April started out with a bang as on the very first day of the month I received a package from Trading Card Database member Mitch which completed 4 sets!
Those sets were: 1991-92 Fleer (a 400 card set), 1992-93 Ultra, which I ranked as #17 on my list of Top 20 favorite sets of all time (over 650 different sets), 1993-94 Upper Deck Special Edition and 1997 Press Pass NCAA, a rare occurrence for me to complete a college set. There were some other rare sets included as well- 2001-02 Topps Heritage, 1999-00 Finest, 1998-99 Hardcourt in particular. For Heritage and Finest, I had not added a new card since 2003, and Hardcourt since 2015...which doesn't sound like a long time ago, except that I have less than half the set, and before I got those two, I hadn't added to it since 2002.
In the trade, I also got 2013-14 Hoops and 1994 Skybox USA down to one card each left to chase.
He also surprised me with some cards I wasn't expecting, including a batch of 1996-97 Finest (my favorite Finest set), a couple of autographs and two Elton inserts I needed!
1991-92 Fleer #330
1992-93 Ultra #271
This is a big deal as Ultra has always been my favorite brand, and this is the first Ultra release I've actually completed! Ultra ran in the NBA from 1992-93 through 2004-05, and then came back in 2006-07 and 2007-08. 1996-97 Ultra is my all-time favorite NBA set.
1993-94 Upper Deck Special Edition #131
1997 Press Pass #4
Here's an example of 1994 Skybox USA. I was short 16 cards, and he sent me 15 of them! I am now just one Shaq short of a complete set.
Here are the two Eltons I needed.
Here are two autographs, neither of which I expected!
I don't really chase IP/TTM autographs but I will certainly accept them when they are given to me. It's my first auto of hometown hero Hilton Armstrong, and my second of Smits, who is sort of an adopted hometown hero.
There were other great cards in there too, but that should give you a good idea of how great this package was.
I pulled off a small three card for three card trade with CKBeber329 who is a new member. He got three football cards from me, which I don't have a whole lot to offer, and sent two cards from 1995-96 Flair and one from 1998-99 Topps. While I usually show 1995-96 whenever I get them I decided to show the 1998-99 Topps instead. Mostly because the Flair cards are a bit of a challenge to scan and I didn't feel like messing with them.
I have most of Malik Sealy's cards already so getting one is always a good thing. He was killed by a drunk driver during the 1999-00 season.
I pulled off another trade with Shawn Norris, who has a bit of a reputation but has always done right by me, we've traded 4 or 5 times, weather using his own account or his girlfriend Megan's PC account. In fact he usually gets his end to me before I even get my end shipped. This time it was mostly Marvel with a little bit of DC.
Got three from the 1991 DC set, which I could swear I had completed when it was new. But since I can't find them, I consider each one I get now as new.
2 from the 1992 Punisher War Journal set, which I didn't have any of before.
1994 Marvel Masterpieces, a set I had several of before, but added I think 6 cards to here. I'm typing this up later and don't remember the exact number.
1996 Fleer X-Men, a new set for me. I got two of these as well.
1997 X-Men, only card I got here but I did have several previously, about 4 or 5.
I've already pulled off a trade in May and have another from Shawn in progress, so it's nice to know that I will be able to post a trade recap again soon.
Here's probably the most unusual Box Break Review I've posted...after all, it's not too often I break a box where I can't read the cards!
Just back on December 28th I mentioned in a post that I didn't think there were any cards issued for Japan's professional basketball leagues, where hometown player Hilton Armstrong now plays. Then, just a few days later, I was reading the blog Japanese Sumo Wresting Cards & Menko and what do I see but a preview of this very set! I left a comment on his blog and shortly thereafter we had a deal in place to get me a box of the set. The box arrived this past Saturday and I enjoyed every second of it, even though I had one little bit of disappointment which I will mention below.
The B.League is the main professional basketball league in Japan, and 2016-17 is the first season. It came about due to some interesting history and controversy, which is well covered on the Wikipedia page, so if you want to learn more I suggest clicking on the Wikipedia link in this paragraph. I believe that the B. in B.League stands for "basketball".
It is composed of 18 teams and follows the FIBA rules. One thing I find...interesting...is that they limit the number of non Japanese players on the court at any time. I can't say I really like that...but I am not totally familiar with the rules of national leagues in other countries so I don't know if that's the norm. I have never really researched it because Japan is now only the second country (after the USA) to have a card set issued for it's top professional basketball league that made it's way to my collection. (Australia, China, South Korea and the Philippines also got sets issued) I notice that none of the players on the box lid are non-Japanese. I can understand them doing that to make sure the league is Japan-centric and not just players who didn't make it in the NBA D-League. Japan's biggest known name outside of Japan is Yuta Tabuse who is front and center on the box, wearing #0 in black. Tabuse is the only Japanese player to have ever gotten a card before, from his brief time as a member of the NBA's Phoenix Suns, he's one of only three players in the entire set who had ever gotten a card before. (Hilton Armstrong and Josh Harrellson are the others). I'm not sure who the biggest stars of the teams are, because I have no way to find out anything about the league other than through these very cards...and I can't actually read the card backs, so if they say, I don't know. Each team has a player on the box front which is a cropped down version of their base card image so I suppose it's implied they are the best players on their team.
Another thing I find interesting is that the teams accept sponsorships. That's not something seen in the basketball I am familiar with but I don't dislike it. As a longtime fan of auto racing sponsorships are second nature to me.
OK, now onto the cards! The cards are color-coded to each team, with the backs featuring bright team colors. The fronts all have a black border with a white "paint splatter" design. The team color is a pinstripe border separating the photo from the border, and the player's name is also in team color. The colors are varied. Red is the most predominant but you see some colors not usually seen in the NBA...like pink.
Here's a card front from each of the 18 teams.
Each of the 18 teams got 4 cards in the 72 card base set. One thing you don't see often is that the position the player plays is fully spelled out. I don't know of any other professional set that breaks it down between Point Guards and Shooting Guards, they all just list G for Guard. (for example) That's a nice touch, as is including the player's jersey number, which is not always visible on photos, though I selected sample images from each team that showed the jersey the best.
Luckily, for me, the fronts of the cards are all in English because the backs are pretty much totally in Japanese!
Here's Hilton Armstrong's card:
I have absolutely no idea what that says...although I see several references to his NBA career. I know he played 292 NBA games so I am sure there is a reference to that on the card back, but that's about it.
All the backs have posed player photos, which gives it a nice uniform look across the entire set. I suspect that they are from the league's version of "media day" before the season began. Considering that this is the league's first season, I think that they must have gotten these cards made fairly quickly, although it is possible the photos are from last season, as each team existed before this season in one of two different leagues.
The cards themselves have a nice feel to them. They are glossy but not "sticky" or "greasy" feeling. I am a little afraid that they may stick together in the future. They are very well made, but that is not a surprise to me as BBM is as far as I know the top card producer in Japan. It is the first cards from the company in my collection. The photography is excellent. Excellently timed action photos, clear images that give you an impression of the game. Well done. The photography selection process must have had a lot of thought put into it as it appears an effort was made to make sure each person was the sole focus of their card- most don't have any other players in the background and even less in the foreground. They also mostly feature the color jerseys, instead of the standard white, which I wasn't even sure the teams wore until I spotted some in the backgrounds. It appears at least a couple of the teams also have third jerseys because the Happinets appear in pink, white and black jerseys on the cards.
My one disappointment: the duplicates. There were 29 of them in my box. That's not that bad...but...I came up 12 cards short on the base set. I always feel disappointed when I get more duplicates than I get cards missing from the set, especially when I get more than double the amount of cards missing. And especially when it's a rare set that will be hard to find someone to trade my duplicates with. It's not my worst results by any means (that would be a box of 1991-92 Skybox Series II where I came up 5 cards short and got more than 200 duplicates!) Finding those final 12 cards is going to be very difficult. There were several packs where every card was a duplicate. However, it wasn't like Panini where if you get duplicates you know every card was going to be the same in the pack. There were several with 1 new card and 4 duplicates and at least one with 2 new cards and three duplicates.
Here's a gif I made of the front of all 60 of the base cards I got:
And here's one for the backs. If anyone wants to take a crack at translating any of these, I would really appreciate it! I have tried to teach myself Japanese numbers and failed, so actual words probably would be even tougher.
Now, onto the inserts. There were only two in the set.
On Fire is the only traditional insert, and is 18 cards. It features one player from each team. While it's not really shown in the scans, each card has a holographic star pattern built into the card, which is visible through the photo. It's really nicely done. The back of the card shows the original unedited image. I got 5 of the 18 cards in this insert set.
This scan shows the star design the best
The most common insert is Authentic Autographed Card, or more commonly called, the autographs. I pulled 6 of them from my box, and all are serially numbered to 115 copies.
Here are all six. I pulled my first in the second pack I opened and they kept coming until the very last pack.
Every one of the 72 players in the set has an autograph. All of the ones I pulled had the player's jersey number included in the autograph. My favorite of them here is the last shown, Yutaka Yokoe, because his is the only one clearly signed in the Japanese letter forms. Note that each card is embossed on the bottom left. All autographs are large clear stickers.
The backs of the autographs feature more text I can't read but they are identical, it's clearly part of the standard "Congratulations" Certificate of Authenticity that is found on most autographs of American cards. They each feature the serially numbering in the same location in thin gold foiling. As you can see, I managed to pull serial #1 of JR Sakuragi! As someone who loves to get cards SN1 of something I was pretty happy about that.
Even with the duplicate to missing card ratio, I really had a lot of fun opening this box. As a fan of the sport it was fun to get to add cards from a professional league that is mostly unfamiliar to me, and I learned a little bit about the history of basketball in Japan in the process.
Every single team made it's first appearance in my collection, and I was able to add 61 new people to my collection, which was pretty easily accomplished as my first cards from the entire country.
A big thanks to Ryan (SumoMenkoMan) for his assistance in this post and helping me get the cards in the first place. I've got a box of 2nd Half on order and will be curious to see if they continue the numbering system like a true series 2 or start over with #1. I suspect that they will continue the numbering as the base cards all have a 0 in front of the number- they've clearly built in space for a set more than 100 cards.
This was a really fun break for me and I hope you enjoyed reading it. I will be also breaking down an individual pack on A Pack to Be Named Later shortly.
I was also able to find a highlight video on YouTube from the league, but there is not much on there...or at least not much I am finding with my solely English language search.
As I may have mentioned in the past, my family is originally from Peekskill, NY. Well, the parts of the family that I know in person, anyway- we've traced the family tree back pretty far and we know where in Europe our family originally came from, but I consider Peekskill to be the home base of the family. My father's family helped found the city in the 1600s in fact. Although I've never lived there myself, all the rest of my family members have, and I have lots of fond memories of going to visit...we still go to Peekskill a few times a year.
Of course, Elton Brand- my all-time favorite NBA player- is from Peekskill. I've been following his career since he was in high school (when I normally only follow pro sports- I have little to no use for college sports) and while I originally began following him because I heard about a guy coming up who was really good, he became my favorite player because of both how he played and the person he is off the court.
Naturally I have been trying to get as many cards of him as I possibly could over the years, and with the latest COMC order, I was finally able to move him into my Top 10 of most cards in my collection! I collect the entire league and I prefer to not know what I'm going to get- be it boxes or mixed boxes my local shop collates. But by doing that it means I get a lot of cards of a lot of people, and not have a lot of focus on any particular person. He knocked Gary Payton out of the Top 10, according to the Database, a player I've never cared for, so bonus!
When I was looking through his listings on COMC, before I had any money to spend, I saw these cards and I had to have them. Luckily they were still available when I did get some money in there.
From 2004-05 Skybox Premium comes three of the 4 versions of the Hometown Shoutouts insert.
Although the font is kind of nasty, it's nice to see Peekskill actually listed- most of Elton's cards list his hometown as Cortland, which is wrong. Cortland is up by Buffalo, Elton was born in Cortlandt Manor, usually just called Cortlandt. The T on the end makes all the difference! Cortlandt is a suburb of Peekskill, and didn't even become it's own place until the 1970s- previously it was just a section of Peekskill.
A little disappointing is that the skyline is not Peekskill's- it's generic, every card in the set has the same skyline.
There were 4 versions of this card issued, and I was able to get three of them.
Up top is the basic version, middle is the Relic version, which is not serially numbered, and the bottom is the relic Star Ruby version, which is SN 15 of 75. There is a patch version, but I don't have that one..yet. (If COMC had one for sale I probably would have!)
One cool thing about the base version?
Check out that serial number! 914 is Peekskill's area code, and until 2000, was mine as well, but they broke us out because they were running out of numbers. It did not result in any walls being built, new towns being formed or The Who concerts, though. If I could have gotten the 845/914 I would have paid a premium for that, as 845 is our new area code...although I'm not sure almost 17 years can be considered new anymore!
There is an autographed version of this insert as well, but Elton apparently did not sign for it, although he did sign for other Fleer products that season, after previously being a Topps exclusive signer.
(By the way, I've pulled hundreds of autographs over the years, back when I used to buy boxes on a regular basis, but I never pulled Elton's. Now with Panini not bothering to include him for the past several years, I didn't even have the opportunity)
These aren't the only Eltons I got in my latest COMC order. There will be another post shortly.
While we are talking of Peekskill, Elton is not the only Peekskill NBA player. Hilton Armstrong was the 12th pick of the 2006 NBA draft, and played 292 games over six NBA seasons, but not since 2013-14. I didn't know he was from Peekskill until he was no longer in the NBA, but I did see him play with the Warriors in 2013-14, and I probably saw him play with the Hornets back in 2006-07, but I don't remember for sure. While researching where he is now, I discovered he was the first player in NBA history to wear #57, when he wore it with the Warriors. There are no cards to commemorate that though, his last card was in 2009-10. He is currently playing in Japan, for Chiba. As far as I know there has never been a single card for the entire Japanese professional basketball leagues.
I was looking through patches, with them sorted lowest price first, and halfway down the page I saw this one listed. I didn't have to think twice about it, into my order it went. This is my first painted patch, and I'm surprised to see it so late. The painted jerseys pretty much disappeared in the early/mid 1990s, to be replaced with all lettering and graphics sewn on, but I guess they broke them out for the Rookie photo shoot, where this one was worn. I don't care, I'm happy to have it. I'm building a collection of Hilton's cards, but he does not have too many. This is only my 4th NBA card of his, I do have a college card of him as well. Of the 4, it is the second relic card of his I've gotten, I also have his SPx rookie with has two relic pieces and his autograph...but it also has a big old crease which I missed in the photo on the ebay auction where I bought it. It was clearly visible but I was in such a rush to hit that buy it now before somebody else did, I didn't look close enough. At least I have it.
When I showed this card to my mom and told her that he is from Peekskill, she said she knew an Armstrong family when she lived there. Armstrong's a fairly common name so we don't know if it's the SAME Armstrong family, but it might be, which is pretty cool!
