This Week's Best: Week 5

1999-00 Upper Deck HoloGrFX Shoetime

Released in the early days of memorabilia, this 19 card insert was the one bright spot in a very heavy retail set. The set features some of the few memorabilia cards of some big names like Iverson, Barkley, Ewing, and Pippen. Plus there were autographed copies of the Karl Malone and Michael Jordan cards. Not only did the full-bleed design cause condition (chipping) problems, but if you were lucky enough to pull one (1 in every 431 packs) you had issues locating a case that it would even fit into. Still the unique memorabilia and all the big names are enough to consider this set one of my favorites.

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.