The Allen Iverson rookie card is one of the most important in this set. Some of the Gold cards exceed it in value, and the Kobe Bryant rookie tops it, but that’s about it. Really great trivia on the back! Iverson was Virginia’s High School Player of the Year in both football and basketball and could run a forty in 4.4 seconds.
Context, Set Problems: Topps Finest was a hit when they were first produced. The premium cards were referred to simply as “Finest.” But in 1996-97, the status of the set began to waver. Their release was delayed and, in my opinion, the structure of the set is complicated. There are 291 cards in two series (146 Series I and 145 Series II), and within each, there are two things to monitor. First, there are levels or tiers of rarity, “common,” “uncommon,” and “rare” (with bronze, silver, and gold border colors). Bronze are the most common, silver was 1:4 packs and gold was 1:24 packs (or one per box). Knowing it would take multiple boxes to complete a set was disappointing to many. This Allan Iverson, you can tell by the bronze border, is a “common” card. This type of structure was probably borrowed from card games like Magic, which were very popular at the time. Second, there are different “Themes” of cards, printed in large type on the front of the card. In Series I, there are Apprentices (which includes this Allen Iverson card), Gladiators, Maestro and Sterling. Series II themes are Heirs, Foundations, Mainstays and Sterling. But the themes are scattered through the set and cards within a theme are not in set order! For example, in the Apprentices, the Kobe Bryant is #A10 and this Allen Iverson is #A23…but Iverson comes before Kobe in the main set, Iverson is #69 and Bryant is #74! At least all of this (standard set number, theme number, tier) is summed up in a box on the back (Iverson is Card 69, Theme A23, Common). You can begin to see why, together with the late release, this Finest set didn’t have the draw of earlier sets.
Protective Film: Also of note is the protective film. Leaving the film on or off doesn’t impact the value too much. Some like the card closer to original with film on and there’s no risk of damage removing it. Others prefer it off. The design of these cards is busy enough to begin with without more text scrawled across the front. Also, grading cards with film on means defects on the protector might lower the grade of an otherwise great card.
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