Placing it in Context: The basketball card market was basically the Topps company alone from 1969-70 until 1981-82 when Topps took a long break. Basketball card collectors were at a loss in 1982-83 as no major sets were produced at all! In 1983-84, Star made an attempt to fill that void and sell some cards. (Technically, it was their first attempt of a full set…they did produce 32 cards for 1982-83 highlighting All-Star Game). From 1983-84 to 1985-86, Star was the only option for NBA cards.
Early Star Co. cards drive collector’s a bit nuts. The original printing was limited…the cards weren’t widespread among dealers… It’s said that cutting problems led Star to dispose of many of the cards. Star worked through these issues, but it makes the earlier cards in this set more rare, since it was with the later cards that they finally smoothed things out. Also, the distribution was unusual, with cards being distributed as mail-order team sets. According to the 2001 Standard Catalog of Basketball Cards, the hardest sets to find are Dallas, Boston and Philadelphia (with about 500, 900, and 2,000 sets respectively, although no one is certain about this). Also uncertain is the total number of cards produced, but it is assumed that about 5,000 sets of each team were intended.
Collectors sometimes draw a clear divide between the sealed team bags and the individual cards. On one hand, it is a special thing to have a sealed team set, never opened. On the other hand, the fact that it’s sealed doesn’t allow a collector to see and enjoy all of the individual cards. The set was structured predictably, teams are grouped together, then cards are alphabetical by player’s last name (with some variation for stars…for example, Larry Bird is featured before Danny Ainge in the Celtics team set to allow him to be presented first in the sealed pack). This made for a 275-card set of a predictable pattern of players…no special subsets or anything else to maintain interest. Even the design became predictable as it remained basically fixed during all of Star’s years of production.
Because of all the quirks and the unconventional distribution method, most collectors don’t consider Star cards official rookie cards. I kind of think they should! First is first. Another note…PSA stopped grading Star cards very early after some controversy and discoveries. It’s really worth a search about the history of counterfeits, unauthorized reprintings, factory rejects, etc. Lots of drama, so the hesitancy of grading companies is understandable. BGS started graded Star cards in 2008 and was the go-to company for this. PSA only very recently, in 2023, started grading Star cards again. But I don’t think they’re grading all of them until their knowledge base is built up.
The Sealed Bag: The Boston Celtics team bag features Larry Bird as the sole visible card. This Larry Bird card is arguably the highlight of the entire 1983-84 Star set. He was the MVP for that season. Other important cards in this bag include Kevin McHale (a famous player and coach), Robert Parish and Danny Ainge (this was his first NBA card after he left professional baseball)! The Celtics team set as a whole is considered the most valuable of the sealed bags, sometimes competing with the Dallas Mavericks due to Dallas’ rarity. In fact, both the Celtics and Mavericks team sets were really impacted by problems with cutting and ink saturation leading to the disposal of cards. Look at the picture above to see a Larry Bird card with a bit too much ink. In addition to the above-mentioned cards, the back of the Greg Kite rookie is visible and other interior cards include Quinn Buckner, M.L. Carr, Carlos Clark, Gerald Henderson, Dennis Johnson, Cedric Maxwell and Scott Wedman.
In Short: Let’s ignore the fact that this Larry Bird card has ink saturation issues and there’s too much blue and talk about the history here. This 1983-84 Star set is more important to the hobby than most people realize. Believe it or not, there was a time when few people cared about basketball cards. Starting in 1969-70, for full sets, you had your choice of…Topps. That’s it! In ’70-71, Topps. In ’71-72, Topps. Should I keep going? 1973, ’74, ’75… This kept going until 1981-82! Then Topps said, “We’re out!” There were team issues and college issues in 1982-83, but literally nobody cared to make a full set of basketball cards. We really have to thank Star for stepping up to the plate in 1983-84 and picking up the NBA license. Can you imagine? No basketball cards for multiple seasons!? There was a gap between 1948 Bowman and 1961-62 Fleer, but a huge moment here with 1983-84 Star for stepping up and preventing another multi-season gap!
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