We’ve been looking at a lot of premium cards, sets that were a bit pricier, but often more compact. Less cards, more stars… But those of us that grew up collecting “junk wax” from the early ’90’s still have a love for trying to complete large sets of affordable cards. There were 400 Collector’s choice cards in 1996-97, two series of 200 cards each. There’s just something special about finding a Kobe Bryant rookie when it is one of 400 cards rather than (using Bowman’s Best as an example) one of 125. A quick overview since this is the first card we’ve looked at from this set…In Series I, the “Chicago Bulls Victory Tour” subset was placed strategically. It actually interrupted the Chicago Bulls team cards, kind of a surprise subset… Ditto with a five-card Anfernee Hardaway subset that suddenly appeared in the Orlando Magic team cards. The only other subsets in Series I are 30 Fundamentals cards and five checklists. Series II went through the teams alphabetically once more and this is where the rookie cards are placed. It is where this Kobe Bryant is found…Series II with the Los Angeles Lakers cards. There are subsets in Series II “One on One,” “Assignment: Jordan,” “Playbook,” and five more checklists. As fun as these were to find and collect, Series II is all about finding those rookies, especially this Kobe Bryant.
The ’96-97 Collector’s Choice still featured an action shot surrounded by a white border, same as the previous two Collector’s Choice sets. And it’s the photo that makes this such a wonderful rookie card. Kobe Bryant’s Collector’s Choice rookie is sometimes overlooked because it comes from a set that was designed to be more affordable and fun, but it’s hard to beat this photograph, flying towards the hoop with nothing else around him except the black of the roof and some lights. Surface defects will be very visible, but an amazing photo when free from scratches. So the white border remained from previous sets, but unique to 1996-97 Collector’s Choice was a colored panel on the left displaying the team logo, player’s name and position. It used one of the team colors on the bottom and black on the top. The Collector’s Choice brand logo in an upper corner remained unchanged. There was a big structural difference in ’96-97 though. Thank goodness, they finally organized the player’s by team in this set. Collector’s Choice had been attempting to match jersey number with card number and this broke down as the set went along. It was a nice thought, but it was refreshing to have structure ’96-97.
It’s interesting to see how different cards handle Kobe Bryant’s jump from high school to the pros. The Bowman’s Best rookie, for example, eliminates the stat box entirely, presenting information about his high school playing as pure text. The Collector’s Choice card isn’t as successful. They included what they could (the name of his high school, total points, and his high score), but there’s a lot of awkward “not applicable” and “not available” here. This card does mention that his dad played in the NBA, not all rookie cards of his do that. The other items of information are pretty standard on most rookies, the fact that he was the Southeastern PA All-Time Leading Scorer with 2,883 points and his stats from his senior year.
If you have a soft spot in your heart for common ’90’s junk wax, check out my post of the Danny Ferry card from this set. The back mentions his career high, and I have a link to that game in the description. It’s Danny Ferry playing at the peak of his career and very fun to watch. We tend to forget these exciting moments from even the most common cards in our collections.
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