Do you ever run across a card in your collection and have no idea how it got there? That’s my situation with this Larry Johnson card. I don’t recall purchasing Front Row cards much less even having access to the Japanese versions of them. But here it is!
In 1991, Front Row produced a small 50-card set featuring the 1991 draft picks. Whether collectors were excited by these sets or not, the company sure was excited in their marketing material! These cards were meant to directly compete with Classic, Star Pics, Wild Card and Courtside in the market of Draft Picks card sets. Front Row specifically advertised their set as more limited in production than the others. They also stressed quality mentioning that their UV coating on both sides was similar to Stadium Club cards. And Front Row says that they produced the first ever bilingual basketball cards with these Japanese cards as well as an Italian set. Does anyone know if this is true?
According to the 2001 standard Catalog of Basketball Cards, 60,000 of these Japanese sets were produced. But take this with a grain of salt, because even with the regular set, sources often confuse the number of factory sets made with the number of cards in cases meant for retail. There are also gold and silver parallels of the Japanese set. The information on the back also appears in English. There is a photo with a white border on the front and a green bar at the bottom with the player’s name and position.
In this 1991 Front Row, there’s a small Larry Johnson subset near the end, cards 44-49. Plus, Larry Johnson starts the set off as card number one. The company advertised the Larry Johnson subset as seven cards, so I guess they were including that first card as well. I’m really excited to have run across this card in my collection, since I always liked Larry Johnson. And to think it is from possibly the first bilingual card set…really neat!
This #44 Larry Johnson card is the first card in the Larry Johnson subset near the end. It’s referred to as “Career Highlights” because of the heading above the information on the back. The info is really good, mentioning his career-high 35 points against Michigan state, getting 18 rebounds twice in his career and scoring 20+ points 43 times. It’s also clear he must’ve had a contract with Front Row considering their logo on the tank top he’s wearing.
You must be logged in to post a comment.