The Full Story: 1986 Fleer vs. 1984 Star #101 Michael Jordan Cards Grab your PSA holders and settle in—this is the collector’s deep dive you’ve been waiting for, straight from someone who’s traded stories over card tables, jittered over mistakes, and chased these beauties with caffeine-fueled determination. 1986-87 Fleer #57…

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How Many Cards Does PSA Grade? Mind-blowing volume alert: Since 1991, PSA has graded over 65 million items—that’s across cards, memorabilia, photos, and more Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA). In 2023, they graded about 13.5 million cards, leading the industry SI. 2024 was even bigger—they nailed 15.34 million cards graded (9.1M sports and 6.23M TCG &…

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          Full Base Checklist – 100 Cards (Card by Card) Here’s your artistic treasure map, numbering each player and the original Topps card inspiration: Stan Musial (1961 Topps #290) Ed Mathews (1962 Topps #30) Phil Niekro (1975 Topps #130) George Bell (1986 Topps #338) Tom Seaver (1976 Topps #600) Robin Yount…

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Base Set Breakdown (100 Cards Total) Three Tiers, from legends to rookies—all decked out in foil parallels. Tier 1 (Cards 1–20: Past Legends) Rarest tier (~1:30 packs; huge hits), featuring icons like: Ty Cobb Sandy Koufax Harmon Killebrew Pedro Martínez Randy Johnson Dizzy Dean Cal Ripken Jr. Alex Rodriguez Christy Mathewson Eddie Murray David Ortiz…

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Oh man, you’ve hit on one of my favorite topics: why suddenly guys who normally buy yachts, vineyards, and Teslas that drive themselves into lakes are now dropping six and seven figures on sports cards. Let’s break this down hobby-content-creator style—with a few laughs—into the big factors fueling this wave of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) joining…

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Prelude: Why This Set Changed The Game Remember football cards before 2017? They were fine—Topps, Donruss, Score—but they lacked something. Then Prizm Football exploded onto the hobby scene like a viral TikTok dunk. Glossy surfaces, refractors that caught your eye mid-rip, rainbow parallels, and rookies like Patrick Mahomes II (#269)—a future legend whose rookie card…

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Introduction: When Panini Dropped the Hobby’s Mic Imagine being a collector in 2012. The NBA is stacked with talent. We’ve got LeBron deep in his Miami Heat reign, Kobe still putting on Mamba clinics, and a rookie class that looks like it was handpicked by the cardboard gods: Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie…

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Introduction: The Hobby Before 1989 Let’s set the scene. In 1989, baseball card collecting was already booming. Kids were ripping wax packs of Topps, Fleer, and Donruss, building sets with gum-stained fingers, and trading “commons” on the playground like a second currency. The hobby was fun, affordable, and… a little stale. Topps, Fleer, and Donruss…

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