Collect call: 2009-10 Exquisite Collection basketball

Posted Oct 11, 2009 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Oct 11, 2009 at 03:56 PM

Upper Deck’s Exquisite Collection basketball set is about as high end as you can get, price-wise.

I have seen the cost of a tin box range from a low of $669.99 per box (gulp) to a high of $775 (ouch). But that’s not the most stupefying fact. I just looked on eBay to check on some of the cards selling from this set. There is a Michael Jordan rookie patch auto going for a “Buy-It-Now” price of $12,999.95 (but hey, the seller will pay for shipping, so how can a collector pass that up?).

All jokes aside, this is truly a beautiful-looking set, now in its final release as Panini takes over the licensing for NBA cards. This year’s Exquisite design is the same as the original issue from 2003-04.

Upper Deck promises at least two autograph cards in each tin, and the product I sampled was true to form. While five cards to the box is the advertised norm, the box I saw contained six.

Here are the autographs: a Jonny Flynn rookie card numbered to 225, and wow this is a large, bold on-the-card signature.

The nicest card was a Limited Logos Patch autograph card of Magic center Dwight Howard, numbered to 20. There are four colors represented on this patch card: blue, silver, black and white.

Another game-used card was an Extra Exquisite Jersey Parallel of Allen Iverson, numbered to 50. The back of the card clearly notes that Iverson’s jersey patch was used during a Nuggets game; I raise that point because many times, Upper Deck is vague about when the game-used material was used.

An Exquisite Rookie card of St. Mary’s Patrick Mills, numbered to 225, is one of the 37 first-year player cards contained in the set.

The final two cards in the pack are part of the 42 base cards in the set: LeBron James and Greg Oden. Both cards are numbered to 199.

There are other possibilities a collector could pull from a tin. For example, there is an autographed dual patch card signed by Jordan and Tiger Woods. There is also one of Woods and James that ought to fetch a nice price.

So as we bid Exquisite adieu, wrestle with the idea of whether an investment in excess of $600 is worth it. Sellers already are asking $500 for the Howard Limited Logo patch card, for example.

The choice is yours.