This Week's Best: Week 7

1995-96 Flair Hot Numbers

I'm a big fan of anything lenticular (3-D) and when these were released I was in college it was a big purchase (or gamble) to buy a pack at a whopping $5 per pack. A high price then, I wonder what they'd be selling for now? I was lucky enough to pull a Jason Kidd from the set and still think they are one of the best basketball insert sets of all-time. They have a timeless design that's still attractive and there's a decent player selection. Inserted at a rate of 1 in 36 packs, the 3-D effect would normally give anyone a headache if you look at them long enough, but the plastic process to produce the effect makes these good grading candidates (check out today's top 5), with over half of all that are submitted getting Gem Mint or higher grades. The set includes; Barkley, Hill, Jones, Jordan, Kemp, Kidd, Malone, Mourning, Mutombo, Olajuwon, O'Neal, Robinson, Rodman, Sprewell, and Webber.

This Week's Best: Week 1

1993-94 Ultra Jam City
An example of the popular foil treatment of the mid-90's insert sets that I would like to see make a comeback. But this set was available only in retail jumbo packs at a rate of 1 in every 35 packs. The retail packs were tough to find to begin with and you only got one of these per box (a disappointment if you pull a Minor or Coleman). Nine cards in the set with Shaquille O'Neal (pictured), Derrick Coleman, David Robinson, Harold Miner, Shawn Kemp, Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, and Dominique Wilkins. Great design for a foil treatment, but huge condition problems with chipping along the edges. I don't remember how many packs I bought trying to just complete this small set and ended up buying a set at a show. I guess there's only one BGS 9 Mint O'Neal out there with no 9.5.