There is some controversy over the first basketball card.  Some collectors believe strongly that it was an 1899 Enameling College colors card, but most collectors feel that the very first card was a Murad tobacco card in 1910, followed—distantly, it would appear—by basketball cards in the 1933 Sport Kings set.

            But the first established set of basketball cards appeared in 1948.  It was issued by Bowman and featured George Mikan, who was voted by the Associated Press as the greatest basketball player in the first half of the twentieth century.  He was a center for Chicago’s DePaul University, and was the most dominant player of his era.  Then he starred for the Lakers when they were based in Minneapolis.  Mikan’s Bowman card, #69, is worth upwards of $2,000, depending, naturally, on condition. 

            Most collectors, however, are more likely to own cards from the 1957-1958 Topps set, and the 1961-1962 Fleer set.  That’s because many of the baby boomer collectors are more familiar with the players who made up those sets.  For example, the most valuable card in the Topps 1957-1958 set is of the incomparable Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics.  That card, #77, generally costs between $1,000 and $2,000.  His renowned teammate, Bob Cousy, is also part of that set, as is the St. Louis Hawks’ power forward Bob Pettit.  Because the Topps set was the first one issued in many years, it contains the highly valued rookie cards of the superstars who had been dominating the game for several seasons. 

            The same claim can be made for the Fleer set of 1961-1962.  One unique characteristic of that set is that there were often two cards for many of the stars.  There would be the head shot and an action photo.  Personally, I prefer to see their faces clearly, but other collectors go for the action.  That’s not unusual.  Ask the same question to two collectors and you may well get two different answers. 

            Altogether, the Fleer set contains sixty-six cards, with twenty-two of those action photographs.  New stars appeared in the Fleer offering, including Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, and Elgin Baylor.  But the biggest star—in every sense of the word—was Wilt Chamberlain.  In fact, when my mother handed over a bag full of that Fleer set that I had collected in childhood, I was hoping and praying that there would be a card with a shot of Chamberlain’s face.  Luckily, there was.  It was a bit off-center, but it was there, along with a Robertson and a Baylor card.  What a bonanza!  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  I really owe my mother for saving those cards.  That Chamberlain Fleer 1961-1962 rookie card, #8, can fetch up to $1,000.  The Jerry West, #43, and the Oscar Robertson, #36, are worth several hundred dollars apiece.

            But make no bones about it, the most collectible basketball card of all time is of the great Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls.  A pristine copy of Jordan’s 1986-1987 Fleer rookie card is the Holy Grail of hoops cards.  One of those rookie cards was submitted to Beckett Grading Services, which awarded it a grade 10.  Virtually perfect, in other words.  Now, are you ready for this.  That card, which a collector bought for $6,300, went on to sell for $100,000, easily breaking the previous sales record for a single basketball card by more than $20,000.

            Jordan’s Fleer rookie card has always been a treasure, but selling it for six figures certainly elevates it to legendary status, as befits the high-flying wonder from the University of North Carolina. 

            Now, let’s power down just a bit and look at basketball card sets at the local and regional levels, such as the ones from Essex Hot Dogs, Kahn’s Wieners, and Royal Dessert.  Those names may sound obscure to you, but to collectors they still mean plenty.  The Royal Dessert set was issued in 1950 and consisted of eight of the pioneers of the present day NBA.  The “Royal Stars of Basketball” were Fred Schaus, Dick McGuire, Jack Nichols, Frank Brian, Joe Fulks, George Mikan, Jim Pollard, and Harry E. Jeanette.  A hoops card collector knows that he or she will most likely need to buy single cards of that set, if and when they become available.  And they’ll be costly, with each card selling for upwards of several thousand dollars.

Sports Memorabilia Mysteries

         Through the years there have been a few pieces of sports memorabilia that have been in a class by themselves.  The Honus Wagner card, the Chamberlain rookie jersey, a Joe Jackson bat, and a few other items are real collector gems.

And there are always a couple of mysteries that have remained.  For one, what happened to the basketball that Chamberlain used to score his hundredth point on March 2, 1962 against the New York Knicks?   One story has it that in all the hoopla with the hundredth point, that a kid went on the court that night in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and ran off with the ball.  A ball that purported to be the one Wilt the Stilt used went on that memorable occasion was about to be auctioned in 2004, but the auction house withdrew it when the ball’s provenance could not be verified.  By the way, in that memorable game, Wilt made 36 of 63 field goal attempts and believe it or not, 28 of 32 free throws.  The game was actually stopped with 46 seconds remaining, with Philadelphia beating New York 169 – 147, in front of 4,124 people.

Another mysterious item has been the baseball that Bobby Thomson hit for a homer as the New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1951 National League playoff.  This was the famous“The Shot Heard ‘Round the World”.

No one knows with absolute certainty what happened to that ball, but for all these years a fan, Bill Moore, has claimed that he’s owned it.  Moore’s ball was auctioned off recently on Lelands.com, and fetched $47,824.  To date, that ball seems to have been the ball that was hit by Thomson.

As the story goes, two days after Thomson homered off Ralph Brancato to clinch the pennant for the Giants on October 3, 1951, Harold Moore, Bill’s father, found him playing with friends in their Queens neighborhood and handed him a ball.  The father said it was a gift from a co-worker who caught it at the game, and gave it to him because he did not have any kids and knew that Bill Moore loved baseball.

Recently, Lelands bought the ball from Moore, and promoted the ball as possibly being “The Ball.”  Bidding was slow until near the close of the auction, but then picked up.  If someone can prove that the auctioned ball is really “The Ball,” its stock would rise to probably around a million dollars.

            But until that time, the mysteries of the Bobby Thomson ball, as well as the Wilt Chamberlain basketball, linger.

Solve either one of those mysteries and you could make a small fortune, but you’d become an instant millionaire if you found some old T206 Honus Wagner cards in pristine condition.

          As the baseball season gets underway, many of us begin thinking of what sports valuables we may have hidden in a large box in the attic or in the basement. Possibly there is some valuable card in a file cabinet, or for sure, in an old shoebox. You just know that you have something stored away that you know will be the next major find. Whatever you have in that unopened box will make headlines across the country. Guess what? You probably won’t find anything, and if you do, those old baseball cards won’t be worth much.

       But you never know. No, you don’t. Your discovery just might be worth a little money, say a few hundred thousand dollars or even more. That’s right. There are a few sports items that have not yet been discovered that are worth a small fortune.

        But you need to know that you are looking for, so that when you come across one of these jewels in your basement, you will know what you have and you can tell your boss that you are quitting. And since this is baseball season, lets just focus on baseball goodies.

        Let's start with Jackie Robinson’s first bat, back in 1947. For those of you unfamiliar with Jackie Robinson, he was the first African American player to play in the Major Leagues. The General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, was looking for just the right player to break the color barrier, and he found that player in Robinson. Robinson, who lettered in four sports at UCLA, was a second baseman with enormous talent, and the temperament to endure the constant heckling. He played several seasons for the Dodgers, up until the time the Dodgers wanted to trade him to their hated enemy the New York Giants, in exchange for pitcher Dick Littlefield. Robinson retired at that point, and later became a champion in the Civil Rights movement. If you go to any Major League park, his number 42 will be displayed as a retired number of that home team. Every Major League team has retired his number.

        Not to be lost in all the hoopla that Robinson was the first African American player, is the fact that he was an exceptionally good baseball player, an All Star by anyone’s standards.

         So where is the bat that Jackie Robinson used in his debut on April 15, 1947? It is a pretty safe bet to say that no one on the field that day had any idea of the impact that Robinson’s playing would have on the game of baseball and on American society. Sure, players and fans alike knew that baseball would be changing, but not to the degree that it has.

         So again, I ask, where is the bat that Jackie Robinson first used in his opening game on April 15, 1947? Could it be the bat that you have lying around that your father gave you? But oh, by the way, don’t quit your day job yet.