The Card That Jump-Started Basketball Card Popularity is #99 on my ACE 100 List!

Before I get started, I have some exciting personal news: I am now writing about the Hobby for Sports Illustrated through their brand new Collectibles On SI vertical. To say that this surprises me is an understatement. 12-year-old Mike’s mind would be blown. I started this newsletter as something I was 100% unsure about, and to parlay it into a gig with SI is crazy.

To be clear, nothing changes with the newsletter. I am doing one short SI article per week. My first article is about the downfall of Beckett Grading, and I’m impressed by how far SI let me go with it.

Okay, on with the David Robinson card.

As a reminder, here is the summary of my Attainable Collection of Envy 100.

If you are a new subscriber, this post deviates from my normal weekly sports card roundup, which releases every Monday morning. Here is an example of that.

ACE List #99: 1989 Hoops David Robinson

To watch the video I made on this, click here.

Why This Card:

Similar to last week’s Pee Wee Reese card, this is one of the few cards that made my list of 100 because of the photo and not the athlete. Of course, David Robinson is similarly worthy of adoration; a Basketball Hall of Famer and member of the NBA 50 team, an MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and two-time NBA champion, among many other impressive accolades.

But the card makes my list because of its history. Basketball cards were in a serious funk. Topps had stopped producing cards after the 1981 season, and after Star did sets with very small print runs for a few years, Fleer’s 1986 release was a bust and they significantly reduced the print run in 1987 because of it. 1988 wasn’t much better.

Robinson was drafted by the San Antonio Spurs in 1987, but had two years committed to the Navy before he was able to play in the NBA. By the time his rookie season came around, the hype was real. And NBA Hoops was ready to capitalize. They used a photo from a 1987 press conference of Robinson holding his jersey up, and it was the first rookie card of a basketball player in his rookie season since Calvin Murphy and Pete Maravich in 1970! Fleer fumbled and left him out of their set.

Robinson was a superstar immediately, averaging almost 21 points and 13 rebounds per game in the opening month of the season. Combined with the marketing blitz NBA Hoops put on for their first season of cards, demand for his only card was sky-high. Basketball fans everywhere went out looking for packs. Collectors noticed that they could see through the packs and see who was on the outside, and particularly enterprising types realized that if they knew the set’s collation, they could tell if Robinson was in the pack based on who was on top. So they picked through the packs looking for the one(s) Robinson would be in.

The demand for 1989 basketball cards lifted vintage cards, too, as people started to buy more at shows and shops. And Hoops enjoyed so much success that they released a second series of 53 cards. They pulled 52 cards from series 1, including replacing Robinson with an in-action card of him, making the first one a bit of a short-print.

Robinson won Rookie of the Year unanimously that season, and led the Spurs to a whopping 35-game turnaround and the second round of the playoffs. He lived up to the hype, but the card was ultimately overprinted and the market eventually adjusted.

Recent Sales:

PSA 9s sell for $25-30. 10s sell for $300-400.

Meanwhile, you can grab a raw copy in some bargain bins. They regularly go for under $5 on eBay, and sometimes under $1.

Highest public sale ever:

The highest sale ever was PSA 10 for $1,500 on eBay in early 2021, when the market had gone crazy.

PSA Population:

Over 12,000 have been graded by PSA. Only 864 have a gem mint grade of 10, or 7%.

Do I Own This Card?

Yes, and I keep it raw. I see no reason to grade it.