Finishing Up Collector's Choice

Marbury and Allen rookie cards

With the basketball season just around the corner, it's time for another basketball post.  This time, I attempt to finish my goal of completing the 1996-97 Collector's Choice set. It's a simple, colorful set.

I picked up two boxes on eBay (even though I needed only 1), as the price per box was cheaper than what else was available.  So, as a side note, if you're looking for a box of this product, I'm your man. After flipping a coin, I settled on a box to open.  I'm sure you're all tired of seeing these cards so there's a good chance you won't have to hear about this set again!

Much like the last time, I'll provide a statistical breakdown to see if I beat the odds.  There were 36 packs with 12 cards per pack, for a whopping 432 cards.

Cards Needed for Series 2	109	100%
Completed	103	94%
Outstanding	6	6%

Six cards might not seem like much but for all the base cards that are included, this is not a good collation of cards.  Fortunately, Sportlots makes it easy to pick up base cards at $0.18 a pop, which is what I did to finish off the set.

Bryant rookie card / Mutombo being Mutombo

Insert Card	Odds	Found	Beat the Odds?
Mini-Cards	1:1	36	Tie
Super Action Stick-Ums	1:3	11	No
Gold Mini-Cards	1:35	1	Tie
Silver Crash the Game	1:5	8	Yes
Gold Crash the Game	1:49	1	Yes
NBA Draft Trade Update Card	1:71	1	Yes
Super Action Stick-Ums Base	1:4	9	Tie

Other than missing one stick-ums card, this box treated me well.  Pulling the trade update card was a nice plus.  Too bad I can't redeem it as the update cards are hard to find on the secondary market.

Nash and Iverson rookie cards

Even though I didn't complete the base set for series 2, I managed to finish the base mini-cards. Going into the box I only needed 13 cards so I'm glad I didn't get burdened with too many duplicates.

Camby rookie

It's nice to finally close the book on this set.  I'll chase down the remaining insert cards I need, as well as the update cards.  So this wraps it up for Collector's Choice!

Collector's Choice Statistical Breakdown

36 packs and 432 cards later, the box has finally been broken, sorted, and cataloged.  

Rather than make this post a card review (which I will likely do at a later date), I'm going to make it a statistical breakdown.  I bought this box for a specific reason: to backfill my collection.  I needed specific cards to complete Series 1.  To see whether this box was a success, the best way is to crunch the numbers.

Total Cards	432	100%
Base	365	84.5%
Inserts	67	15.5%

Some packs ran only 1 insert per pack (a mini-card) so to end up averaging 2 per pack worked out well.

Cards Needed for Series 1	42	100%
Completed	41	98%
Outstanding	1	2%

Considering how many cards I needed, the fact that I didn't finish off the base set is somewhat of a disappointment.  Even more so, it wasn't an all-star card like a Michael Jordan (which I didn't get) but rather Chuck Person of the San Antonio Spurs (#141).  On the bright side, this card should be cheap and easy to find.

A few highlights of the cards I received.  The current league lacks a good short man. 

Nowadays this would be a special insert that's tough to get but this look at the Bulls' record setting regular season is a sleek 5 card base-run.

Duplicate Cards
Base	324	89%
Inserts	38	57%
# of packs containing duplicate cards	6	17%

The number of duplicate cards is not surprising.  I had a small number of base cards remaining so by default I was bound to end up with many leftover base cards.  The number of duplicate inserts is also not a shocking amount.  The majority of insert cards were the mini-cards.  I had most of the mini-cards for Series 1 so duplicates were to be expected.  At least I finished off the minis.

What was upsetting was the fact that 6 packs contained duplicates of cards that were in that very pack.  For instance, a pack would contain two of the same team checklists.  I wonder if this issue has plagued other sets.  I certainly hope it doesn't happen now.

Inserts	Found	New
Mini-cards	36	2
Super Action Stick-Ums	9	8
Gold Mini-Cards	1	1
Silver Crash the Game	7	6
Gold Crash the Game	1	1
Meet the Stars Instant Win	1	1
NBA Draft Trade Card	0	0
Meet the Stars Trivia	12	10

The main impetus for buying a box was to find inserts and specifically Meet the Stars inserts.  These are throwaway contest cards, featuring trivia questions.  No players (well I guess Jordan is faintly in the back), no teams.  I'm sure these cards were inserted into all Upper Deck products that year but I've rarely seen them in the wild.  There wasn't even a checklist on TCDB until I added one a few months back.  I didn't acquire any low number trivia cards so I also question whether they exist in Collector's Choice.  Anyway. Inserts.  Yeah I got some.  I hope to collect them all one day.

Karl Malone seems like the obvious choice here

Silver insert

Gold Parallel

Future Supersonics player

Mini-cards.  Just tempting little kids to break them apart

Insert Card	Odds	Found	Beat the Odds?
Mini-Cards	1:1	36	Tie
Super Action Stick-Ums	1:4	9	Tie
Gold Mini-Cards	1:35	1	Tie
Silver Crash the Game	1:5	7	Tie
Gold Crash the Game	1:49	1	Yes
Meet the Stars Instant Win	1:79	1	Yes
NBA Draft Trade Card	1:144	0	No
Meet the Stars Trivia	1:3	12	Tie

I'm always curious as to how true the odds are for finding inserts.  Based on my box, I'd say the odds are pretty accurate.  I was lucky with the Instant Win and Gold Crash the Game cards.  The others were break even.  I didn't count on the Trade Card.

The only card I didn't find were the Stick-Ums base cards.  The wrappers didn't say anything about the bases so I don't know where they come from.

In the end, this was a successful box.  The base set is a reasonable 400 cards so I think I can complete it one day.  The inserts will be a harder challenge.  Unlike modern day sets though, the number of inserts isn't outrageous and there are no base parallels.

Congratulations! Instant Winner.

Damn! I mean... damn!

I have been working on opening packs for the 1996-97 Collector's Choice set and in one pack I found an instant winner card.  These cards were listed with pull odds of 1:72.  Having only 32 packs to open this was a decent find.  

However, I was immediately faced with a dilemma?  Do I scratch the card? Or leave it intact for preservation?  I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't scratch it so I decided to deface my card.  First, I made sure to scan the card intact, for archival purposes and to add to the Database.

Did I win the all expenses paid trip to see Michael Jordan?

A quick basketball pack before bed

About a week ago I put up a new page listing some of the sets I collect.  I didn't make a new post about it as I'm sure everyone would see it at some point.  The set I put up at #1 is the 1996-97 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Basketball.  In my introductory post way back when I mentioned this set as one I collected when I was a kid.  Even if it's not the best or a classic set from the 90s, it holds a lot of memories for me.

As I browsed eBay to see how I could finish off the set (it's about 61% complete) I had a few options.  I could get a factory set, a series 1 box, and/or a series 2 box.  The factory set probably would have been the best option but I also wanted to try for some inserts. I ended up getting a Series 1 box, even though I already have 75% of Series 1.  Oh well, I don't always make the smartest choices.  I'll end up with more duplicates than I know what to do with of Series 1, yet I think I'll get some good inserts out of it.

Base

Here are the 9 base cards I pulled from the first pack tonight.  Chucky Brown was the only new card, the rest were all dupes. I will definitely do a more in-depth/review post of the set later but I just wanted to throw this post up quick because I was excited.

Inserts

The mini-cards were a dupe but the other two inserts were new to my collection.  Shawn Bradley was quite the interesting player to watch.  Yes there have been really tall guys before him but they aren't always as lanky.

That's it for now.  I will open up more packs later but it is currently time for bed.