The story behind the cardboard.

The set that put chrome in your packs

In 1993-94 Topps launched Finest basketball, 220 cards printed on a shiny chromium stock that looked nothing like the paper cards around it. Hidden in the packs was a rarer version of every card: the refractor, with a rainbow sheen that shifts when you tilt it.

Topps said refractors fell about one in every nine packs. Collectors have chased them ever since, and the Michael Jordan refractor, card #1, is the top card in the set. Today almost every modern product has refractor-style parallels. This is where that started.

Millions of copies of every card

In the late 80s and early 90s, card companies printed as many cards as people would buy, and people bought a lot. One estimate puts 1987 Topps baseball at 2.5 million or more copies of each card in the set.

That is why most base cards from those years are cheap today: there are simply too many of them. The cards that hold value are the stars, the rookies, the short-printed inserts, and the rare copy in perfect condition. Finding that copy is what grading is for.

The Dream Team on cardboard

The 1992 Olympics were the first with NBA players, and the US sent Jordan, Magic, Bird, Pippen, Barkley and the rest. They went 8-0, beat their opponents by 43.8 points a game on average, and took gold by beating Croatia 117-85. Coach Chuck Daly never called a timeout the whole tournament.

Card companies turned the team into sets and subsets for years after, and those USA Basketball cards still turn up in our lots and packs.

Kobe was drafted by Charlotte

Kobe Bryant came straight from high school at 18. Charlotte took him 13th overall, then traded him to the Lakers for center Vlade Divac. Twelve teams passed on him, and the Lakers got a player who stayed 20 seasons.

That's why his 1996-97 cards show him in purple and gold, and why the 1996 draft class is one of the most collected in the hobby.

Garnett opened the high school door

Minnesota took Kevin Garnett fifth overall in 1995. He was the first player drafted straight out of high school since 1975, and the players who followed that path the next few years included Kobe Bryant.

The shortest #1 pick ever

Philadelphia took Allen Iverson first overall in 1996. Listed at six feet, he was the shortest first overall pick in league history. He won Rookie of the Year that season and MVP in 2000-01. The Iverson rookie on our home page came out of a sealed 1996-97 Topps Series 2 pack, on camera.

Raw or graded?

A raw card is just the card. A graded card has been sent to a company like PSA, which checks it's real, scores its condition from 1 to 10, and seals it in a plastic slab. For cards from the overprinted 90s, condition decides almost everything: a common card in a PSA 10 slab can sell for many times a raw copy, while the same card in a lower grade may not cover the grading fee.

Our rule of thumb in the "grade it or keep it raw" videos: grade only a star or rookie with sharp corners, clean edges and good centering. Everything we sell raw is shown in the photos, so you can judge it yourself.