1989-90 Hoops #138 David Robinson Rookie Short Print

Placing It In Context: Just because something isn’t rare doesn’t mean it’s not important to the hobby. The 1989-90 Hoops set is the first time NBA Hoops appeared on the scene. So all those piles of extra Hoops cards from the early 90’s that many collectors remember having in abundance…well it all started right here in late October of 1989! Hoops didn’t stray far from this 1989-90 design in future years. These featured simple colors and a border representing a basketball court key. Also, this set is very important to collectors of David Robinson. You won’t find him in the 1989-90 Fleer set, you need to get the rookie card from this one!

The first series had 300 cards consisting of regular players, all stars and coaches. Then there was a second series that should really be considered an update, just 53 cards released in January of 1990. With the decision to sell a second series update, 52 cards from Series I were replaced on the sheets. These 52-cards are naturally a little more rare and are deemed short prints. There were good reasons to produce this 53-card update. Hoops wanted cards of the expansion teams from that year (Orlando Magic and Minnesota Timberwolves) and cards of traded players. In fact, you can tell Series II packs by looking at the lower-right corner for a yellow statement saying “Look for Orlando & Minnesota Expansion Team Plus Trades.” They also wanted an action shot of star rookie David Robinson as well as a card commemorating the Detroit Pistons winning the championship. This Pistons card is relatively rare, inserted 1:75 packs and probably printed separately. There were two versions of this Pistons card because Hoops wanted to add the Pistons logo to the front of the card (but this one was a mail-in offer). Why mention all of this? These were all early signs that Hoops would, in the future, try to cover all aspects of the NBA season in their basketball sets. This was a lot of cards for a set! And in a way, it kicked off the race to be comprehensive as collectors saw 440 cards from Hoops in the next year, building to 590 in 1991-92 (that year, Fleer upped the count to 400 and Skybox came in at 659!) One difference between this set and some of the others from the early 90’s was that packs had to be purchased to collect the entire set. No factory sets were sold.

The Card: The #138 David Robinson rookie card is the reason this set is important to collectors. At the time of its production, many were excited about this athlete and it helped increase interest in basketball cards immediately. Hoops spent money on marketing and people looked hard for the Robinson rookie (the fact that you could see through the packs and see which card was on top helped)! Collectors learned the order of cards in the set and could figure out if Robinson was in the interior of a pack as well. Believe it or not, there was even a problem with counterfeits of this card at the time! (Check out this old Pittsburgh Post Gazette article mentioning that people are having trouble finding packs and that the set is approaching $100 in value) The photo on the #138 is a great 1987 draft day picture of Robinson holding his jersey. Although there’s another David Robinson card in this set with an action photo (#310), the #138 is considered the rookie card since it’s the first appearance. Also, this card is one of the 52 cards that Hoops pulled when printing Series II, so it is a short print. That helps make it just at touch more rare than other cards in the set. And collectors have to come to the 1989-90 Hoops to get a David Robinson rookie. You won’t find one in the Fleer set of the same year. In fact, this is the first time you have a card of a player during his rookie season since the 1970-71 Topps set (Pete Maravich and Calvin Murphy)! Why did Hoops break the tradition? Robinson was actually drafted to the Spurs in 1987 after graduating from the Naval Academy, but he had to serve in the Navy for two years before playing. So he was technically an NBA member and could be given a card right away. This is mentioned briefly on the back of the card. Although not very rare, still very important historically!

In Short: Do you remember the excitement around this card when David Robinson was entering the league? You could see through the wrappers to the top card and people were memorizing the order to get this Robinson. It even made the news! I have the link to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette article in the description if you want to look yourself. Let’s go back to April 30, 1990, here’s what it said… “Many people are having a tough time finding packs of Hoops. First series packs are approaching the $2 mark faster than you can say David Robinson. The scarcity of the second series is pushing the price for a set toward $100.” That didn’t hold, you’re looking at $20-30 today I think. Young collectors find it hard to believe that we were chasing ’89-90 Hoops! Subscribe and collect with us at Cataloged Clutter! We’re building sets one card at a time, spending time enjoying each one, no matter how common!