Archive for Michael Jordan

« Older Entries

Thrift Treasures 117: Michael Jeffrey Jordan x 700-ish

Posted in Thrift Treasures with tags , , , on May 1, 2019 by Cardboard Icons

Remember that time Michael Jordan retired at the peak of his basketball career and decided to play baseball?

If you were alive and a sports fan in the 1990s you surely remember this. The Jordan-baseball connection actually started a few years before his “retirement” and it and it was famously chronicled on the 1991 Upper Deck Special card showing the basketball legend taking hacks at a White Sox game.

Jordan of course retired from basketball about three years later, opting to take his talents to Birmingham (to play baseball with the Barons, the White Sox minor league affiliate) with hopes of eventually wearing the pinstripes of the Major League White Sox.

Upper Deck pounced in this, creating a few Jordan baseball rookie cards in 1994 flagship Upper Deck, as well as in Collector’s Choice. A year later UD would again produce more Jordan baseball cards.

Topps? They never did create any. Hell, no other companies created any Jordan baseball cards … at least not legally.

And so enter the unlicensed market, which would include this 1993-94 Stadium Sports Michael Jordan card, comically numbered 69 as if there was actually a large set and not just this card, or different versions thereof.

It was not uncommon to see cards just like this during the early 1990s. Donruss has created legit Elite Series inserts using prism foil, and other companies were piggybacking on that with unlicensed cards of their own — often nothing more than a stale image of a player drowning in a sea of shiny goodness.

These type of cards weren’t really the type of thing I bought for my collection, but I saw plenty of people who did.

And so yesterday, while on my way to get my kids from school, I stopped at a Goodwill and they had a handful of 1990 Topps bricks (stacks of 25/50 of the identical card) of Nolan Ryan special cards on the shelf, and three boxes of cards in the showcase. I took a look through two of the boxes and passed as they were ProSet golf cards from like 1991.

And the third box? All Jordan. Michael Jeffrey Jordan. And all the same card.

You’re not going to find this card in your Beckett, and probably won’t see them on any official checklist, but there was no way I could pass on an 800-count box of Michael Jordan cards, even ones as kitschy as these, which show him as a baseball player with a proclamation of “Rookie of the Year.”

Total cost of this Thrift Treasure: $4.99

You can seen more Thrift Treasures posts here

1 Comment »

That one time we all bought shirts, underwear with our card money

Posted in Box / Pack Break with tags , , , , , , , on March 12, 2019 by Cardboard Icons

One day we’re all going to laugh at what has transpired over the last week — Us card collectors venturing past checkout lanes, where the cards are usually sold, and speed walking to the clothing department to hunt our wears.

I laughed last week when I saw people on Twitter filling shopping cards with new packages of Hanes underwear and shirts, most of which were solely purchased for the bonus item — a pack of five Fleer Michael Jordan cards with a 1 in a 100,000 chance at obtaining his autograph.

When I saw the cards were live and there was a frenzy, I immediately figured people would go into stores and find a way to rip the card packs off the packages or buy the item and then return the clothing without the cards. Sadly, I did not buy the notion that so many folks were actually going to donate any of the clothing to persons in need.

I digress, I managed to stay away from the stores this weekend, so I didn’t partake in the first rush that seemed to be taking place at the end of last week. But then Monday rolled around and there I was doing groceries at Target … and I decided “just to see” if any of the Jordan cards had made it to the store.

Sure enough there were a few mixed in among the standard Hanes merchandise. While I didn’t need any of the wears for myself — I did just buy new undergarments about a month ago — I was faced with a decision: Does my SON need any new underwear or shirts?

The answer, of course, was yes. On both. And truthfully, I would have just bought one package, but the wrapper said to buy a red pack and a blue pack to complete the set.

And the smirk on Mike’s face here says it all. Because little did I know that we’d need much more than just a red and a blue pack to complete this set …

I bought a pack of underwear and shirts for my son and then ripped the card packs open in the car. The very first card front I laid eye upon was this glorious screen grab from a commercial. The picture was apropos as it looks like Mike just got a whiff of some rancid milk — or in my case, a brilliant marketing scheme to sell more undergarments.

Because we all know that we needed cards of Michael Jordan palming a football helmet …

And palming a pumpkin …

And wearing a bright white Hanes t-shirt, probably tagless for comfort, under a black vest — all presented within a holofoil insert to make us feel like we got something special.

This whole Jordan-Hanes-Upper Deck campaign is magnificent. It got us talking about undergarments; it got us collectors who would rather spend money on cards than lunch to go buy clothes. It got us to again talk about a company without a basketball card license. And they seem to have done it without even showing the greatest basketball player in history doing anything basketball related. Hell, the closest I got in my packs was him carrying golf clubs.

Damn, I wanna be like Mike.

Leave a comment »

What’s in that box? “Basketball Floor Box” edition

Posted in Box / Pack Break, Newspaperman with tags , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2016 by Cardboard Icons

By now if you’re a frequent visitor of the sports card aisle at Target you’ve seen these not-so-fancy looking repack boxes distributed by Fairfield. The boxes show you a piece of wood and boast that the lumber is a piece of game-used floor from the 2011 NBA All-Star Game.

photo AF7C46F3-8164-430D-8788-14E468A5A21D_zps5alonm4k.jpg

For $12.99 you get a piece of floor, three packs, a memorabilia card, a Kevin Durant rookie, and a pack of Teenymates. I’m not a basketball collector really, but I will say that the floor piece intrigued me. The Target I was at had two of these boxes, one of these had a plain piece of wood and the other had a two-tone piece that appeared to have some paint on it. I decided that I was intrigued enough to buy it and bring this post to you to share what was inside.

photo 62BC08DE-4D7E-4FD5-965E-60D3C555BE6D_zps6tfchtwt.jpg

We’ll start with the wood.  Funny enough when I opened the box the wood tumbled into my hand and I immediately thought it was a piece of a train track from my son’s toy bin. I wondered if there was any stamp of authenticity, but there was none.  Instead I later found in the box a small folded COA that spells out that the floor is from the Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers.  The COA references “nbalab.com” which is Web site I’d never heard. And even to this day if you type up the address, you get a stale home screen, the words “Coming Soon” in the corner, and some verbiage about what the site hopes to bring to the world. In short, I’m still not sure if there is a direct association with the NBA other than the use of the logo and the three initials in the name. What does this mean about the authenticity? Got me. I guess if we have questions we can just e-mail Bill, as it says on the COA. Personally, I’ll take it for what it appears to be: A unique piece of wood purported to be from the NBA all-star game and from the court on which legend Kobe Bryant played. What’s it worth?  Less than $12.99.

photo 0BE98EFD-9646-4C77-A3DA-104B0EA60980_zpspmxjwy8i.jpg

My memorabilia card came in the form of a 2008-09 Upper Deck Ben Gordon white swatch, which feels like some sort of patch and not your basic fabric. That’s a win … I suppose.

The Durant rookie is a 2007-08 Topps Retail factory Set Orange exclusive. They can be had for about $4 on COMC.com … if they were mint, which this one is not due to the fact that it bounced around inside the package.

My three packs actually surprised me as two of them were 2014-15 Prizm retail. I was fully expecting three 1990-91 Hoops packs. Only one of those Hoops packs made it into this box and both Prizm packs had Prizm parallels, which is a win I suppose. The Hoops pack was what you’d expect — a bit of a memory flashback from when I was a kid. And while not much of anything in that set is worth anything, I did get a Michael Jordan base card, which is always fun to see.

photo 3B2A921C-7EDB-4795-AAA5-CF9DAFDAAA8E_zpsat5kz3pr.jpg

photo EC65882E-1077-444B-8A0B-6B7AA5069FC7_zpszblkq4fk.jpg

photo E0704602-DAC5-4468-A588-97DAA6FDFCE5_zps6u0gpiwy.jpg

I’ll spare your time with the Teenymates. Move along, nothing to see there.

Would I buy another? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean you should buy one if the piece of purported floor intrigues you.

Leave a comment »

Cardboard bucket list item acquired; Welcome Michael Jordan auto

Posted in Mail Day with tags , , , , on August 21, 2015 by Cardboard Icons

  
 There are few players who played their respective sport at the level at which Michael Jordan did. And when it comes to the hobby, there is probably no other name who commands the premium that Jordan does.

When it comes to Jordan, I never tried to compete with other collectors to get his cards. Yes, I own his 1986-87 Fleer rookie.   

I own his Nike postcard “rookie”  

I also recently added a Gem Mint 1994 Collector’s Choice baseball rookie to my collection.  

I also own a dual-relic baseball card.  

But the one glaring hole in my collection — not just Jordan collection, but my entire card collection — has been a Jordan autograph.

Well, that problem has been solved.

Let me introduce you to my newest addition. The latest bucket list card marked off the list. Here is the 2013-14 UD Black “Old School” Michael Jordan autograph, limited to just 23 copies.  

Jordan autographs are readily available, but they are pricey.  And they come in so many variations that I wanted to make sure that when I acquired one it was one I actually wanted to hold onto.

The price point for this one was on par with what one would expect to pay for a Jordan auto. And while I would have preferred a Bulls card (always two to three times what I paid for this one) or a White Sox card (doesn’t exist) this on-card example is far superior to the signed floor cards that are all over the market.

And so, my Jordan auto has arrived and taken its place in my collection. It might be times to settle down on the big purchases and start purging again, just as I did in 2010 after I acquired my 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle rookie card.

Leave a comment »

Just what I always wanted … A Gem Mint Michael Jordan rookie

Posted in Mail Day with tags , , , , , on July 20, 2015 by Cardboard Icons

I received a package from CheckOutMyCards recently chock full of items I wanted for my PC.  My intention was to write one post showing them all but that’d be quite lengthy. So I’ll go about this in a different manner and show items on an individual or group basis.

 I’ll start with a BGS 9.5 1994 Upper Deck Collector’s Choice rookie card of Michael Jordan. While it is no where near in demand as his 1986-87 Fleer basketball rookie card, this Gem Mint copy of this Jordan rookie will look fantastic in my collection with my BGS 6 Fleer basketball Jordan and 6.5 1986 Nike Postcard.

Jordan had three rookie cards produced in 1994, all by Upper Deck.  He has basic Upper Deck, the Collector’s Choice card shown here, and a Fun Packs card, which is not as easy to find, but hardly rare.

Right after I bought the Gem Mint copy, I picked up a raw “silver signature” parallel for about $1.  Why? Why not!

  
And for good measure I shelled out another $3 for two more Jordan baseball cards.  A 1994 Action Packed Minor Leagues card and a 1995 Upper Deck card featuring Jordan and Harry Carey. 

  
  

1 Comment »

« Older Entries