Just a reminder of my priority for picking up autographs; 1a. Certified Pacers autographs 1b. Non-Certified Pacers autograph that I have personally obtained (in person or TTM) 2a. Certified Non-Pacers autographs 2b. Non-Certified Non-Pacers autographs that I have personally obtained (in person or TTM) 3. Non-Certified Pacers autographs that I have not personally obtained 4. Non-Certified Non-Pacers autographs that I have not personally obtained And as always, thanks to TCDB and Basketball Reference for the wealth of information. Autographs of Pacers with Last Name starting with ‘E’ – 4 of ..read more

I often use TCDB.com as a resource for finding cards for my Pacers collections. I’ve had some luck finding cards there that ei on eBay, COMC, or elsewhere. I’d call it one of the tools in my collecting ‘belt’. When there’s a card I’m after, I usually check there first to see if anyone has the card available for trade or sale. Sometimes I can make a quick swap and save some hobby funds, and I’ve found most of the folks I’ve interacted with to be friendly and willing to help out fellow collectors. I had a great interaction recently with BucCollector on TCDB. In my search for Pacers autograph car ..read more

Had a couple more recent autograph requests through the mail recently, and they happen to be two Pacers centers from the 2000s. The Pacers traded Brad Miller to the Sacramento Kings in 2003, and in return picked up a locker room favorite in the charismatic center Scot Pollard. #31 with other teams, he obviously couldn’t be #31 with the Pacers, so he went with 62. This makes the inscription on these two cards that much better. The second center is one of my all-time favorites. Jeff Foster played his entire career with the Pacers, starting a little under half of them (345). Ferocious on the gl ..read more

Within the last month, I started writing to former Pacers along with my 6 year old son, hoping to get responses with answers to questions, and some cards signed as well for the Pacers autograph collection. Two of the first responses were from Adrian Dantley and Bob Arnzen. Adrian Dantley is a fantastic through the mail (TTM) signer, a Hall of Famer, and a former Pacer, so I knew I needed to send some mail to him. The problem was, as I mentioned in my writeup of Pacers players with lasts names starting with ‘D’, Dantley doesn’t have any Pacers cards, or so I thought. With a google search, I ca ..read more

The latest installment of the Insert Set Flashback series takes a look at a 20 card set from 1998-99 Topps that focuses on NBA players from a global perspective. Each card features a player in front of a map from either the city of the team, or in the case of international players, a map of the home country for that player. Lots of typical 90s stars in this set, including Scottie Pippen, Shaq, Hakeem, Barkley, Stockton, Malone, etc… From an global star perspective we also have Detlef Schrempf, Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoc, Sabonis, and Luc Longley. The 20 card insert set is inserted at 1:24 packs ..read more

I’ve been putting more focus on targeting Pacers autographs lately, as some of the inserts and parallels I’m after are becoming tougher to track down and pick up, especially at a reasonable price. And, it’s fun to switch things up sometimes. It keeps the hobby fresh. Just a reminder of my priority for picking up autographs; Certified Pacers autographs Non-Certified Pacers autograph that I have personally obtained (in person or TTM) Certified Non-Pacers autographs Non-Certified Non-Pacers autographs that I have personally obtained (in person or TTM) Non-Certified Pacers autographs that I have ..read more

Autographs of Pacers with Last Name starting with ‘C’ – 4 of 18, 22.2% Complete Another letter where I have a lot of work to do, but there are some that are attainable as well. A reminder of my hierarchy, and it’s starting to change a bit from what I’ve listed previously. Certified Pacers autographs Non-Certified Pacers autograph that I have personally obtained (in person or TTM) Certified Non-Pacers autographs Non-Certified Non-Pacers autographs that I have personally obtained (in person or TTM) Non-Certified Pacers autographs that I have not personally obtained Non-Certified Non-Pacers ..read more

James Harden was and still can be, on occasion, a devastating and unstoppable offensive force. He’s a 10x All-Star, 7x All-NBA, and a member of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team, meaning he’s considered one of the best 75 players in the history of the league. One of the best 75 players in the history of the NBA. And despite that, his image as it currently stands is more a reflection of his 1 on 1, isolation play style that isn’t fun to watch, his lack of defensive effort, etc. In short, it’s focused on his flaws. He’s currently upset with the 76ers for not giving him a longer contract after taki ..read more

We all have our collecting lanes where we feel most comfortable. The sets we can picture in our head because we’ve looked at them so many times, held those cards in our hands, can tell you the odds of the insert sets, the print runs for serial numbered cards, we know them. Over the years I’ve been in tune with the hobby more at certain times than others. I collected heavy when I was a kid, the mid-90s into the mid-2000s, and then a little less so in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and then mostly took a pause on collecting around mid-2012. I occasionally picked up a pack of cards from the loca ..read more

I ventured out to the largest card show in my area recently, in the Upstate of South Carolina. Even though the show is bi-monthly, I hadn’t been able to attend since last August, and I was ready to look through some boxes and find some Pacers. As I started making my way around the room, it took me awhile before I found a table that was worth stopping at based on my collecting taste. I quickly realized I would picking up quite a bit less at this show than the previous time I attended, but card show opportunities are so few and far between that I was just enjoying being there. Plus, it only take ..read more