Cheap Cool Cards #2: 1994 Flair Hot Numbers

It's 7:30pm in sunny San Jose, California and it's currently 95 degrees outside on my patio. Luckily, I was in my air conditioned classroom for most of my day. However, when I came home at around 5:15, the outdoor thermometer read 106 degrees. That's too hot for my taste. I can't wait until things cool down later on this week. It's suppose to be in the high 60's by this Saturday. What in the heck is wrong with this picture?

Anyways... I figured since it was so flippin' HOT that I'd go ahead and spotlight one of my favorite cheap insert sets. It's the Flair "Hot Numbers" inserts from the mid 90's.

Card(s): 94/95 Flair "Hot Numbers" #12 S. O'Neal & 1994 Ultra "Flair Hot Numbers" #11 B. Sanders

Beckett Value: $10 for the O'Neal & $3 for the Sanders

COMC Price: $1 for the O'Neal& $.73 for the Sanders

The basketball version were pulled at a rate of 1 out of 6 packs. Since there were 24 packs per box, you'd pull around 4 of these per box. There are a total of 20 cards in the set, so you'd have to open 5 boxes with perfect collation to build the set, which currently books in Beckett for $60. The O'Neal is the most expensive card, however there are other big names that you could pull: Patrick Ewing, John Stockton, Scottie Pippen, and David Robinson are all in the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately Jordan retired after the 92/93 season and didn't return until late in the 94/95 season, so he wasn't included in this product.

I'm not sure what the odds are on the football product. However, the "Hot Numbers" inserts were inserted into series 2 Ultra football boxes and labeled as a Flair insert. Since boxes of this stuff can be found for less than $15 online, you can understand why the value of the Sanders is only $3. In fact, the whole 15 card set, which includes superstars like Joe Montana, John Elway, Dan Marino, and Emmitt Smith lists for only $20 in Beckett.

So, these cards are definitely cheap... but I totally think they're cool. I've always loved the mid 90's Flair products. They feature a heavier card stock and a nice glossy finish. Both cards feature gold foil text on the front and back. The front design features numbers that coincide with the featured player, like their jersey number and key stats.

The back of the cards feature a paragraph summarizing the player's accomplishments and also includes another photo.

Neither of these cards will ever be worth more than a value meal at Burger King, but they're still really cool in my eyes.

Now for today's question of the day... What part of the world do you live in and how warm/cold was it today? If you're not sure, you can use weather.com to help you figure it out.

Since we're reaching the end of the line for this contest, I'm going to throw out another bonus question. Tomorrow's post will feature my Kenner Starting Line-Up collection. It features A's, Lakers, Packers, Seahawks, and even some San Jose Sharks players.

The bonus question is.... how many SLU figures do I have of each team? The person closest to the number will win 2 bonus points. Since there are 5 teams, there are 5 opportunities to win. I don't care if you go over, however I will not allow duplicate entries. As soon as someone guesses a number for a particular team, nobody else can use that number (for that particular team). In other words, once someone guess 200 A's figures, nobody else can guess 200 A's figures.

Here's a sample entry:

A's - 900 figures

Lakers - 900 figures

Packers - 800 figures

Seahawks -800 figures

Sharks - 700 figures

I'll give you a hint, those numbers are totally exaggerated. If you added up all of my figures they total less than 40.

So best of luck to all who participate. Hopefully this will allow some of you to catch up to our point leaders, which are featured below:

Spastikmooss - 22 points

Hoopography - 21 points

Tony MC - 20 points

G Moses - 18 points

82Redbirds - 18 points

Sal - 16 points

BA Benny - 14 points

TJ - 12 points

Play at the Plate - 10 points

Cam - 9 points

dkwilson - 9 points

Steve D - 9 points

night owl - 9 points

Martyn - 8 points

John - 6 points

Jeremy - 4 points

Redsox101 - 4 points

(...Joe) - 2 points

Captain Canuck - 1 point

longlivethewho - 1 point

The Ranter - 1 point

lonestarr - 1 point

timmy v - 1 point

dodgerbobble - 1 point

See ya tomorrow! Good night.