There was 1948 Bowman, the first all-basketball set, and the Bowman name disappeared from basketball cards until 1996-97 when Topps revived it with Bowman’s Best. These were six-card packs for $3.99, but, with only 125 cards in the set, there’s a higher percentage of stars. You had 80 base cards, followed by a subset of 25 rookie cards. They belong to the main set, they’re just numbered separately with an “R” prefix. Kobe Bryant is the highlight of the rookie subset, but this was a strong collection of rookies. Allen Iverson, Stephon Marbury…and nobody is going to complain if they pull an Antoine Walker rookie card. He is the sixth card in that subset, numbered #R6. But note that this rookies subset doesn’t follow draft order exactly. Stephon Marbury appears second in this subset, but he was drafted fourth.
These cards used the exact same production process as earlier Topps Finest as you can see from the patents and trademarks mentioned on the back. But in Bowman’s Best, the Chromium technology is carefully woven into the photos without intruding. The main use of the Chromium effect is the border… There’s a wavy section on the left with the last name’s initial, and two rectangles on the bottom finishing the name. The gold and silver in the rookies are inverted from the base cards. The base cards have gold on the left and first name and silver on the bottom rectangle. The rookies switch the silver and gold. It’s on the photo where it’s more subtle. The basketball has that metallic finish that we associate with Chromium cards. And throughout this set, the colors on jerseys display the Chromium effect while the white is left simpler. This results in two different types of cards. You have rookies like Stephon Marbury and Shareef Abdur-Rahim where the whole jersey shines. And you have cards like this Antoine Walker where the effect is a bit simpler. You can see the Chromium effect in the green of the Celtics jersey but, with more white here, the design is calmer. The jerseys from the Marbury and Abdur-Rahim almost take priority over the players themselves. That’s not the case here. So maybe the more subtle application of the metallic glimmer is better.
Color and information is everywhere on the reverse. Most of the rookies annoyingly point out that high school statistics are unavailable, leaving an awkward line in the stat box. I guess this was a formatting thing and it was easier to type something there than redesign. I mean, he was 14 years old in 1990, I don’t think we’re disappointed you don’t have those stats. And we have to point out an error on this card. The games are added up wrong! It’s clear he played in 69 games in college…someone’s adding was off by one! But what’s neat about all ’96-97 Bowman’s Best cards is the interesting selection of statistics. Here, rebounds and blocks are averaged out over minute played. Walker’s rebounds are very strong with nearly one rebound for every three minutes played. “Points per Field Goal Attempt” is another rare stat for a basketball card that incorporates more information than simple field goal %. And with Walker, every field goal attempt results in at least one point. Below the stat box are “SUPER SKILL” and “SUPER STAT” notes. I challenge anyone to find another card that describes a player as “deer-like” like this one does…
Extra (What is Chromium Technology): Starting with Finest, Topps was innovating the actual card construction. They called it “Chromium” technology and it provided a unique, metallic shine. What was this technology? I want to draw your attention to a very informative blog post about how these cards were made. The author saw that Chrome printing plates were reversed from regular Topps. So he took apart a Chrome card, looked up the patents, and discovered that the ink is actually printed behind a clear plastic section that makes the front. This section is joined to foil, so think of the card as a sandwich…top plastic part, ink underneath that, then a foil part. To show that the ink isn’t on the front, he sanded the front. It scuffs the card, but no ink comes off. He also believes that the clear, protective coating on early Finest cards was probably used to make later Chrome cards, but the company removes it after printing before packaging. It’s a great blog post and really worth a read! And when you see the patents, you’ll realize just how much effort Topps was putting into this design.
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