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Ok, I forget the story behind this card, but if my memory serves me, it is a Kelloggs card. It is extremely rare.

Rob. L shot me an email today saying that the author of the fruit label book that has the only copy of the Orange label out there says that she expects about 10 to exists (which doesn't really mean anything to me, but go ahead and make what you will of it).

So, as you guys have been noticing, my updates have become more intensive recently. The reason? Well, law school is officially in full swing. Translation? I am now officially bored out of my mind 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. Above is a picture of a 1977 basketball box. I didn't have it posted. Thanks again to Dr. Jason for the picture. I think there is a 1977 box currently for sale on ebay for ~$550.

The 1969 Uncut sheet that I was telling you guys about before is up for sale @ $15,000. Let me know if you are interested in purchasing it. Considering this is equivalent to the price of the set in PSA 8, that there are like 20-25 completed PSA 8 sets in existence, and there are only 3 uncut sheets ... it is probably a great bargain. Also, the sheet could probably be cut up and turned into 9s/10s.

A little boring, but hey, I didn't have the 1974 Topps box on my website. Thanks for Dr. Jason for sending the picture in.

So as you most know, Rob Lahammer is one of the largest vintage basketball arcade machine dealers in the country. Above are some pictures of some of the more modern pinball machines that you can get for your home to compliment your basketball card collection. The fastbreak machines can be electrically connected so that players can score against one another and actually play a basketball game.

Ranting and Raving ... AKA don't read, it's a waste of time .... on HSC Publications

So I quit working as a freelance writer for HSC publications. Why? The words incompetent, insulting, and 2nd grade come to mind. Example, I am given no deadlines, only interview leads, told to write articles based on the interviews, and THEN I am asked to "sell advertisements" with my articles ... to the extent where I don't get paid unless the advertisement is sold. So I reluctantly set up three interviews, hold two, and write one article within my first two weeks. I submit both my first article and conduct my second interview on the same day. Later that evening I get an email from the CEO saying "if you don't actually do something, we are going to fire you ... our other freelance writer has already scheduled 3 interviews." So that got the blood boiling and I quit right then and there saying "don't have me sell advertisements, set me up the interviews, and like I said before, I can only do a limited number of articles a month" (its not like I was doing it for the money anyway ... $100). So the funny thing is that I get an email saying that the article I submitted was one of the best they have ever received. Anyway, I will post the article sometime later in the week. H.S.C. publications ... High-School Cronies (yes, I purposely did not use the other C word ... I want to keep this site R at most ... not NC-17) Publishing

So I like how most of these posts have been introducing new cards to the site ... so why not continue this. Here we have some Nabisko Canadian cards from the 1950s.

Who needs Mastros ... when you have this website. So, I was approached by an old time collector who has a really rare item. He has a 1969 Topps Uncut Sheet. He wants me to sell it for him. If you are interested in this gem then email me. This would make only the third I know of. THIS SHEET HAS THE ENTIRE SET ON IT!!!! (I have a picture of the most recent one to surface in my Uncut Sheet section).

I added a picture of the 1971 Topps pack. Thanks to Dr. Jason (who I now put into our contributor's section. Rob gave me a call yesterday and says that he thinks the 1971 pack is probably rarer than the 1961 pack. I told him possibly. I said that I would have disagreed a few years ago, but that I know of so many 1961s that were recently opened. The great thing ... they both sell for about the same price ... $600.

So we got another user on the message boards today. Good job us. Now, let's get some more people on there. We definitely have our own little community. I want to see everyone who is a repeat user on that board. I mean let's face it ... imagine logging into the board every day during your lunch break and seeing 10 new interesting posts ... that are ... all vintage basketball related. Yes!!!!!

So you guys need to start checking www.lahammer.com on a daily basis. I received word from Rob himself that he has been completely redoing his site and that he will load it up sometime soon. If Rob takes pictures of even 1/10th of his collection ... then my site will be obsolete.

First off, thanks to Rob L. for the picture. This is a very rare label that was placed on Orange crates in the 1930s. The label was done by the same company that did the basketball lemon crate label. How rare is this label? Well, there is only one known in all of the world. Who owns it? The lady who has catalogued and written "the book" on fruit labels (don't remember her name off the top of my head). Apparently, she says that she has never seen or heard of another one of these basketball labels.

So my plan for revamping my website this summer failed. School starts this evening. This could be a good thing for the site though ... I mean last year during school I got so bored that I would spend the 3 hours updating the site (maybe this year will be the same).

My sources (read as Rob L.) are telling me that there will be some awesome stuff at Mr. Mint's last auction. Up for grabs will apparently be a 1968 Topps Test Chamberlain and a 1968 Topps Test Dave Debusscherre (how bad did I spell that one?).

There were 2 cards in this test set. A Chamberlain and a Connie Hawkins. They were Tall Boys and had a green background. What is really cool is that these cards actually utilized the longated pictures to depict action shots. The chamberlain shows a picture of him dunking.

Slowly but surely people are starting to sign up for the discussion boards. Sofar we have like 8 people on there and it seems like everyday someone posts something new. If you haven't already done so ... sign up for the boards so that we can have our own little vintage basketball card community.

I added a picture of a 1973 GAI 7 wax pack that I got off ebay last night for $95. This should be an example of how you should have multiple searches to find the same thing. If you did "GAI Pack" you would not have found this because it had a title of "GA pack". The pack should have gone for about $300. In terms of rarity of packs, the 1973 is up there ... in fact the list probably looks something like this 1957, 1948, 1961, 1971, 1973, 1969, 1970, 1972 ... And the 1961 pack has only just moved back to third ... a few years ago a few cases were found ... but most of those packs have been opened up by now.

I also added a picture of a 1979 Uncut sheet ... of Boxes ... You could have picked this up on ebay last week for $40 ... Too bad I missed the end of the auction ... its kind of cool.

Don't worry, I'm still around. I should post a lot more when school starts. :-) I love how I do more for this site when I'm in school and bored to death then when its summertime and I actually have "free" time.

Stop paying ridiculous prices for the 1969 Tall Boys. They are harder to maintain in high grade ... but there are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands more tall boys out there then the 57s and 48s. Look at the population reports. The 1969s are now EASY to find in PSA 8 and PSA 9. All of them are. Now look at the 1957s. So there are 2 Havlicek PSA 9s ... so what? I will bet anyone $100 that within the next two and a half years the number of PSA 9 Havliceks doubles (2.5 is the number of years Topps has been grading Tall Boys).

Damn. I can't figure out which one is better. I have to make a choice TOMORROW since I got rid of my "worst BFH of the two." As of now ... I'm leaning towards getting rid of the one with the rip ... and keeping the one with the fold. Send me an email with what you think is the better one.

I received this from the owner of the B-33 set. I do not have time to integrate it yet. Thanks yet again to Pat V.

"You need to add St. Louis and Syracuse to your list.

Then you need to combine Leland and Stanford - they are the same.

You add these two...make it "Leland Stanford" you get 30 felts...Bucknell being the felt that noone has ever seen.

Hank said Syracuse is very rare as well.

In terms of the B-16 felts...Hank says he has only knows of 5 Western Kentucky felts total - I presently have two of them (long story)."

1973/74 TOPPS BASKETBALL RACK PACK (DR. J) -- Even though I WILL bid on it because I do not have one ... this is the first one I've seen on ebay in about a year. It should only go for $300, but it looks like it is already above that. Its a shame about this particular rack because the top cards are all extremely offcenter. What does this mean? It means that all the cards inside are probably off-center too. But if you open this rack ... I'm going to hurt you. The 1973 rack is very very rare. You will hear all the major dealers say that this is the earliest rack. However, I'm pretty sure that I know of a 1971 rack pack out there.

So even fewer people have probably seen this set, in its entirety, then people have seen the 1968 Topps Test Chamberlain. This is the only known complete B-33 set in existence (and some B-16s are thrown in there for symmetry. Enjoy. Everyone needs to thank Pat V. for the pic!!!

Today, in my opinion, marks the best update that I've ever done to this site. It took me two years to get all these pictures together. Today marks two occasions. It is the first time that I unveil the newest prototype page for the Ultimate Vintage Basketball Guide. More importantly, it is the first time that 99.9% of you will see the completed 1968 Topps Test Puzzle.

Here are the prototype page 1 and page 4 of the 1968 Topps Test section in my guide. PAGE 4 is the one with the coolest damn thing you will see all week (unless you see Natalie Portman naked of course and she says "hop on in"). The files are TIFF files ... hopefully you have a viewer for them ... they are large ... but its the best I could do while maintaining quality. IF VIEWING DIRECTLY FAILS ... DOWNLOAD IT AND THEN CLICK ON IT (b/c on some computers quicktime will try and view it and that won't work)

Now, I am going to leave a post on the message board explaining all the crazy stuff that I am doing to completely change the way people look at a price guide. I've talked to most of the main collectors about the way I approached the guide and most of them loved the initial ideas ... which you can see on page 1. Now ... don't mind the prices or the rarities that I placed down ... I put those down in haste and they are basically meaningless.

There is the Mullen Rarity System™ ... R0 means 0 are known, but the card is expected to exist ... R1 = 5 or less ... R2 = 10 or less ... R3 = 25 or less ... Set rarity means how many sets are known ... Common rarity means how many total cards are out there (how easy it is to find a card if you really look for it) ...

Instead of just pricing everything by EX or NRMT ... there is the Mullen Pricing System™. For each issue, I will chose what an average, below average, and above average card would be FOR THAT SET ... prices would follow according to that condition.

There is also a Mullen Condition Scale™ ... but you can kind of guess what its like looking at it.

There is a TR and MR distinction ... TR is the TRUE rookie and MR is the MAINSTREAM rookie.

POST TO THE BOARDS. IMAGINE IF EVERY DAY DURING LUNCH YOU COULD CHECK THE BOARDS AND SEE THAT 10 VINTAGE COLLECTORS ALL HAD SOMETHING NEW TO SAY!!!

I opened a 1980 pack today and all the cards in it were Gem ... I'll post pictures later.