Refractors Rule!

So, last week I wrote about acetate cards and how they're awesome. This week, I'm going to focus on my other 90's insert fixation... REFRACTORS! The first time I remember pulling a refractor was when I was in my local card shop back in 1994. I was busting a few packs of 1993/94 Topps Finest basketball in search for a Penny, Webber, Mashburn, or even a Vin Baker rookie... when all of a sudden I hit the jackpot... a refractor of Larry Bird. To be honest, I hate the Celtics and almost traded it away for a few more packs of cards... but luckily... another customer talked me into holding on to it. And... to this day... I still have it somewhere in my collection.

Since then, my love for refractors have come and gone. I've gone through stages where I traded them away... and I have even given some away. However, since I've entered back into this hobby... I'm on a mission to pick up some of the sets that I collected back in the 90's.

First up... the 1996/97 Topps Holding Court refractor set. Years ago, I had 6 or 7 (no Jordan or Shaq) of these and was scouring the AOL message boards trying to finish the set. A few years down the road, the set was quickly forgotten and eventually, I either sold or gave the cards away.

Well... last week I came across this set on eBay and I knew that I had to have it. So $47 later... and voila... here it is... in my PC. I know that a lot of people will probably feel that I spent way too much on this set. But I figure... it makes me happy and it'd probably cost a lot more for me to try to build it.

They were found in Series 1 boxes at a rate of 1:108 hobby/retail packs. That means collectors could pull them in 1 out of 3 boxes on average. The odds were a little better in jumbo boxes, falling into packs at a rate of 1 per 72 packs. Translation: 1 in 3 jumbo boxes. There's a total of 15 cards in the set, with Jordan and Shaq being the biggest names. There's also other major names like the Admiral and the Mailman. However, I'm not sure why they included Cedric Ceballos over Sir Charles. Either way, there are a lot more stars and superstars compared to scrubs.

I know that cards during that era were way overproduced, but still... I'm just stoked that I have finally added the first complete refractor set to my PC.