College – 1992-93 Michigan #8 Chris Webber

Putting It In Context: This 15-card Michigan set has a wonderful classic, traditional design.  A large full-bleed photograph on the front, and a unified school-color scheme.  There’s a blue rectangle containing “Michigan” on the side and the player’s name in yellow font within a white rectangle on the bottom.  All the elements are thoughtful, nothing extraneous.  The backs are traditionally designed as well, with a smaller photo, white background, blue name (an inverse of the yellow name on the front), yellow “M” Michigan logo.  Only the placement of the card number strays from tradition.  It’s tucked underneath the school logo.  Plenty of information in the usual statistics/biography section.  If you were lucky enough to purchase this set at the original price of $7 (either at the M Den at the Yost Ice Arena at the time, or the Crisler Arena), you definitely bought cards that have increased in value as long as you maintained their condition.  A must-have for college basketball card collectors!

The Card:  In addition to the clean, attractive design, this particular Chris Webber card is a large part of the reason that this set retained its value.  Great dunking photograph on the front and smaller dunking closeup on the back.  There’s some really important information in the statistics/biography section, including him being named National Freshman-of-the-Year by the US Basketball Association with him leading the Big Ten in rebounds and steals.  Going back a bit further, the card mentions him being picked as the nation’s top high school payer in 1991.  It’s often considered a really important first card for collectors!

In Short:  Something no Chris Webber or Michigan collector can be without!