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 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.

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.

Fading Finest

Wonder if anyone has noticed this problem? For a few years now, I've noticed that the early Finest Basketball issues have developed a fading problem. When pulled from a pack they look fine (top), but after a few years, you pull it from your box of cards and it looks like the player is "glowing" from the inside-out (bottom). I'm also curious if grading them might prevent this (mostly because I have a couple that I would want to see fade)?