Hi Guys,
Im an NRL collector but have been looking into getting a box of NBA cards. Been a fan for a while and love watching the game but never purchased any cards before. Just wanted to ask your opinions on which set is the best set to collect look wise, value for money, good insert ratios & insert player selection? I love the patch cards (which NRL seriously lack) so any series with a nice set of patches would be nice.
Thanks for your help. Chris.
Hey Chris!
NBA is very different to NRL and AFL (I think) in the way of there being so many different sets on the market. Recently, they have reduced the number of manufacturers by issuing an exclusive license and this reduced the amount of products on the market, however, there are still a fair few!
The Majority of NBA collectors will either be player collectors, or subset collectors, meaning they will try to get all of the cards from a 'partial set'. For example, in the Panini Threads 10/11 release, I am collecting all of the Rookie Die Cut Jersey autographs which are /99, but I am not collecting the whole set.
The best advice I have for you is to decide what you really want to collect. Is it a player? Is it a team? Is it a full base/inserts set or is it a particular partial set or type of card (like you mentioned the patch cards).
If you choose a player, then don't buy boxes, just buy single cards of that player!
If you choose a team, don't buy boxes either, just buy 'lots' or singles, but keep in mind if you collect everything from a particular team, you will probably never 'complete' anything and will just keep pouring money into the pit!
If you choose a full base/insert set, then I would suggest you buy 1 box to get the majority of the base cards and a bunch of inserts and then start buying singles after to get the ones you need.
If you choose a partial set then maybe narrow it down to what type of cards you want, then post a thread askign for more detailed suggestions and make your choice. Always, when starting a set chase, look at the checklist first to see how much it will cost and how hard some cards will be to find, because there are plenty of sets that will be /99 but have 1 or 2 cards that are /5 and really hard to find!
I hope this helps you get a start on your direction. Once you have a better idea of what sort of thing you want to collect, feel free to pm me for advice/ideas or quote me here and I will offer some suggestions!
lol
