Context-1999-00 Cards: My collecting is very limited after the year 2000. Mainly because you can’t collect everything, so I prefer staying in the years when I grew up. But some of that reason is because the number of sets in 1999-00 became a bit too much for me to keep track of. Take Topps for example. In 1998-99, you basically had Topps, Chrome, Stadium Club, Finest and Bowman’s Best. But in 1999-00, you still have Topps, Chrome, Stadium Club, Finest and Bowman’s Best, but you also have Stadium Club Chrome, Gallery, Gold Label and Tipoff. I completely understand that if you collect a particular player there was now more enjoyment in searching, more variety… But for those of us that like to dabble in the whole hobby and have a bit to represent each set, it was a lot of change at once.
With the addition of so many sets to the hobby, the already existing sets didn’t change too much. The set stayed slightly higher in price, almost pushing $1 a card now at six cards for five dollars. But Bowman’s Best continued to keep their set compact at 133 cards in 1999-2000. The set had three parts as usual. This year was 90 veteran base cards, 10 Best Performers (five veterans and five rookies), and 33 rookie cards forming their own subset at the end of the set. The rookies were inserted one per pack. This #104 Lamar Odom card is the fourth rookie in that final subset at the end, matching his position as the fourth pick in the draft. It’s a nice reminder that he only played college ball for one year before being snatched up by the Clippers. The entire set is visually very clear with the base cards having a gold background, the best performers have backgrounds in a team color and, as you can see with this card, the rookies have a silver background.
As they had been doing, Bowman’s Best numbered the parallel sets, a print run of 400 for the Refractors and 100 for the Atomic Refractors.
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