Monday, January 25, 2021

Dropping a Dime

I hear that basketball cards are more popular than they've ever been.  Is that right?  Are you collecting them?  Can you even find them?  Can you find anything?  Even if I could I'm not interested in chasing some rookie's shiny new card.  Certainly not as an investment.  If you're reading this you probably collect for the fun of it like I do.  

So I don't have any Zion Williamson or Ja Morant cards.  No Luca Doncic, no La Mello Ball.  

I suppose I'd like my collection to be worth something but that's a bonus.  I'm irritated by the recent news about Target having to limit sales on cards because investors are buying them up.  I haven't been buying cards very often but I like knowing I can walk in a store and find a variety of packs if I'm in the mood.  Maybe it's a good thing for the hobby in the long run but it's certainly not now for the casual collector.

I do have some basketball cards.  They're not serial numbered and they don't shine.  Luckily I never gave my Mama a chance to throw them out.  My total investment was $.10, one dime.  That's about $7.00 in today's money.

These guys aren't Zion but I think they were pretty good.

1971-72 Topps #100 Lew Alcindor
1971-72 Topps #1 Oscar Robertson
1971-72 Topps #65 Walt Frazier
1971-72 Topps #10 Elgin Baylor
1972-73 Topps #175 NBA Rebounds Leader Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wes Unseld
1972-73 Topps #195 Julius Erving
1972-73 Topps #5 Pete Maravich
1972-73 Topps #144 Pat Riley
1972-73 Topps# 81 Len Wilkens
1972-73 Topps #32 Phil Jackson

10 comments:

  1. Nice! That's the best bunch of basketball cards I have seen in a long time!!

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  2. Thanks. A blog post 50 years in the making.

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  3. Wowza. I love the 1972-73 Topps design. I considered buying the set a few years ago, b/c it's my birth year set. Missed the window. Might grab some of the stars at some point. As for current basketball... I don't chase that stuff either. But I'm sure glad I started grabbing graded copies of Kobe and Duncan a few years ago. I also lucked out and returned to the hobby when guys like Durant, Curry, and Harden were rookies... so I have quite a few of them laying around as well. Now if only I had been born about 10 years earlier... so I could have nabbed all of the cool basketball cards from the 70's.

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  4. 1971-72 was the only year I collected basketball cards. I have a few dozen, including that Alcindor card. (I forget who else, but that Walt Frazier card looks familiar.)

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    1. I probably got a box (had a generous father) at the drugstore. I have a bunch more. Triples of Dr. J.

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  5. There are "investors" out there? LOL! Have they learned nothing from the early-1990s fiasco?

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  6. Well, at least these guys will be remembered!

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    1. Oh, yeah! I don't get the craze for young superstars. I mean in terms of the crazy amounts of money people are shelling out for their cards. To each his own.

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