It is time to roll the dice again, but isn't that what we do every year. Many of us ,dealers and collectors alike, are about to try to judge an entire draft class, and then sift out some sure bets. I am no different, and have to admit I feel the least sure of myself when it comes to placing my bets or giving me two cents on who and what you should bank on in Basketball

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First, I'll give you some pointers as you get to collecting this NBA season that I am more confident in. One, go for rookies, and or, go high end. This suggestion comes from years of observation and experience. This one has to do primarily with age of average collector divided between the three big sports. I have been doing Sports Card shows regularly for about fifth-teen years. Undoubtedly if you approach my table to peruse my hobby box section, I can usually guess what sport you are looking for by the number of wrinkles on your face. In general if you are over 55, you want baseball and very often are concerned how ever many boxes it will take to get a set. if you are 40-55, you want football and are concerned mostly about number of hits [ autos or memorabilia] and if college or pro uniform for the rookies. lastly, if under 40, you are looking for basketball and often the best quality, shortest printed, very specific product and you don't mind paying a premium. To elaborate on this group a little more. They do not remember .50 packs of cards and they have always had less product choice in the collecting world. They also probably collected as kids and now are getting established in their careers and would rather have ten premium cards than the quantities of monster box commons we would boast about in the early 1990's.

So what else will keep the Basketball hobby on its toes this year?? You have heard it before it is the often dreaded Allocations.[ Allocations= how many boxes of a product I can get from a distributor/wholesaler/direct at the standard pre secondary market release price] To be honest, none seem worse than Basketball. As I begin to stretch out the wings of my business nothing brings me back down to earth quicker than hearing " you are allocated 2 boxes of Immaculate NBA this year". I want to protest, don't you know who I am? Doesn't my couple hundred thousand spent on Football mean anything? Nope. It is based on what I have done in Basketball before especially back about 4 years ago when I had a smaller business and almost no Basketball card collecting customers. So nothing in the near future says their will be enough Basketball, especially high end. My suggestion is bust less by limiting the products you will go after and limiting your player search, especially on those troublesome rookies. So next time we will focus on those specific NBA Draft players that are more "sure bets" for your collecting dollar.

Just 3 years ago maybe 15% were allocated - now almost 80%.

So this weeks new product is already selling close to $150 a box, if you can even find it.

Configuration: 6 pack per box. 18 cards per pack.

PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS
- In Turning Pro Signatures, look for autographs from top current and retired players in both their college and NBA uniforms.
- Look for on-card autographs from this year’s rookie class in the RPS College Ticket set.
- Find autographs from this year’s top international prospects in the International Ticket set!
- The popular College Tickets subset features autographs from the 2018 NBA Draft and includes sequentially numbered Draft Tickets, Playoff Tickets, Championship Tickets, Cracked Ice Tickets and Printing Plate parallels.
- Look for 6 autographs in each box!

BOX BREAK
- 6 Autographs
- 1 Parallel
- 35 Season Tickets Base
- 35 Season Ticket Variation
- 30 Inserts