This article is about vintage basketball cards and older card material from Bowman and Topps.  Fleer and Star Company entered the market in the 1980's and those are among my favorite collectibles in existence, but this story will focus on some lesser known facts about some famous hoops cards.

The 1980-81 Topps Basketball card set is famous for having the Magic Johnson and Larry Bird rookie card.  What is not so well known is that it contains many other rookie cards that are not denoted as such in the price guides because there are three card panels in the set.  I noticed this a couple of weeks ago when going through some of my basketball cards as I have learned that I have more rc's of some great players.  Michael Cooper, the famous sixth man on the Los Angeles Lakers championship basketball teams, has his rookie card in the set.  It only books at $1.50, very affordable for such a quality player!  His 1983-84 Star short printed card books $12 in this Beckett Plus that I have here and his $1.50 rookie would be great for your collection.  I noticed that I have it in mine.  Also, Sidney Moncrief also has his rookie card in the 80-81 Topps set and it books for a whole $3.  That is quite a bargain if you ask me.  Also, the set has the expensive Bird/Magic on the same card, but it also has lesser valued cards of just each player.  For instance, a Magic Johnson Team Leader card in the set books at a meager $10 and can be purchased routinely on Ebay for about $5.  Larry Bird has a similar card that can be purchased for about the same, maybe a bit more.  These deals are amazing, the cards certainly were not overproduced and this oversight is baffling.  Bill Cartwright has his rookie card in the set as well and get ready for this, it has a whopping book value of $1.50.  These are great cards for your collection if nothing else.

There are other sets near that one very nice to have.  The basketball card sets before this one and after Julius Erving's rookie card from 1976-77 through 1979-80 have some compelling values.  While unopened wax boxes are pricey for the everyday collector, the rookies and star cards are not.  This material is destined to increase in value over time in my opinion.  An example is a 1979-80 Topps Alex English rookie card.  He was a big time scorer for the Denver Nuggets and I am not sure if he is in the hall of fame yet but he may very well be.  He books at $8 and can probably be purchased for no more than half of that on Ebay right now.  Bernard King and Dennis Johnson have about the same book value from a year earlier and have the same pricing.  They used to write articles about these cards 10 years ago saying what great values they are.  And you know what?  The price has not moved yet.  Patience should pay off with these.  They are even better values now.  Am I exaggerating about them writing articles about it?  No, in the July 1998 Tuff Stuff Magazine that I am looking at here, their pick of the month was 1978-79 Topps Basketball and it is said in there that it could be purchased for $70 or less.  It still can be today, maybe even a bit less on Ebay.  In my opinion, now is the best time possible to get these cards for your collection. 

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    1989 Score Football               1989 Topps Baseball            1982 Topps Baseball          1983 Topps Baseball         

   1983 Star Company             Star Company Bagged Set           1986-87 Fleer                     1993 Bowman                  

   1992 Bowman                     1985 Donruss                1981 Topps Baseball              1988 Topps Baseball           

      1980 Topps                    1987 Topps                1985 Topps Baseball                vintage card                            

   1951 Bowman                      1953 Topps             1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle                 1980-81 Topps

  Upper Deck Exquisite Basketball                 1987-88 Fleer Basketball                                 1981-82 Topps

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