Check Out My Bowman Basketball Cards – Finishing Move

Nothing too exciting about these cards except that they finish off my 2009-10 Bowman ‘48 set. The two rookies, DeMar DeRozan and Jordan Hill are serial numbered on the back to 2009 copies (as are all of the rookies) and the Double Post is numbered to 1948 (as are all of the plays).

I was a fan of this set right from the release. The autographed cards were sticker autos, but the checklist was very strong and there were three autographs to a box. I ended up pulling Dwyane Wade, Derek Rose and O.J. Mayo out of my box. Selling the Rose towards the end of his MVP season almost paid for the box on its own. There were blue parallels one per pack (numbered to 1948) and rarer black parallels that fell one per box. Then there were some rarer cards such as red autos (1 of 1), black bordered autographs (numbered to 48), printing plates, auto relics numbered to 1 and 8 and auto dual patch autos there were 1 of 1.

This is one set that I think can retain some decent value. It’s got a limited Blake Griffin rookie and there can only be 1948 complete sets due to the short printed play cards. So, I might be able to put this away with my ‘92 Bowman, ‘93 SP Baseball and ‘94 SP Baseball as the only sets that I own that are actually worth something.

Finishing Move: 1995 Sportflix Football

I completed this set a while back, but never got around to posting about it.  I opened a box of this way back in 1995 and never found any singles available at the card shows or card shops at the time (and there were a lot more of them around back then).  Through the wonders of the Internet, I was finally able to track down the 16 cards that I needed on SportLots.  Best of all, most of the cards were the .18¢ minimum price.

I’ve always been a big fan of cards like Sportflix and Action Packed.  I’ve got bookmark sets and 3-D card sets.  I’ve got sets released in other countries and sets released by food companies.  The more oddball it is, the more I like it.

This set doesn’t have a lot going for it as far as value goes.  There’s a McNair rookie as well as a Terrell Davis rookie.  You can pick up most of the cards for pennies on the dollar of “book value.”  My collection is full of sets like this one.  I love fun sets that aren’t about future value.

There were some nice insert sets to be found in Sportflix packs.  Since it was a Pinnacle product, there had to be Artist Proofs.  ProMotion cards showed a player and his team’s helmet.  Rookie Lightning had a clear background.  Rolling Thunder cards had a stationary picture and a moving background.  There was also a Man 2 Man insert set, but I’ve never seen one of those in person so I’m not exactly sure what those cards did.  I think it was just a 3-D image of two players.

I miss these kinds of sets in the hobby these days.  It’s great when a company decided to flashback to something like this in one of their products like Upper Deck did in their final licensed flagship basketball product.  These days sets aimed at kids are no longer fun, they’re just cheap to produce and maybe will contain stickers or tattoos and that’s about it.  Just more evidence of just how out of touch some of the card manufacturers out there are with their customers.

Technorati Tags: Finishing Move,1995 Sportflix Football,Jerry Rice,Terrell Davis

Finishing Move – 2007-08 Topps Bill Russell Missing Years

Last year, I purchased a box of 2007-08 Topps Basketball HTA jumbos.  I’ve always had good luck with Topps and Stadium Club Basketball jumbos.  This box yielded my first ever Rip Card.  Since the card had Camby, Okafor and Jermaine O’Neal on it, it was an easy decision to rip it.  Inside was a Josh Howard red ink autograph card.  Sometimes you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

The box also yielded 5 out of the 11 cards in the Bill Russell The Missing Years insert set.  I had set them aside and forgotten about them until recently.  Upon discovering them, I made my way over to SportLots, dropped a few bucks and now I’ve got the complete set.  Topps also did a Larry Bird insert set similar to this, but people aren’t giving those cards away for next to nothing like the Russell cards.  These cards remind me of the Topps Basketball Archives set that Topps did in the early 90s.  The set was all “rookie” cards of players in the design of that year’s baseball set to give you an idea of what might have been if Topps never stopped making basketball cards.  That set is still one of my all-time favorites.

Technorati Tags: 2007-08 Topps Basketball,Bill Russell