Because 1992-93 Topps was overproduced, collectors tend to overlook the cards, but they also sometimes forget that there was another 1992-93 Topps set, the Topps Archives. This was a really neat idea for a set! As you probably recall, there was a long period of time when Topps was basically the only card in the hobby, but after they produced their thirteenth consecutive basketball set in 1981-82, they disappeared from the hobby until 1992-93. Plus, the ’81-82 set was weird with cards 67-110 actually differing depending on the region of distribution. That’s right, different cards depending on East, Midwest and West regions! But back to the point, there’s this huge gap where Topps was gone for ten seasons!
Enter the 1992-93 Topps Archives set to fill in this gap! The set starts off with a subset of eleven cards showing the #1 Draft pick from the missing years 1981-1991. This Brad Daugherty is card number 6, corresponding to the #1 Draft Pick in 1986. The back of the cards in this subset show a list of the first round draft picks for that particular year. After this, the set continues on with what would have been the rookie cards from the 1982-83 Topps, then it moves on to 1983-84 Topps and it continues moving through all of the missing years. I don’t think it needs to be said, but these aren’t considered actual rookie cards of these players…these are just an imagining of what could’ve been.
The cards rotate in design based on the baseball card designs from that lost decade. Some argue that this is lazy because during that time, if you look at any given missing season, Topps did not repeat designs in different sports. In other words, take 1984-85 Topps…the baseball and hockey cards have different designs, so why would the basketball card set share a design? I understand this argument. But for those of us who weren’t familiar with the other sports, this was still a really cool idea and set!
Most importantly, but not often mentioned is that the images are from the player’s actual rookie year! Topps really did dig through some archives for these photos! The design is often mentioned, but the photos themselves are great.
There were 10,000 cases produced, with 24 boxes in each case. For the early ’90’s, this was a limited production! There were 24 packs per box, 14 cards per pack with a Stadium Club membership card inserted into each pack. There’s a gold parallel set, but this wasn’t found in packs, it was simply a factory set available for purchase.
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