You can’t fully understand this card without reading… This link about the 1933 Goudey Sport Kings set as a whole.
The Card: This set starts incredibly strong. First Ty Cobb, then Babe Ruth. And next, the first basketball card to feature an individual player, the #3 Nat Holman. During the 1920’s Nat Holman was considered a phenomenal shooter and ball handler. As the back of this card says, “few men have done more to increase the popularity of the game than Nat Holman.” His life and career centered on New York, from his birth in New York City in 1896, to his playing with the Original Celtics (based in New York), to his coaching at the City College of New York. (His coaching overlapped with his professional playing)!
A Scholar of the Sport: He’s the origin of what we call a “playmaker” in basketball. In fact, you could say that Nat Holman literally wrote the book on basketball! His book, Scientific Basketball mentioned on the back of the card, is over 100 pages long. Read it here and you will be amazed at the differences from today’s game! And it’s not his only book. He wrote four in total with “Holman: On Basketball” topping 300 pages and covering every aspect of the sport. These are must reads if you’re interested in the history of the sport. You’ll find passages about how the backboard was introduced to stop spectators from blocking shots and how the Spaulding Official Basketball Guide of 1896 says that if a large number of people want to play at once, two balls may be used!
Pricing: A PSA 8 sold for $24,766 on September 19, 2016 (eBay item 351835044587). Only twelve exist at this grade, none higher. The 2001 Standard Catalog of Basketball Cards lists a Near Mint at $950, a NM/M at $3000 and a Mint at $4000. The near mint might be reasonably accurate. As of this writing, ungraded cards sell for an average of $50, but high grade cards are always increasing in value.
In Short: This is the first basketball card featuring a professional player. It’s not from the famous 1948 Bowman set, it’s the Nat Holman from the multi-sport 1933 Goudey Sport Kings set. How old is this card? So old, Holman wrote about how the backboard was introduced to stop spectators from blocking the ball. So old that he wrote about how Spaulding’s Official Basketball Guide permitted the use of two balls if a large number of players wanted to play at once. Subscribe and collect with us at CatalogedClutter! We study every card we can get our hands on in depth, from the most common of cards to landmarks of the hobby, like this one!
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