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.

If I Only Had The Money...

2005-06 Upper Deck Portraits Timeless Tens

Okay, so they're on-sticker autographs and there's no Jordan autograph here, but with only 3 copies produced and the level of players on an 8 x 10, it would be difficult to pass up. One copy recently sold for $1,600. To some a small price to pay for Magic, Bird, Thomas, Dr. J, Russell, Kareem, Stockton, Rodman, Pippen, and Olajuwon, making up a virtual dream team autograph collection on one card.

This Week's Best: Week 2

1996 Upper Deck USA Follow Your Dreams Exchange Set

How can you go wrong with a set that includes Barkley, Robinson, Miller, Pippen, Hill, Richmond, O'Neal, Hardaway, Malone, Payton, Olajuwon, and Stockton? I rarely see these sets for sale, but when they sell, they go for surprisingly low prices. Could be that mint condition copies are even more difficult to find because of the full-bleed printing that make the smallest of chips extremely visible. Released in a silver and a gold version, this set was only available in exchange for a contest card of either Reggie Miller or David Robinson that were both inserted into packs. No Barkley, Payton, or Richmond cards were included in the regular set (these were late additions to the team), and these are Gary Payton's only olympic cards (he did not have any in the SkyBox Olympic release that same year).

Show Review:Earle Brown Heritage Center

With all the online auctions, it's easy to forget that collector's still enjoy sifting through rows and rows of cards to find that treasure that they were looking for that the seller didn't want to pay to put it up on Ebay and just wants to get rid of it.

I attended my first card show of the year (sorry TwinsFest) and was pleasantly surprised. Lately the shows have been the same vendors with the same cards. Of course it doesn't help going to the same show nearly every time. This show had a couple of the usual vendors, but some new participants with some great deals (shown). In this economy, there's obviously more and more customers going through the $5 and less bins and I didn't mind finding some of the cool 90's inserts and some new cards of old favorites.

Advertised as having 30 tables (which might have been the number available to vendors), I think there were more like 13 or 14 vendors. Plus there was one vendor in the center (like an island) that I almost missed/forgot about. Something I took away from this show (besides my cards)? Don't try to talk down a price that you know is a good deal to start.