1991-92 Hoops #537 Moses Malone, All-Time Active Leader

Here at Cataloged Clutter, we take pride in appreciating the common card. But this is only our second card from 1991-92 Hoops, the other being the Michael Jordan All-Star card with a great dunk photo! I picked this card because I was thinking about the Elvin Hayes/Nate Thurmond pair from the “One on One” subset from 1993 Action Packed Hall of Fame, a set we’ve been looking at in order. They are paired up in that subset because they share “rebounds” in common. Look at the reverse of this Moss Malone card…we see Nate Thurmond at number seven all-time and Elvin Hayes right above him in the sixth spot (this being ’91-92 of course). And here is Moses Malone, still playing, having moved up to the fourth spot behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

But wait!!! Do some searching on your own…many resources say Moses Malone ended his career with 16,212 rebounds in the fifth slot!!! NBA Hoops was counting his ABA rebounds as well. They were kind enough to point this out in the fine print. If you keep those on file, Moses Malone would end his career in the number three slot with 17,834 rebounds behind Chamberlain and Russell. Amazing number. Believe it or not, Rodman wouldn’t make this ’91-92 list, with his total still being below what we see here for Jerry Lucas.

Really a neat card, even if there is little monetary value here. Early ’90’s Hoops is kind of the definition of the junk wax era. With over a million of these sets produced and 590 cards in the set, collectors have no trouble swimming in ’91-92 Hoops if they want to. But I always liked collecting the set. Scott McCauley, the Vice President of Marketing at Skybox International at the time, mentioned that they viewed the cards as an “inexpensive gateway” to watching games and buying merchandise. So from their perspective, the more cards, the more interaction with the sport. This is part of the reason that there were so many small subsets. We of course remember the All-Stars, Supreme Court, art cards, Olympic cards…but sometimes tend to forget the smaller subsets, like this eight card All-Time Active Leaders. They were a great idea to engage young collectors with the sport. You get a list of the all-time leaders in a particular stat and active players, who still have a chance to rise up that list, are highlighted in red. And a very well-chosen picture, with Moses Malone battling David Robinson for another board!