells Lake Erie vacation homes, has spent hundreds and hundreds of hours communicating with those in Ireland who worked the early shows.
His grail? The St. Fintan's appearance and U2’s first paid show.
When Smith began looking, he didn’t find much luck. He later learned there was a reason: Tickets were taken at the door, put in a shoe box and eventually dumped.
The only people who saved them, Smith discovered, were the promoter, his sister and a couple of people who didn’t attend.
In 25 years, Smith has tracked down five tickets to the show and has acquired four. He sold one to his best friend. Another he traded with a U2 super collector.
Smith sold Zitter his last extra on Sunday night for $6,500.
“It definitely fits my collection,” Zitter told cllct. “I just haven’t seen many firsts in the music world before.”
The allure of debuts is to have a ticket from a time before the greats were greats. To have the first of a band that went on to become one of the greatest of all-time was too tempting for Zitter to resist.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.