Trading Card Challenge - My Favorite Basketball Card

Time for the fourth installment of the 7 Day Trading Card Challenge.  This particular challenge asks participants to showcase their favorite basketball card in their collections.  As with the previous favorite football card challenge, this one was tough for me in that I just plain don't have many basketball cards.  In fact, at the time of this post I have just 40 total basketball cards in my organized collection.

This 1993 Topps Finest Michael Jordan was one of my better basketball cards.  I use the past tense here because I decided to sell this one a few weeks ago.  I paid just $20 for this a couple of years back because I wanted one significant Jordan card in my small collection.  With the insane uptick in the hobby though, I sold this for about 10x what I paid just a couple of years prior, and used the funds to track down an iconic baseball card that I've always wanted.

That flip will have to wait for another post though, for today suffice it to say this card was not eligible for selection for this challenge.

So, what are some of my favorite basketball cards from the 40 that I do still own?  Well, I narrowed it down to five to show in today's post, saving the winner for last...

This mid-'70s Dr. J certainly makes the short list.  It's one of the basketball cards I've had the longest, having picked it up back in 2012.  As I mentioned when I featured it on the blog back then, the star of the show here is the amazing photograph where Erving literally looks like he's exploding through defenders.  It's not a super valuable card or anything, but to this day it's a top-5 basketball card in my meager collection.

Being a Boston sports fan, I had to have at least one decent Larry Bird card even though I'm not a huge basketball guy.  One day I'd love to own a nice copy of the Bird/Magic Johnson rookie from '80-81 Topps, but since I haven't wanted it badly enough to spend the hundreds of dollars it would set me back, I settled on this '86-87 Fleer instead.  A truly iconic set in the realm of basketball cards, and this was had for a much more reasonable $15 (also way back in 2012!).

I gave really strong consideration to selecting this '92-93 Ultra Shaq RC.  If you were a kid collector in the early '90s like I was, then I'm certain you probably remember what a big deal Shaq was when he burst onto the scene.  I wasn't even a basketball for or a basketball card collector at all, and I wanted a few of his rookie cards badly.  I vividly remember many hours of chores being done in orer to raise up enough funds to buy his Skybox RC, then riding my bike down to pluck it from the small display case of cards at the town pharmacy.  Felt elated after that pickup, some 28 years ago now!

The Ultra RC is my favorite though, and easily one of my favorite basketball cards of the few dozen that I own.

Just two more to go here, and the runner up goes to this tallboy Wilt Chamberlain card.  This was acquired via a really great eBay flip last year, and it's just plain awesome.  I've mentioned many times that I love the tallboy Topps cards of the '60s and early '70s, and I was ecstatic to land this one featuring one of the all-time greats of the game.

None of those cards hold a candle to the one I decided to go with though.  If you've followed my blog recently, you probably know where this is going.

My favorite basketball card is...

...my Michael Jordan RC!  In my most complicated eBay flip yet I parted with nearly three dozen slabbed singles and used the proceeds to fund this purchase.  I've always wanted a copy of this iconic card, and this one is an absolute beauty for the grade.

My reason for going after it at the time was that it was one of the "greatest cards in the history of its respective sport" that was still within a realistic price range in terms of a flip.  There was no way I was going to acquire enough funds for say a '52 Mantle, but an '86-87 Jordan was doable.  In my opinion, Topps Gretzky rookies are still in this category today, as you can get a nice mid-grade one for a few hundred dollars, which is amazing to me.  Already have one of those though, so Jordan it was when it came to my flip.

I'm pleased to own this card, and it's certainly my favorite basketball card.  I feel like I've shown it a lot lately on the blog.  I hope I don't come across as gloating, but with just 40 basketball cards to choose from in response to this challenge there's no way I could go with anything but this card for my selection here.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll be back with the next segment of the 7 Day Trading Card Challenge soon!