Basketball card collectors know 1948 Bowman, the first all-basketball set, but the Bowman name disappears from basketball cards until 1996-97 when Topps revived it with Bowman’s Best. These were six-card packs for $3.99, but, with only 125 cards, there’s a higher percentage of stars. After the first 80 base cards, there are 25 rookie cards. This is the fifth card in that subset, the #R5 Ray Allen. These cards belong to the main set, they’re just numbered separately with an “R” prefix. Kobe Bryant is the highlight of the rookie subset, but this was a strong collection of rookies this year and Ray Allen is certainly a nice card from the set. He was the fifth pick in the draft and is the fifth card in this rookies subset, but the set doesn’t follow draft order exactly. Stephon Marbury appears second in this subset, even though he was drafted fourth. Ray Allen was actually selected by the Timberwolves and then immediately traded to the Bucks.
These cards felt like earlier Topps Finest and they used the exact same production process as you can see from the patents and trademarks mentioned on the back. But in Bowman’s Best, the Chromium technology is incorporated into the photos more strategically without intruding too much. Most obviously, the border… There’s a wavy border on the left with the last name’s initial, and two rectangles on the bottom finishing the name. The gold and silver in the rookies are inverted from the base cards. The base cards have gold on the left and first name and silver on the bottom rectangle. The rookies switch the silver and gold. More interestingly, select items use Chromium for a metallic look. For example, colors on jerseys display the Chromium effect while the white is left simpler. We’ve looked at rookie cards like Stephon Marbury and Shareef Abdur-Rahim where the whole jersey shines. But this Ray Allen card is a bit simpler. You can see the Chromium effect in the purple of the Bucks jersey but, with more white here, the photo is simpler. The jerseys from the Marbury and Abdur-Rahim almost take priority over the players themselves. That’s not the case here. So maybe the more subtle application of the metallic glimmer is better.
Color and information is everywhere on the reverse. Most of the rookies annoyingly point out that junior high school statistics are unavailable, leaving an awkward line in the stat box. But the stats on this Ray Allen card are cleaned up and limited to his three college seasons. And as with all ’96-97 Bowman’s Best cards, you get an interesting selection of statistics. There’s “Points + Assists per Minute” (PTS + AST / MIN), showing how a player contributes to the scoreboard, whether through an assist or scoring, during every minute they play. There’s “Steals + Assists to Turnovers” another stat you don’t see very often on your cards. Three pointers per field goal made is a strong one for Ray Allen. You can see that on third of his field goals were three-pointers, a very useful stat to see. “Points per Field Goal Attempt” is another rare stat for a basketball card that incorporates more information than simple field goal %. Below the stat box are “SUPER SKILL” and “SUPER STAT” notes. The “SUPER SKILL” is usually pointless, but the “SUPER STAT” is always interesting. We learn that Ray Allen is second at UConn for most points in a season with 818 during the 1995-96 season.
Extra (What is Chromium Technology): Starting with Finest, Topps was innovating the actual card construction. They called it “Chromium” technology and it provided a unique, metallic shine. What was this technology? I want to draw your attention to a very informative blog post about how these cards were made. The author saw that Chrome printing plates were reversed from regular Topps. So he took apart a Chrome card, looked up the patents, and discovered that the ink is actually printed behind a clear plastic section that makes the front. This section is joined to foil, so think of the card as a sandwich…top plastic part, ink underneath that, then a foil part. To show that the ink isn’t on the front, he sanded the front. It scuffs the card, but no ink comes off. He also believes that the clear, protective coating on early Finest cards was probably used to make later Chrome cards, but the company removes it after printing before packaging. It’s a great blog post and really worth a read! And when you see the patents, you’ll realize just how much effort Topps was putting into this design.
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