I stopped by a local card shop over the weekend, mainly to purchase a new 800 count BCW box to store some duplicates I am collecting for my son. While I was there, I saw a box of cards for sale that had a row of 90s basketball base cards.
I picked up a total of 7 cards from the box. One was a 1993-94 Finest card of Dikembe Mutombo. When I got home I had to compare it against the other cards I have from that set because I find it a little hard to tell if it is a refractor in that release. Luckily, I do have 1 refractor from that set so I was able to confirm that it was a base card.
I also purchased 2 cards from 1997-98 Finest. One of Ray Allen and the other of Alonzo Mourning. Not long ago I ended up peeling all the protective films off my Finest cards because some of them were starting to look cloudy and forming little bubbles. I was initially worried that peeling cards over 20 years old would cause damage to the card. But all my cards peeled without any issue, and they look a lot better now in my opinion. Peeling the cards also is strangely satisfying, so I made sure I peeled these as well before adding them to my physical collection.
The last basketball cards I purchased for the day was a few cards from 1995-96 Fleer. This is the first set of cards that I ever purchased myself when I was a kid. I used to get packs of these at Smitty's Grocery Store which no longer exists. I unfortunately threw most of my cards away years ago when I moved out on my own. I didn't think I would start collecting cards again. The only card I had left from that set was the Kevin Garnett RC that I kept. One of the cards I purchased was a Patrick Ewing base card, and a Firm Foundation subset card for each of Ewing, David Robinson, and Hakeem. I always liked the look of the Firm Foundation cards, so finding 3 to add was pretty cool.
Finally, I was looking for something small I could grab for my son as well. I came across some packs of E.T. cards so I grabbed one of those for him. That was actually the most expensive item I purchased that day. We had recently rented E.T. from the library and he really liked that movie. So I thought he would enjoy getting some trading cards. He had 2 duplicates in the pack, and he asked me what he was supposed to do with the extra cards. I told him that he can either keep them, or he can give them to a friend. Later during the day he gave me those 2 cards and said he wanted me to have them for my collection.
I spent a total of 7 dollars on my trip. I was able to get a box for storage that I needed, some 90s basketball card nostalgia, and a little bit of the hobby to share with my son. Overall I would say this was a pretty good trip.
