Unfinished Cup:1997 Spx Basketball

 I had almost given up, but one tweet changed the momentum towards today's Unfinished Cup set chase.

That one tweet helped me land the biggest card in the set with this Kobe Bryant and now I actually have a chance at finally finishing this set chase.

This is the last Spx set I need to complete my hologram Spx set chases of baseball, football, basketball, and NASCAR! Hockey still has some to go before that makes the list but the basketball would be a huge one to finally complete.

Kobe was the last major piece I needed as I acquired MJ a while ago.

Here are the remaining needs if any of you have any help for me to finish up this set,

6,16,19,24,29,30,32,34,37,38,41,42,43,47,

I am soooooooooooo close. Would love to finish this one up.

Hope everyone has a great Tuesday!

Pinky up, coffee up.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

The Shoebox Delivers Part 3

Coffee has been sitting around for a little while so it's a bit cold, but microwaving it doesn't quite save it either. I will drink it as is for today's post.

Cards are ready next to me, and I am ready for a new Cards Over Coffee.

*takes a cold sip*

With being down still with my very uncomfortable stent, I took some time yesterday to take the remaining photos from my shoebox trade so I can have some post fodder.

Before I continue though with a new part, if you missed the first two parts, get caught up with Part 1 of the magical Shoebox trade and Part 2, which you can see HERE.

Today I will be showing off the key basketball cards I found in the trade. This isn't all of the basketball cards as there was a lot of base, but the cool ones of the group even with a surprise find.

Super Team Redemption Card of the Charlotte Hornets. Who didn't like the Hornets or own a Hornets Starter Jacket in the 90's?

Penny Hardaway Collectors Choice Stick 'Ums

Shaq's first pic as a Laker. I actually picture him with the Lakers more than any other team he played on.

Topps 40th insert of Penny Hardaway.

 

Upper Deck Teammates of Penny Hardaway. I get the feeling the person my father got this box from may have been a fan.

New PC item for my Allan Houston PC. It also features a Marcus Camby and Kerry Kittles rookie.

Penny Hardaway again, but more importantly, MJ which is a side PC for me.

Marcus Camby Collectors Choice Rookie Card

Allen Iverson Rookie Card

Then a mini trio featuring Allen Iverson rookie.

Then came the biggest surprise of them all....

Collectors Choice Kobe Bryant rookie!!!!

Rookie subset of Kobe

Then a mini trio featuring Kobe rookie.

I am still in shock that a Kobe rookie was just sitting in this shoebox. It may not hold a ton of value, but still. IT'S A KOBE BRYANT ROOKIE CARD.

*takes a final sip, will need to toss the rest, before finishing up today's post*

Basketball and baseball part of this trade are done. The next two parts will be football and of course, I will save the best cards for last. Not that Part 4 won't have its good stuff as well.

I hope everyone has a great Wednesday and hope you have a hot cup of coffee, unless you specifically ordered iced coffee.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Not The Same

*gets up very early, before the rise of dawn for no reason but decides to have a reason for it and starts to blog. It's going to be a three cupper today*

I know I am not alone when it comes to saying life has changed so much since my youth. 

(picture a grumpy old man at 37 shaking his stick at the kids on his lawn and goes to reach for a hose to spray them away)

• There are no more Saturday Morning Cartoon countdown as cartoons are always available. I remember having Saturday's off from school and living for a bowl of Cap'N Crunch and a block of cartoons on ABC and CBS
• Outside fun has become a thing of the past with video games. I lived outside in my youth and never got bored. I used to see commercials for water guns and Nerf items to play with your friends but those have cut back to more video game related commercials basically forcing the youth of today to be inside.
• Counting down to the holiday specials on TV is no longer needed as most are easily available on DVD, get played more than once (they used to get played once and that was it) and some just aren't showed anymore at all. Remember the California Raisins Christmas special? Yeah most don't even know what that is today. I used to countdown to those specials and would write on a calendar when they would come on and would make sure I was ready to watch those. Now they play Rudolph and Frosty two to three times and some don't even come on TV anymore.
  
• No more video rental stores as you can access any movie you want to watch through different devices. One of my favorite things to do on a Friday night was going with my parents to go pick out movies. My mother would get the five out of the seven picked but my sister was able to pick one (most of the time it was Little Mermaid) and I would get one as well. It was a fun family trip.
• Cool action figures and toys no longer exist. Have you seen the toys they make for kids today? Most need apps or are digital in some way and the ones that are made are cheap plastic that break way too quick. What happened?!
• Leaning simple life skills in school is no longer offered, at least here. Instead of learning to live on your own you can learn how to use a digital 3D printer because that will help you in life when you are home alone and can't make a sandwich or do your own laundry.
  
• Too many are offended and the world is simply a mess with subjects I won't even touch on as I wouldn't want to offend anyone or lose readers. It's better to keep my mouth quiet and simply say we had tougher skin in the 80's and 90's.
• Reading Books have become a thing of the past. Most small bookstore don't exist anymore
• Hobbies are not important anymore as devices keep you occupied in your free time
  
• Board Games. I played a ton with my grandmother and still play them. It's especially fun when the family comes up around the holidays and plays as well, but overall, you don't see a lot of board games being played anymore. It's actually forced board game companies to combine device app aspects with board games. Just the other day I saw one for Tik Toc and I have also seen them for Memes too.
  
• And now the latest thing because of Covid is the no magazine policy across doctor offices where they encourage you to stare at your phone more. I can almost see them never making another return again which is sad because that used to be the one thing you had in the waiting room to do. Now you just see people staring down at their phones.
  

 

This is a note inside of the eye doctors I recently visited which at the bottom states, "Please Enjoy Your Phone." Seems ironic that they want you to drain your eyes at a Eye doctors office but maybe that is part of the ploy. 

 

Insert thinking face emoji here.

It's not that magazines are really that popular anymore-or even the back of a shampoo or cereal box as well-or that I ever see anyone before Covid actually read anything but their phone but its the idea of them no longer being around that is bothersome.

Things just aren't the way they once were. Which by the way, were much better back then.

This concept goes for the hobby as well, especially when you are taking a look at the base cards.

*takes a sip, nope, chugs down the first cup. Pours the second and comes back to blog*

Base cards in the hobby are no longer tempting to chase. I still do just to find my favorite players but overall I don't chase base sets from today.

They are bland with no creativity. Not like they once were and yes, I am speaking of the 90's.

We had base cards printed on acetate, complete foil board, thick card stock, action packed photography, embossing, and my favorite, holograms.

*takes a sip and a trip back in time. I am taking you with me*

For those that have followed me awhile now, you would know my passion for hologram cards. Back in the late 90's Upper Deck created a set known as Spx that combined a thick micro-etched card stock with a hologram. They created this for multiple sports and I was on board.

I have been chasing all of the sets, inserts, autographs that have to do with the iconic Spx sets.

I have so far completed:
1996, 1997, 1998 Spx football base sets
1996 Spx racing
1997 Spx racing
1996 Spx hockey
1997 Spx baseball
1997-1998 Spx basketball
1996 Spx football Tribute cards and the Tribute autographs

And am close to these ones,
1997 Spx hockey (13 away)
1996 Spx baseball (13 away)
1996 Spx basketball (need just the MJ)
1996 Spx hockey Holoview Heroes (just a couple remain)
1998 Spx Football Steel (missing only 8) 

And now thanks to my friend @90sNicheFBCard I have...

1997-1998 basketball complete set!

This set features 50 cards full of stars and holographic awesomeness. I will let some of the cards do the talking......

That was

That was quite the experience..huh. I bet you are Googling them right now to find your own.

*takes another sip, tempted to finish cup two but decides to sip this one slower*

With this basketball set in hand, I am now only one card and one set away from having the basketball sets completed. My next goal is to finally chase down the MJ for the 1995-1996 set so I can finally say that one is complete. The last set, 1996-1997, is my favorite design of the three but with a Kobe rookie in the set it will be darn near impossible to ever own that one. Would have to be some major trade to pull that off.

Thanks to Bryan, @90sNicheFBCard, for the huge help in getting this one done.

*takes a sip before closing*

Now that I am done with today's card portion of the post, it got me to thinking. Maybe not having those magazines isn't a bad thing. Maybe you should be on your device more. Maybe you should have a cup of coffee in one hand and your device in another. If you haven't gotten to what I am hinting at yet, maybe your device while you are sitting there with your coffee should be called up to this blog for your reading material. There is quite a bit of content on here now, just sayin'. Of course sharing this blog with others in the room who see your fascination of coffee and cards wouldn't be a bad idea either.

A Mystery

*sun is already shining, heat/mugginess is building, and here I am sitting down with my first cup of joe to type this*

 

I love a good mystery.

Well, except for my coffee. Don't mess with my coffee. I have one way of liking it so don't mess with it and add some flavored mumbo jumbo or replace it with tea. 

Don't you dare.

Otherwise a good mystery is fun. Whether it's a mystery book, mystery movie, mystery mail day or mystery packs that you can buy. A good mystery keeps us on the edge of our seats.

Just like recently, when I tried my very first mystery pack.

Why is it my first? Well that's not a mystery I will leave you hanging on.

I always worry about buying them not knowing what kind of junk could be within. I assume in order to get the money the sellers are seeking, that the "chase" cards are impossible to find and a lot of it is what we could find in nickel and dime boxes. Which I am running out of places to store that kind of stuff. Yes, I have gotten to the point of collecting where space is becoming an issue. Mainly because my boxes to store stuff in are running low.

Another point to make about these mystery packs is most of these packs cost $10 when I could have turned that into a card or even two for my PC instead of possible junk.

But, this mystery pack was different than the rest I found. It was focused on my favorite era of collecting, late 90's and early 2000's. What made this pack even better, it was cheap. It had my attention.

So for $2.25 plus shipping, you get 30 cards. There are "25 cards" plus 5 cards that are Inserts/Parallels/RC cards. Intriguing.

All of the cards are NBA cards from the late 1990's through early 2000's. The seller put the Inserts/RC's/Parallels/#'d cards in plastic sleeves and each pack was wrapped like the above example.

Here's an example of some of the sets that were to be included into these mystery packs,

• 1997-1998 Topps Chrome
• 1997-1998 Bowman's Best
• 1998-1999 Fleer Mystique
• 1998-1999 Fleer Brilliants
• 1998-1999 Topps Finest
• 1998-1999 Skybox Thunder
• 1998-1999 Fleer Ultra
• 1998-1999 Upper Deck Black Diamond
• 1998-1999 Upper Deck Ionix
• 1999-2000 Skybox EX
• 1999-2000 Topps Gold Label

And the list of players that are in it as well,

• Kevin Garnett
• Vince Carter
• Grant Hill
• Shaquille O'Neal
• Anfernee Hardaway
• Tim Duncan
• David Robinson
• Jason Kidd
• Steve Nash
• Paul Pierce
• Dirk Nowitzki
• Richard Hamilton
• Chris Webber
• Kobe Bryant
• Michael Jordan
• Scottie Pippen
• Reggie Miller
• Karl Malone

Combine all of that with the price, the BIG NOSTALGIA FACTOR, how could I say no? So I grabbed two of these packs and paid under $10 for them both. After getting the packs and seeing how I did, I wished I had gotten more as they sold out almost immediately.

*smiles during my next sip*

Time to show you why they sold out so fast after opening them,

PACK 1:

We kick off the pack with a Topps Finest Felipe Lopez rookie card in old school Grizz uni. I would love a pair of those shorts to wear.

(no that's not an extra Lopez, that's the same one) I found John Stockton and a Karl Malone. Man I wished that Jazz team could had won a title. But, those darn Bulls...

Tim Hardaway, Payton, Garrity Finest rookie

Marbury (I wonder if my buddy still collects anymore who was a big time fan), another Payton and a Barkley

Shaq, Garnett, Penny Hardaway (forgot he played for the Suns)

And now onto what's supposed to be the good stuff. I thought I had already seen all of that up to this point.

Grant Hill Wing Men

Charles Barkley NBA All Stars

Elton Brand Topps Gold Label rookie. Imagine how hot this card must have been back then? For me it's about the Gold Label

Kobe! Great photo to. I never busted any of this Fleer Genuine

Cummings Topps Chrome rookie

And a Larry Hughes Black Diamond rookie. If I remember right, the rookies in this product were Sp's.

That was just pack number one folks. I was feeling like I had drank the best cup of coffee I had ever had after opening that one. Well, the cup I have right now isn't too shabby either nor is Pack 2.

*takes another sip*

PACK 2

I remember Mcleod and how hot his cards were supposed to be.....

Here we go some more. Fleer Mystique was another great looking product, PC guy Allan Houston Topps Chrome, Shawn Kemp, Spreeeeeeeeeeewelllll or as MSG called it out

Jamal Mashburn, Ewing, my first dupe with the Stockton, Kittles

A few Gary Paytons, Barkley another Hakeem Olajuwon

Marbury peeled Finest parallel, The Admiral, Hakeem again, Ray Allen

The sleeved cards including Webber, Tom Gugliotta nice die cut insert

Tim Duncan insert. I think it's either rookie year or year after. I can't remember now. I opened this awhile back.

And I believe I can fllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyy wooooooooooooo. An MJ spotting. Very cool especially being a side PC card and the way his cards have been moving. Fleer Ultra was also the bomb back then

 

It was the back of the card that caught my attention. I am not sure if you can read it, but the Did You Know? was "four hours before every game, Michael eats a 23-ounce New York Steak, either a baked potato or mashed potatoes, a salad and ginger ale."

That's crazy. Can you imagine running around for three hours with that in your system? That's just another reason why he is the GOAT.

*cup one down, next one coming up*

I contacted the seller afterwards and thanked them for a trip back in time and told them how much I enjoyed their mystery pack. They mentioned to me that they may make a second series seeing how this one went, if they could find the rest of their cards.

A week later, guess what they found and made and even contacted me about.

And guess what I did

And guess how I did...

A mystery isn't it....

Too bad that's for another cup of coffee, or two, another day.