Vintage Graded Basketball Cards
During the late 1970s the NBA lacked a lot of star power. The 1978-79 Topps set still has Walton, Maravich, Erving and Abdul-Jabbar but few other stars that collectors might chase. It’s a set short on rookie cards, but if collectors look closely they will find several interesting pickups and no matter the player, prices […]
When collectors look at the 1977-78 Topps set for rookie cards they see two centers, Robert Parish and Darryl Dawkins. Both had entertaining careers although they went about their basketball in very different ways. The Parish rookie card may have been forgotten about if he wasn’t part of one of the biggest trades in NBA […]
Topps had the basketball leagues covered in 1975-76 with its largest set ever– 330 cards of players from the NBA and ABA, which were preparing to merge. In fact, it wouldn’t be until 1989 when Hoops came along that there was a pro hoops card set so deep. Moses Malone Rookie Card Card #254 […]
The 1974-75 Topps set has a great design, with the team name in big letters going along the right side of the card and the player position written inside a basketball down the bottom. It was such a good design that Topps repeated it decades later, for 2001-02 Topps Heritage. The more recent set has […]
Card collectors had plenty of big name rookie cards in earlier basketball sets but starting with the 1973-74 Topps basketball set, the impact rookies didn’t appear as frequently for the remainder of the decade. Bob McAdoo and Paul Westphal could score, Fred Brown and Chris Ford could shoot from range, Kevin Porter could pass the […]
The Doctor was in the 1972-73 Topps set. Long before he was making house calls for the 76ers in the NBA, Julius Erving had a rookie card in this set as a member of the ABA’s Virginia Squires. It’s one of the most popular rookie cards of the modern era, selling for upwards of $250-300 […]
It was one set with players from two professional basketball leagues. The 1971-72 Topps set consisted of 233 cards, with NBA players up to card #144 and the rest were from the ABA, the American Basketball Association. It was the first time Topps had included the ABA in its set and being in those packs […]
The 1970-71 Topps basketball set is known for its “Pistol” Pete Maravich rookie card. After averaging 44.2 points per game over his college career with LSU, he was the third pick in the NBA draft. With the Atlanta Hawks he averaged 23.2 points in his rookie year, later in his career with the New Orleans […]
After close to a decade without NBA card sets, the 1969-70 Topps basketball cards arrived with more players and a larger size. The 99 cards in the set measure 2 1/2 inches by 4 11/16 inches and were no doubt a play by Topps on the increasing size of pro basketball players. Thanks to that […]
Wilt Chamberlain’s rookie card can be worth a quarter of the complete set price of the 1961-62 Fleer basketball set but that indicates how great his card is, not a lack of other stars to look for. The rookie cards of Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, Sam Jones and KC Jones were also included […]