The Splendid Sports Blog
Brand New Public Hobby Info About One Of Tom Brady’s Best Football Cards
In the sports card hobby “firsts” matter. There’s increased demand for the first type of card, like the first refractor cards with 1993 Finest. Premium prices are also paid for the first year of a card brand, such as 1952 Topps and 2012 Panini Prizm. And for player collectors, a player’s first card(s) (rookie cards)…
How Many T206 Honus Wagner Cards Exist? Is It The Rarest Baseball Card?
The 1909 T206 Honus Wagner baseball card is considered by many in the sports card hobby to be the Holy Grail card. Along with the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card, it’s definitely the most famous and most valuable baseball card of all-time. The 2 most common questions I hear regarding the T206 Honus Wagner are…
The First Refractor Cards. 1993 Topps Finest Refractor Sports Cards
It’s been called the modern version 1952 Topps. It’s one of the most important sports card sets of all time. Topps went all-in in 1993 with their most premium baseball card set to date, the famous 1993 Topps Finest set with parallel issue refractors. It was the first year set of Topps Finest and the…
1998 Donruss Crusade Baseball & Football Cards. 90’s Insert Card Royalty.
1998 Donruss Crusades The late 1990’s was a magical time for sports cards. Even though the legendary parallel cards like the PMGs, Essential Credentials and Star Rubies get the most attention, some collectors define the time period by the insert cards. Perhaps the greatest insert cards of the entire era are the Donruss Crusade baseball…
The Splendid Sports 1999 Gem Masters Holy Grail Card Find
Last year, a reader of our PMG article contacted us about the 1999 Metal Universe Gem Masters 1/1 Jeff Bagwell card below, that had been sitting in a screw down holder for 25 years. Listen to the full story here.
1998-1999 Fleer Brilliants 24KT Gold Cards. A Pure Sports Card One-Hit-Wonder
A Pure Sports Card One-Hit-Wonder For many sports card collectors the late 1990’s was the golden era. The card manufacturers were producing technologically innovative and legendary designs. This era is known for its rare and scarce parallels cards such as the PMG, Essential Credentials and Star Rubies. While those 3 had multi-year runs, there is…
Top 10 Willie Mays Dream Cards
Top 10 Best Willie Mays Vintage Baseball Cards We all love Willie Mays! He’s perhaps the greatest all-around baseball player ever and another inner-circle sports card hobby immortal. We’re honored to have one of the greatest Willie Mays collectors in the world, Nicolo, take us through his top 10 Mays cards. He currently owns the…
How To Sell My Baseball Cards? Are My Baseball Cards Worth Anything?
Are My Baseball Cards Valuable? Can I Sell Them? By Clemente Collector (Theo) When doing a Google search for “how to sell baseball cards”, the first thing that comes up are sites that want to buy your cards. That’s very unfortunate and one of the issues with the sports card hobby right now. People simply…
Top 10 Best Roberto Clemente Vintage Baseball Cards. Rare & Valuable!
The Top 10 Best Roberto Clemente Cards When it comes to vintage baseball cards, the great Roberto Clemente resides in the inner circle of collectability. Who better to take us through 10 dream Clemente cards than Theo of the Clemente Collector YouTube channel. Here’s Theo: I’m a Roberto Clemente super collector and I wanted to…
The History Of The Skybox Star Rubies Parallel Sports Cards
The History Of The Skybox Star Rubies With Card Images Sports cards in the mid to late 1990’s are known for their new technologies and flashy, innovative designs. This era of sports cards is also famous for rare, serial-numbered parallel cards like the Precious Metal Gems (PMG) and Essential Credentials. Right up there in popularity…
The History Of Essential Credentials Sports Cards (1996-2005) – Basketball, Baseball & Football
The History Of The Essential Credentials Sports Cards (1996-2005) With Card Images In a recent article we highlighted the sports card hobby’s most iconic and coveted parallels, the Precious Metal Gems (PMG) cards. Another beloved parallel, not far behind the PMG, are the Essential Credentials cards from the Skybox / Fleer E-X brand. While the…
The Most Expensive Michael Jordan Basketball Card Ever Sold
Michael Jordan is without question the king of basketball cards. As the greatest player in NBA history, it’s no surprise that he has one of the largest and most passionate collector bases in the sports card hobby. A common question is what’s Michael Jordan’s most expensive card? Many would answer that question with his 1997…
The Most Expensive Sports Cards Ever Sold. Baseball, Basketball, Football & Hockey!
While most of us mere mortal sports card collectors never have and never will play in this arena, it can be fun to look at the most expensive sports cards of all time. We can look at the various factors of rarity, popularity and condition that determine the ultimate price paid for a sports card…
The Top 10 Most Collectible Football Players Of The 1990s
1990s sports card collector Zanoo23_sportscards on Instagram recently conducted a vote on the most collectible baseball and football players of the 90s. Here are the final top 10 rankings of the football vote: Barry Sanders Jerry Rice Brett Favre Peyton Manning Randy Moss Emmitt Smith Deion Sanders Dan Marino John Elway Steve Young What does “collectible”…
How Many 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Cards Exist? How Much Are They Worth?
It’s the most popular sports card ever. While the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card #311 is not his rookie card (that would be his 1951 Bowman card), it is his first Topps card and quite frankly the most iconic sports card in history. If you’re curious as to why Mickey Mantle cards continue to command…