If you’d like to do a little sports card time travelling and have a fondness for old school hoops, there’s a new product that might be right in your three-point range.
The Dropping Dimes Foundation and Lana Sports have released a new set of cards honoring the top 30 players in the history of the American Basketball Association and to put a set together you’ll have to open wax packs.
The specially created 10-card packs even come with a stick of bubble gum (wrapped in its own pack to protect the cards).
Creating cards with photos often creates licensing issues, so the cards were created from oil paintings done by artist Ritchie Jacobson. Julius Erving, Rick Barry, Artis Gilmore, George McGinnis, Louie Dampier, Connie Hawkins, Spencer Haywood, George Gervin and Billy Cunningham are among the ABA greats on the checklist.
One in every six packs will have an autograph card: Barry, McGinnis, Dampier, Mack Calvin, Darrel Carrier, James Jones or Bob Netolicky.
The backs of the cards include biographical information, a cartoon, player stats and a message about the top 30 team.
Just as Topps did in the 1970s, the side panel of the wrapper includes an offer, this time for one of Lana’s full size ABA basketballs, that can also be purchased through the website.
The ten-card packs are available for $19.99.
All proceeds go to the Dropping Dimes Foundation, which helps ABA players, personnel and their families who are in need.
And about that gum?
“There is a stick of confectioners sugar covered bubble gum in each pack, just like the good old days and it loses its flavor after about one minute just like the good old days too,” joked Scott Tarter of Indianapolis-based Dropping Dimes. “That was by design. Anyone who remembers chewing that gum back in the 1970s and 80s, will be experiencing déjà vu.”
Two years ago, Lana Sports produced a boxed set with sketch cards for all of the players who suited up during the BA’s first season of 1967-68.
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