Hoops Hobby

Back on January 4th I requested a shipment from COMC. I generally wait a good bit of time between shipments to save on shipping costs, so COMC shipments are fairly rare for me. I’m sure this is a common practice.

I was pretty excited about this batch of cards, since it had a few fairly rare Pacers rookie year cards and parallels for that binder project. Nothing too expensive, but those tough to find Pacers parallels were the highlight of this shipment.

I didn’t expedite the shipment at all, and I was prepared to wait several months for delivery. Fast forward to March 21st, and my bubble mailer was shipped. Let the anticipation begin, right?

The expected delivery date came and went, and I waited. Eventually I came to the realization that this package was lost. I gave it some time to resume movement before reaching out to COMC. They initiated a Missing Mail search, and at this point, over a month later, I’m was convinced that this mailer was forever lost in the Atlanta vicinity. Like I said, nothing super valuable lost here, but some cards that I didn’t want to have to track down again. COMC customer service was great during this whole exchange.

I checked back in periodically over the next several weeks, but like I said, low optimism. Then on May 18th, my package turned up in the Cincinnati area, pretty far from Atlanta or my home in South Carolina. I’m still amazed that the package turned up, and a few days later it arrived in my mailbox! I’m guessing success stories like this are rare, but it did make seeing those cards that much sweeter.

Recapping some of the cards from the bubble mailer, the first is one of Reggie’s earliest insert cards, this one from 1992-93 Fleer. The Team Leaders insert set is one player per team, and in that way it’s kind of a snapshot of the league at that time. Somehow despite having many of Reggie’s early 90s cards already in my collection, I hadn’t added this one, and it was a nice and cheap COMC addition to grab and bundle with others.

When looking into pack odds on 1992-93 Fleer, I noticed some text on the box that advertised ‘Team Color Coded for Easier Sorting’. Looking out for the team collectors back in the early 90s. My two sons, who look at the team logos first before anything else when opening packs, would appreciate the color coding to help with their sorting.

Up next in the COMC shipment is a pair of cheap silver parallels from Hoops out of 199.

On the Myles Turner card, frustratingly, is a photo of Justin Holiday. But I grabbed it anyway because I am slowly putting together these silver/holo team sets. I grabbed a near complete silver team set (only missing Jarace Walker) from 2023-24 and that put me on the path of going back through the years and picking up the silvers. It’ll take awhile to complete but there’s little to no urgency around it.

I always enjoy adding new Lance Stephenson cards to the collection, and this 2017-18 Hoops Silver is from Lance’s second stint (out of three) with the team.

I don’t have too many cards of Lance despite him continuing to grow as a favorite of mine over the years. He came in as a second round pick in a time when the NBA license had just transitioned to Panini, so he only has 91 total cards from his rookie year, many of which are low numbered parallels, autograph and memorabilia cards. He also doesn’t appear in my favorite set from that season, 2010-11 Donruss. So like I mentioned, any new Lance card is a great addition.

It’s hard to decide where to go from here, since each of the remaining four cards from this shipment are relatively rare parallels from the late 90s. Just walking through chronologically, this 1997-98 Z-Force Rave parallel is first up. It’s the first Rave parallel in my collection, and it’s honestly been tougher than you’d think to track these down for cards with a print run of 399, especially finding them in good condition. The corners are often dinged on these, but the Croshere was both in decent enough shape and a reasonable price. I love the foil text on the name and Z in Z-Force, and the set in general just screams 90s.

Any tougher parallels like these, especially from a year like 1997-98 where there are so many iconic parallels, are a welcome addition.

Moving to the 1998-99 season, I picked up a 1998-99 Black Diamond Quadruple Diamond rookie out of 50 of Al Harrington. The veteran cards in the Quad/Green parallel are out of 150, and the rookies are supposed to be out of just 50 copies. I noticed though when looking at adding an Al Harrington that copies exist that are #’d out of 150, as well as 50. It seems like this is an error in the print run. I’ve left space in my Pacers rookie year binder for both copies, but I added the /50 copy first when I saw it for a good price on COMC.

This is the lowest print run for Harrington I’ve added so far. Several others out of 150 and 100, and a Showcase Legacy out of 99, but this is the first out of 50. Excited to add it even though it’s not as aesthetically pleasing as some of those other lower numbered cards like the Bowman Atomic Refractor or the Showcase Legacy.

Also, what a sweet image on the back. What a time when the backs of cards had images of players not only different from on the front of the card but in addition to just a team logo and/or a year or two of stats. Makes me want to go and watch some Al Harrington highlights.

I’m making good progress on the Jeff Foster section of the binder. He must have an audience of intense collectors, and rightfully so, since it’s been difficult to track down many of these lower numbered parallels at a reasonable price. So when I saw the Stadium Club One of a Kind /150 with a Chrome looking finish, I snatched it up without hesitation. It did not look great in a scan, or even getting the right lighting in a light box, so I tried my best to get a decent photo in it’s final state, in the z-folio binder.

Jeff is either coming down with a rebound or he’s going up for a basket while getting fouled on the arm. Either way, making a positive play for the blue and gold like he did for many years.

To wrap things up, a parallel that again is the first of its kind in my collection, and one that’s pretty long awaited.

Months ago one eBay seller listed a bunch of 1999-00 Topps Gold Label Red Label parallels up for auction, including a Jonathan Bender. Many of these went for much more than I would expect, including the Bender which was well out of my price range. I expect a combination of set collectors and player collectors bought these up and in the process drove up the price. The Class 2 is out of 50 and Class 3 is out of 25. The Class 1 is out of 100 and in turn is more affordable.

I wasn’t able to add a Bender to my collection at that time, but after some waiting, I was able to grab a Class 1 out of 100 off of COMC. The Topps Gold Label brand has some truly beautiful cards. Aesthetically the red foil in the top left doesn’t add anything to these, though. The value only stems from rarity and scarcity compared to the base set, a reason I wasn’t eager to overpay for previous copies I’d seen.

Besides the serial number, nothing else that distinguishes the back from the base version. Regardless, I’m trying to add these as long as the price is within reason. The different parallels will look great together on a binder page!

Kudos to COMC on initiating a successful mail search and for the excellent customer service, to the USPS for tracking down my package, and for the postal worker who safely delivered these cards to me. They were worth the wait.

Anyone have similar story to this where you thought a package was gone forever but then it made its way to you?