To basketball card collectors, the “Bowman” name is legendary. 1948 Bowman was the first all-basketball set and that’s the end…the name disappears from basketball card history. Until 1996-97 when Topps revived it with the Bowman’s Best set. A higher-end card, (six-card packs sold for $3.99), these cards feel like Topps Finest cards…because they basically are. The same production process was used. Look at the patents and trademarks mentioned on the back, the same production process was used.
As with most sets that charged over 50 cents a card with so few cards in a pack, the Bowman’s Best set was a compact 125 cards focusing on stars, so you were bound to get some nice cards. There were 80 base cards and Michael Jordan was the highlight here. Next came 25 rookie cards. These are part of the main set, but they are numbered separately with an “R” prefix. The highlight here, and probably for the whole set, is the Kobe Bryant rookie. The set ends with a 20-card subset called Throwbacks, again, these are part of the main set, they’re just numbered separately with a “TB” prefix.
Let’s look at the design, especially how the Chromium technology was used. And it’s really effective on this particular Michael Jordan card. The basketball, the rim and the red in his uniform have a metallic finish to them while the rest of the image is normal. It’s a really subtle and nice effect. Also on the front is a large wavy border on the left with the initial of the player’s last name on the bottom. Then two rectangles make a border on the bottom, one with the first name and one with the rest of the last name. It’s nice, but they could’ve made more room for the picture and not made the last initial look so important.
The reverse of these cards is busy. Lots of color and information everywhere. But have you looked at the stats! Topps really put some thought into these for this Bowman’s best set. Very unique… First is “Games and Games Started” (G-GS), which is more useful in reverse where dividing games started by games played gives start percentage. Either way, it’s clear that Jordan started nearly every game of his career. Next is “Points + Assists per Minute” (PTS + AST / MIN). This is a great stat. Think of it this way, whether Jordan scores or has an assist, there’s some points there. So he contributed to a basket nearly every single minute he played! That’s a powerful number right there! Next is “Steals + Assists to Turnovers.” I’d like more clarification whether this is a steal leading to an assist, or simply adding steals and assists. Next is three-pointers made per field goals made, not an exciting number for Jordan. A high number means a player did most of his work beyond the three-point line. Jordan was more effective inside, whether driving, misdirecting, hitting a fadeaway jumper… Finally, we have “Points per Field Goal Attempt.” All we can say here is, wow! Think about that… Somehow, some way, each field goal attempt resulted in 1.37 points. If every shot was a basic two-pointer, shooting 50% gets you to 1 in this stat. The only common stat on this card is the standard points per game in the final column. And there’s an added bonus! The “Super Stat” below that Jordan is the second fastest player to reach 25,000 points. He did it in 782 games while Wilt Chamberlain did it in 691 games.
Overall, this is a really interesting card. The Topps Chromium tech is used subtly and carefully and you have some really interesting statistics that you just don’t find too often!
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