Finally, cards for the Americans!

 As I have documented before, the Nets are my favorite team in the NBA, and they also started back in the ABA days...as the New York Americans, a moniker they carried for only one year. They changed to the Nets simply because it rhymed with Mets and Jets, two established New York sports teams. 

However, the early days of the ABA are not well represented on cards. Until Topps made the choice to put them in their 1971-72 set, there was pretty much nothing for the ABA...if there were any cards they were regional issues that I am unaware of or have forgotten as I've been thinking more about models for the past three years. 

Until 2019, that is. A new company called Lana Sports issued a set of cards based on the first season of the ABA, 1967-68. All the players in the league got a card...but unfortunately they aren't photos. I saw the set's announcement and that it carried a hefty $250 per box price tag...I couldn't do it. However, in April one of my friends on the Database got his hands on a set and broke it up, and offered me the Americans, a trade I gladly made. 

Here's just a sample of them. The art...isn't great. Have to be honest, I haven't ever seen a photo of most of these guys before, but the guys I am familiar with...I recognize them, but it's like a cartoon version of them I suppose is the best way to put it. 

I don't want to sound ungrateful here, I'm very glad there is finally some recognition for the first year of "my team". I just wish they had used photos, even black and white photos. 

Many of the players in the set are appearing on cards for the first time ever. 

The cards feature an interesting texture. The card front is almost rubbery, but I like it. The backs are normal card texture, glossy but not high UV coating. No UV coating at all as far as I can tell. Speaking of the backs...

The backs are well done. They have a faux brown paper cardstock and have a nice writeup of the player's season, with a red, white and blue theme to fit the ABA. 

I believe Lana's original plan was to do a set for each of the ABA's seasons, but so far this has been the only set released. I don't know if they failed due to the price point and/or art style or it's just taking a long time to paint all the images needed and another set is forthcoming. If they remain at $250 a box, it will be out of my price range which is unfortunate. 

Accomplishing something I've been wanting to do since the 1990s (major milestone!)

In the month of May I finally finished a quest I started sometime in the 1990s. That is to have every Nets card from the Star company! For those that don't know, Star had the exclusive NBA license from 1983-84 through 1985-86, three seasons. Each set used the same basic design, just with different colors, and they are not particularly common cards. Unlike most brands, they were not sold in mixed packs, but in bags of each team. They are all great sets, but 1984-85 is the best. Mostly because it's the largest, and includes the most players...but also because it includes the actual true rookie cards of Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, and the rest of the legendary 1984 draft class. Unlike most brands, Star actually included rookies in the sets, not waiting until the next year for most of the players, which Topps and Fleer did not do. Unfortunately for me, those cards are way expensive. I do have the Jazz set with Stockton, but I will never be able to add the others to my collection. The 1985-86 set is much smaller and isn't as comprehensive. For example, Patrick Ewing has a card, but Karl Malone does not.

I had gotten the 1984-85 and 1985-86 Nets sets sometime in the 1990s.The Nets, luckily or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, didn't have any major superstars that would put any of the three sets out of my price range...but even so, the Star team sets are expensive. I lacked the 1983-84 set. And what's more, there were no teams where I had all three years.

Thanks to Ebay, that has now changed, as I added the 1983-84 Nets set during the month of May!

 Here's the 1983-84 set, which I put together with PhotoScape. This is the rookie card of Buck Williams, who was the biggest name on the Nets for most of the 1980s. Reggie Johnson and Bill Willoughby were both new to my collection! Note the oddity of leaving Michael off of Michael Ray Richardson's card. Both Albert King and Foots Walker are wearing the alternate jersey, which is exceptionally rare on cards.

 The 1984-85 set uses a lighter blue, and is 13 players-most of the teams in the 1984-85 season got sets this large. Albert King again wears the alternate, which, until I got the 1983-84 team set, was one of only three cards in my collection to show it.

 The 1985-86 set is the smallest, at only 8 cards. The '85-86 set is also the rarest of the Star sets, and the least-well represented in my collection.

For good measure, I was also able to add the Lifebuoy promo set! I had previously gotten the Bobby Cattage card at a card show sometime in the 1990s. It's his only NBA card and thus is the key to this set. The Gminski- which mis-spelled his name as Gminsky on the back- was the 94,000th NBA card in my collection. I specifically held off on going through cards from the collection I purchased so that one of the Star Nets would be the milestone, the first time ever that a Star card was the milestone. Star was the first brand ever to make NBA coach cards, although they were never in the main set- always in related sets and promos, of which this falls under the latter.

So, I finished off two major goals here- I completed the Star Nets, and I got a run of all three years of a team! But when I was typing this up, I realized I completed another pretty awesome Milestone...I now have all mainstream Nets base cards issued from when they joined the NBA in 1976 up through 1990! I'm missing the Panini stickers, but I have all the base cards from 1990-91 through 1992-93 as well. Completing two decades' worth of my favorite team (even if one of them is not a full decade) is actually pretty amazing.

I need to find a source for those early Panini stickers....I need pretty much all of them before 1995-96.

There are promos and parallels to chase from that era, but for mainstream base cards...they are complete. That's actually kind of amazing and the ONLY team I can say I've ever completed a decade of.

This turned out to be a bigger milestone than I originally realized!

My 5000th Serially Numbered Card - and two other milestones hit as well!

That New Windsor card show turned out to be even more monumental than I thought! As I mentioned at the tail end of my card show report in the last post, I hit 5000 Serially Numbered cards at the show, which is a major deal to me...but I hit two other milestones that day as well, but didn't realize it at the time.

The big one, though, is 5000 Serially numbered cards! My addiction to them is well documented. I don't know why, but I love them. For example, whenever I get some money on COMC, I usually sort by SN - Lowest First and then pick off as many as I can before I run out of money.

This has been a long time coming. I got my first serial numbered cards in 1996. I do not know what my first SN card was, because it's before I began keeping records. I do know, for sure, it's from the 1996 Crown Jewels Elite NASCAR set, the first set to have the parallels serially numbered...at least, the first one I had access to. The same set the previous year also SNd the parallels, but I didn't open any of it in 1995. I still haven't opened any packs of 1995 Crown Jewels, in fact.

You can look through almost all of the SN cards in my collection on my Cardboard History Gallery. I say Almost because there are some I know I have but are not scanned yet. In fact, I'm not even sure this truly is #5000, because I went by what I had scans of (4993 cards) and what I remembered having but is not in the album (4 cards) but there may be more awaiting scans. I don't really know. This one, however, will always be considered the 5000th because I believe it is at the time I got it.

The fact that it's a Nets card, my favorite NBA team, was both totally unplanned AND the reason it's #5000. When I was going through the box of cards Dan brought for me to look at, there was a small stack of this set. I have too many to remember which I have, but I KNEW I needed this one. It's the only one out of the stack I got, and it turned out to be #5000. (#5002 was also a Nets card, and also came from Dan, but was from the Crystal parallel of 2003-04 Fleer Tradition. I have not scanned it yet)

The other milestone actually was a surprise to me. I knew (thought!) I was fairly close to one, and about 400 cards away on the other sport, but I totally messed it up in my head. I thought I was about 400 away from the next NHL milestone, and about 50 away from the next NBA milestone. Uh, no, wrong! I was actually about 40 away from the next NHL milestone, and I'm 400 PAST the last NBA milestone! Yeah, I totally got that wrong. Wrong direction even. Of course, by now, you've figured out that I hit the next NHL Milestone, and it is card #18,000 in my NHL collection. It's expanding rapidly, and I have my fellow collectors to thank for well over half of them, because guess what...this one ALSO came from Dan! And it's funny, because it's from 1974-75 Topps, which is one of the rarer 70s sets in my collection. It had been the 2nd-least present in my collection, in fact, ahead of only 1970-71. I added 36 of them at the show, bringing me to 34 total, which now moves it past 1977-78 and 1979-80, and even 1976-77 which I feel like I have a lot of! It also moves it into a tie with 1978-79, which happened because I added to that set at this card show as well. I have been inspired by this part of the post and will have a full post on this topic at the conclusion of the 2019-20 NHL regular season.

 Even more interesting, is that 1974-75 Topps now has two Milestone cards in my collection! One of Shoebox Legends' giftings to me put me over the 16000 NHL marker and it was not only a card from this set, it was ALSO an Atlanta Flames card! In fact, it was Keith McCreary's card! What are the odds of that happening? Considering there are more than 1,469,000 hockey cards to choose from, I'm guessing that's infinitesimal.

But wait, there's more! I also hit 2000 cards added to my collection this year, which feels like a lot...because it is. I'm not sure if it's truly more than usual, but a quick check of my Excel chart shows me it's earlier than normal - I hit 2000 on March 16th last year, May 24th in 2018, March 9th in 2017, April 19th in 2016, January 31st in 2015, June 15th in 2014, and that's the year I began keeping track of the exact order so I can't check any farther back than that. I know there are some years I didn't hut the 2000 card barrier at all. So it is faster than most- 2015 being the outlier, as a friend sent me more than 4000 cards that day, and it's my record for most cards in a day ever. (I'm STILL processing them! Most remain unscanned). It's funny, also, that I have kept that Excel chart showing the exact order I got everything since 2014, but composing this post is the first time I've ever used it to check how my collection is growing by date like this. I didn't even remember which year I started keeping it until I actually pulled it up and looked.  I think the fact that it's growing so fast is because of a few things, one being my renewed desire to do card stuff, after being in a massive burnout for most of 2019, and the other is getting large boxes from SumoMenkoMan and Shoebox Legends on a regular basis. I in fact have not even gone through most of the boxes they've sent me yet because I don't want to get as overwhelmed as I did back in 2015. Another reason is that I'm actually starting to work through the stash I had built from 2015-17, for use in the Card of the Day project in 2018, the same project that put such a burnout on me. When I built the stash I didn't know if I had enough to get me through the entire year getting one new card a day. It turns out I stashed so much stuff that I could probably have kept the project going for 5 years or more...but one year was enough. In fact, I wanted to bail on the project by May or so, but I pushed through, because that was my 30th anniversary project and I wanted to complete it. Never again, though. Anyway, the 2000th card of the year came from...guess who? If you said Dan, aka Vrooomed, then you are correct!
And it turned out to be a really nice one! It turns out to be the only autograph of a current New York Ranger in my entire collection- now that Jimmy Vesey was sent off to Buffalo.

It's even SN, to 99 copies. Note to self: Look for more current Rangers autographs. With only $2.28 in my COMC account, it may not be something I can work on yet...but as soon as I hit publish, you know I'm going to be checking.

Do you know the way from San Jose? These cards did!

Because they came to me from San Jose Fuji, proprietor of the blog The Chronicles of Fuji. I won a contest he ran recently, and once I finally checked my post office box, it did not disappoint. In fact, in it he picked out a card for me that did something that hasn't happened since 2004!

There were so many great cards I literally cannot choose a favorite. But I'm going to show you some of them!

First is a card of Mr. Fuji himself. He becomes the first blogger to have a card in my collection (8996th person overall)

This is also the first time the 2015 Topps design makes an appearance in my collection. I really liked that design.

My gut reaction is this card as my favorite. Dikembe has always been a favorite player of mine, and this is my first autograph of his!

Panini even chose an image of him wearing my favorite Hawks jersey, to boot! It doesn't get much better than that!

From the same set, comes a very interesting card.

I'll be honest...I can't stand Larry Brown. He's one of my all-time least favorite people in the world of the NBA. However...I really wanted this card. Why, you may ask? Because of the team! The Washington Capitols were an ABA team, but, like most of the early ABA teams, they did not last. They were gone* by time the ABA started getting cards in 1971-72, and there was not a single card of the team issued until Panini included Brown in some sets in the last couple years. This becomes the first time since 2004 I added a new team to my collection, and that was only because the NBA had a single-team expansion that season. I really have no idea when the last time before that was. I understand Larry Brown is the only coach to have won ABA, NBA and NCAA championships...but, he takes pride in NOT playing young players, in fact in multiple occasions ruining their careers, and that just doesn't sit well with me. He's also mean spirited and vengeful. Not my kind of person. Still, I really wanted this card because I wanted to add this mostly forgotten ABA team to my collection, but I didn't want to spend any money on a Larry Brown card. Now, thanks to Fuji, I don't have to! Also, I have no idea how he keeps the color coding thing he does going, this is the extent of my tribute to his style, LOL

*= The Washington Capitols began as the Oakland Oaks in 1967-68, an original ABA franchise.  They were the Washington Capitols only in 1969-70, then became the Virginia Squires in 1970-71. They lasted until the ABA-NBA merger in 1976 but folded then, after the 1975-76 season ended. They have many cards as the Squires, which I do have represented in my collection. I suppose the argument could be made that the last time I added a new team was 2014 when the Bobcats became Hornets version 2, but since I didn't know they became the Squires until I looked it up for this post, I think I'll continue to think of it as a new team- after all, it's my first card that says Washington Capitols, and I have no other ABA cards that say either, whereas when the Bobcats became Hornets v2 they kept the name Charlotte, when Hornets v1 became Pelicans they kept New Orleans in the title, etc.

This is my first card from the first year of the Sports Illustrated for Kids series! I collected SI for Kids from 1996-2000, and then began again in 2015. They are on the 5th series, renumbering every so often. Series 1 ran from 1989-91 and I have cards from other years of series 1, but not the first year...until now! Even better, this is only the second racing card issued in the SI for Kids series! Mario Andretti had an issue earlier in 1989. I remember seeing her in the Indy 500, later in the 1990s. She competed in the Indycar series (and it's whole, convoluted system) from 1992-2000 but I probably only became aware of her in 1995, which is when I started watching the Indy 500 on a semi-regular basis. (I look forward to it each year now, but back then if it wasn't NASCAR or CORR I wasn't interested..until circa 1995 when I started watching anything I could find on TV) Also here was a Denny Hamlin card from the 5th series, from 2014, that I at first thought was a duplicate but then realized was in fact new, and just used a similar photo from a different Hamlin card in SI for Kids.

That wasn't it for NASCAR though...there was a smattering of inserts from the 2003 and 2005 Press Pass series, some of which didn't scan well due to being mirror foil, which Press Pass loved. But here are some highlights, (but not all of them)

 The Newman is from the long running insert Showman/Showcar. The Showman was hobby exclusive and the Showcar was retail. This is the hobby version, of course, and it's die cut, something Press Pass did a lot in the 90s and early 2000s but then went away from, unfortunately. It's mirror foil but I was able to pull a great scan out of it, somehow!

 A Dale Jr. Insert. Will always be happy to get a new insert of my all-time favorite driver, even if the car photo IS censored.

This is not really 3D, it just kind of looks it. Cup Chase was a long running program Press Pass had (it ran from 1996-2013 or 14) where if the driver won any of the races listed on the card, you could redeem it for a special insert set. If the driver you redeemed won the championship, you got a bonus card, which was usually race used. In 2004 and later, it changed to being if your driver qualified for the Chase (NASCAR's Playoffs) then you got the prize...making it possibly the only good thing the Chase has ever done for the sport.

But wait, there's more!

Fuji mentioned on his blog that he bought a lot of relics and half of them were coming to me, so the least I can do is show them all! I don't know if he planned it or it was a happy accident, but there was high Nets content here, the Nets of course being my favorite team. 4 out of 10 relic cards were Nets! Even better is that they are not guys I have a whole lot of. It's only my second Maurice Ager card of any sort, (both numbered, but the other is not a relic) 3rd Terrence Williams card but first with the Nets, and only my 8th Sean Williams card, all with the Nets, but my first relic of him! Jeff McInnis I have a lot more cards of, but not a lot of them were with the Nets. it's my 47th card of him, but only 6th as a member of the Nets! Bonus for him wearing #0, a number that has always fascinated me for some unknown reason. It's also only the third card I have from 2006-07 Sweet Shot.

Nick Fazekas is someone who was missing from my collection, it's my first card of him! When I was away from the NBA from 2006-12, there were a lot of players who didn't "stick" in the NBA who I missed adding to my collection when the cards were new, and he's one of them. Of course, there were some who DID stick but Panini chose not to give cards to as well, so are also missing from my collection.

This Chris Paul is my first relic card from 2007-08 Topps, the Sean Williams, Shannon Brown and Fazekas are only my second cards from those sets (The multi-player is my third from 2007-08 SPx, the same set as Fazekas) and the Faried Black Gold card is only my third from the set. Black Gold was the second to last set issued in 2015-16 and was high priced, so I didn't get to open any. I joined a group break and got two cards out of it or else it could have been the first one from the set in my collection. It didn't scan well, because it's a shadowbox type card. The color photo is printed on clear plastic, and the gold tone photo is set well back from it- far enough back that my scanner didn't pick it up clearly. It's striking in person, but not as impressive in the scan.
The Donnell Harvey is from a set I've completed, 2000-01 Fleer Tradition, but I didn't have any from this insert before now...and I love throwback jerseys, so that makes it extra nice.

There was one other relic I didn't show, because it's kind of a duplicate. How can something be kind of a duplicate? When it's an upgrade, of course! I have a lot of the 2005-06 SP Game Used Authentic Fabrics set. I had a source for them when they were new, although I don't remember what it was anymore, but I have way more of them than I should have considering my usual 2 box purchase pattern of the time. The card I have though was one that went off the table at one point and got a ding in the corner. Now, I have a replacement!
It is of another obscure player, Bernard Robinson, who only appears 8 times in my collection. You can see my scan of the first version of the card I have HERE, on the Trading Card Database (which is where all the numbers of how many I have of each person came from as well). I always prefer to get a card of an obscure player over somebody like Michael Jordan for example.

In conclusion, this was a great contest package, and I'm thrilled to have these cards added to my collection! Thanks again! You made my day for sure!

Lost & Found: 11 year old artwork

Been going through stuff again...and finding stuff of course. This particular find I forgot I ever had, and it's something I did...although not all that well. However, I was 11 years old when I did this so maybe it's not so bad.

I have tried to draw in the past..many times...but I never really succeeded. My brother is the artist, me, I'm the collector. But...apparently, in 1996, I tried to do some drawing.

I had no recollection of doing this, but when I found my long-lost box of Becketts, there they were.

Drawn on blue paper- I no longer know now if it was so I could use the white colored pencil in the Nets logo and the Celtics jersey, or if it was just because I had it- never can tell with me- these were all done on said blue paper with pencil, both standard and color.

The Nets logo isn't all that bad...the Pervis Ellison one is based on a card...I think the photo may have been inspired by 1994-95 Fleer, but maybe not. The Rodman may be my favorite. It's so bad it's great, you know what I mean? I also like the fact that I only bothered to color in his hair and nothing else, even though I could easily have colored his jersey in like I did on the Ellison one.

I apparently planned to make a whole series of them, because on the back I numbered the Rodman 144 and the Ellison 101. The Nets are numbered 02. Not 2, 02. Even back then my affinity for the Nets was high. As far as I know, these were the only three I ever did. But I had no recollection of these whatsoever so there may be more waiting to be rediscovered.

I also found the first of the missing 8x10 Hoops cards- these were gigantic, and the majority of my oversize cards are still among the missing. Unfortunately, it was also in the box with my Becketts so the top was bent back pretty badly, it's somewhat visible in the scan but it's very visible in hand. I think I had all of them, or most of them, so hopefully when I find the others, they will be in better shape. I am not too hopeful of that though. There was a lot more water leakage in my storage units that I knew about, unfortunately.

A Sticky Situation

Recently, Angus of Dawg Day Cards put up a great review of the new Panini Stickers set for his chosen sport, football. It prompted me to finally write this post, something I've been hemming and hawing on for a while.

The Panini Stickers set...they have been producing them for the NBA since at least 1990, but I have mostly ignored them. Now, I'm having second thoughts about them.

My big question: Do I want to incorporate them as part of my NBA collection? As of right now, I count them as a separate collection. I don't have a paper listing of what I have/don't have, which is something I do for pretty much every card set. They aren't counted as part of my collection. That's a big thing for me, as I am majorly OCD. I don't consider something as part of my collection unless it's got a paper listing and counted.

For many years I didn't count the USA Basketball sets, the Michael Jordan tribute sets, or the Starting Lineup cards as part of my NBA collection. I counted them as separate collections. In fact, I only integrated and officially counted the SLU and Jordan sets in 2014 or possibly even early 2015.

Now I'm seriously debating adding the Panini stickers to my collection as well.

One of the reasons I have not made them part of my official collection is that they are made of really flimsy material and have no real back to them. Basically the backs are all the same but with a different number, every year.

Say I do decide to make them part of my official collection. That opens up another can of worms. Of the 13 years of stickers produced, I only have 2 of the years in my collection. In fact there may be more than 13 years of them made, I'm not totally sure. They were so off my radar, I've never actually researched them. I know for a fact that I only have 1995-96 and 2015-16 in my collection.
All my efforts of having every set represented in my collection would be out the window, at least for a while. That's a fairly small tradeoff, though, and the stickers are not that expensive, so I could probably hunt down multiple stickers for each year for under $20. That's doable. Actually finding them may prove more of a challenge than paying for them, in this case.

I know, also, that the only "card" produced for Elton Brand in the 2014-15 season is the Panini Sticker. They couldn't be bothered to include him in any actual card sets in 2014-15 OR 2015-16. I don't have any stickers from 2014-15, but that is one I would like to get weather I make them part of my NBA collection or not.

The Panini Stickers do have some things about them that I really like. Each year has Team stickers. I'm a BIG fan of team cards, and there have not been any team cards issued since 2010-11.
Here's one from 1995-96 and one from 2015-16.

The team stickers back in the day were much nicer, with a super sparkly affect that looks much better in hand. Now they are just mirror foil, blah.

Here's a base card sticker design from 1995-96 and 2015-16.

The designs are unique and the photos are pretty good. Arguably better than Panini does on actual cards.

One other bonus is that the sets are large- they refuse to make an actual card set larger than 300 cards, but the sticker sets usually go past 400. The 2014-15 set is 470 stickers long. I don't know yet how large the 2015-16 set is, but in the limited packs I purchased I got one numbered 471 so I know it's larger.

The stickers almost act like what a flagship Panini set should be, only they have nothing on the backs.
This is the back of the Mavericks team logo. They are all the same except for the number.

The gray square and line at the bottom is from when my remote hard drive crashed. I was able to recover a lot (NOT everything) but some of them didn't recover properly. I just noticed this when I posted the image, so now I have to fix it. Normally I'd just fix it and not talk about it but I wanted to show some of the stuff I've been fighting with for the past nearly 2 months now.

So, what do you think? Should I add these to my collection officially, with a paper listing and counting them as part of the actual collection, or should I continue to count them as a separate collection?

I know which way I'm leaning but I want to hear some opinions before I say what I'm thinking (it will be in the comments).

One thing I do know for sure...I won't ignore them in the future, and when the new set comes out, I will be getting some every year...maybe even a whole box. They are cheap enough I can afford a box, a rarity these days.

Thanks for reading and hopefully giving me your thoughts.

Uniform History: Nets Franchise

Welcome to the first of what will eventually be a series of more than 30 posts documenting the entire Uniform History of each NBA team. All 30 current teams will get a post, and there will also be a post or posts (as needed) for defunct NBA teams and ABA teams as well. Unlike my just-concluded countdown of my top 20 favorite sets, these posts will not be done on consecutive days!

I have chosen the Nets, my favorite team and the one I am the most knowledgeable about to kick off this look at all the different jerseys worn by the teams- or at least those that appear on trading cards in my collection.

Current Logo: (All team logos shown in this series have been cropped off of the backs of 2015-16 Complete base cards)

History: Founded in 1967 as the New Jersey Americans, the team now known as the Nets was one of the charter ABA franchises, and the only one to directly challenge an NBA team for city supremacy, a rivalry that is still ongoing all these years later. The team played one year as the Americans, and there are, to my knowledge, no cards whatsoever that show any Americans players.

For the 1968-69 season, the team was rebranded as the New York Nets, after a move to Long Island, and would remain the New York Nets for the remainder of the ABA's history.

The first Nets cards would appear in the 1971-72 Topps set, but the jerseys are poorly shown at best. These jerseys worn in this set would not appear again. In fact, I have no clue what the road uniform looks like beyond what appears on the card shown.

1971-72 Topps #199

Home white

1971-72 Topps #182

Road Red

I suspect they may have looked like the second New Jersey era road jersey, only red instead of blue. I looked on YouTube but was not able to find any footage of any Nets games before 1974.

With the 1972-73 season, the Nets debuted the jerseys they would wear for the longest time in franchise history- with only minor changes these would be the primary Nets uniform up to and including 1989-90! In fact, the Home Whites did not change at all. They were worn in the ABA as the New York Nets, in the NBA as the New York Nets, and in the NBA as the New Jersey Nets!

1984-85 Star #93

The Road Blues, however, are a different story. Originally, in the ABA and the Nets' only NBA season as the New York Nets, they looked like this:

1977-78 Topps #127

(not visible: there was a white stripe with blue stars to the left of the red stripe. You can just barely see some of the white stripe on his leg. The jersey was essentially a reverse of the home uniform)

But in 1977 the Nets moved back to New Jersey, which meant the uniform had to be changed. The New York wording was replaced with "Nets" and New Jersey was added vertically in the red stripe. The Nets would wear these uniforms from 1977-78 through 1989-90. The white Home jersey has also been worn several times as a Throwback.

1989-90 Fleer #95

In 1982-83 and 1983-84 the Nets also wore what I believe may be the first alternate jerseys in NBA history. I may not be correct as both seasons were before I was born, and the photographic evidence on cards is slim- and also appears from seasons where the normal jerseys also appear. These uniforms are significantly rare to see on cards- I am aware of only one card for home and two for road jerseys. To my knowledge, there were no cards produced when these were current to show the road blue.

1984-85 Star #93

2003-04 Finite #114

For 1990-91, the Nets rebranded with a new logo and new uniforms. The team colors remained red, white and blue, and once again, the home uniform stayed the same while the road blue changed after only one year.

1996-97 Skybox Star Ruby #171

The road blues started out not as a solid blue, but with white "fading" starting at the bottom and getting progressively lighter as it goes up. Like most of the complex jersey designs in NBA history it did not last long, in fact it was used during 1990-91 only.

1991 Starting Lineup

Beginning in 1991-92, and lasting until 1996-97, the road jerseys were solid blue. The blue was also slightly, but noticeably, darker.

1995-96 Topps Gallery #106

In 1997-98 the Nets rebranded again, and would find their greatest NBA success wearing these uniforms, going all the way to the NBA finals in both 2001-02 and 2002-03. The team was then broken up and never again achieved such success.

1999-00 Impact #40

2003-04 SP Authentic #53

 Although it does not generally show on card images, the lettering on the road blue and the borders of the letters and numbers on the home jersey is not actually white- it's metallic silver. I was quite surprised to learn this when I pulled my first Nets patch card. It doesn't show as metallic on TV either, but I soon learned that multiple teams were using metallics in their jerseys.

2001-02 Fleer Platinum Name Plates

The Nets also had two versions of an alternate gray uniform, which was pretty much the same as the blue road uniform, only gray. The gray version (either) is my favorite Nets uniform.
The first version, with blue numbers, was used in 1998-99 and 1999-00.

1999-00 Ultra #9

The second version, with white lettering, was used in 2000-01 through mid 2004-05, when production issues led to the jerseys not fitting properly and choking the players.

2003-04 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection #65

Beginning in 2006-07, the Nets introduced a red alternate. This would remain the alternate through 2008-09, and then, for the Nets' final two years in New Jersey, would be the main road jersey, replacing the blue.

2011-12 Hoops #147

In 2012-13, under new ownership, the Nets moved back to New York, and rebranded themselves the Brooklyn Nets. For the first time in team history, Red, White & Blue were not the team colors, replaced by rather bland black and white.

2014-15 Hoops #63

2013-14 Panini Prizm Greem Prizm #139

The Nets have also added several alternates to the lineup- all of which are sleeved.

Beginning in 2013-14 and still in use in the current 2015-16, the main alternate is gray with blue lettering.

2014-15 Panini Excalibur #74

The second alternate, which debuted in 2014-15 and is also in use again this season, is somewhat modeled on the design worn from 1972-89. Not visible in this photo is the black stripe that runs down under the left sleeve with three large white stars on it. This is the only card (available in three versions) to show this jersey, as far as I know.

2015-16 Complete Silver #98

In addition to the standard alternates, the Nets also played on Christmas 2013, where every team wore special uniforms. These jerseys were sleeved and did not feature a number on the front- highly unusual. The basketball design behind the B was actually a metallic silver.

2013-14 Select #121

The Nets also played on Christmas 2012, the first season that all teams playing wore special jerseys. That first season did not have sleeves, and every team playing that day wore jerseys where all writing on the jersey was the same color as the jersey itself. (a concept I hated, personally). To my knowledge there are no cards that show that Nets uniform, but there is a video on YouTube that has game highlights.