Stadium Club Members Only Cards
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The original Members Only club started in 1991, originally a 50 card set which was given to members in 3 installments. The original set concluded with 50 cards, originally being baseball only with the first 2 installments, but transitioned to feature six football, and twelve hockey players. The stadium club card's featured the lettering "Members Only" in gold foil, and appeared to be identical to the 1991 Stadium Club set. The set is not numbered, and the back's of the cards have a newspaper headline design featuring a short article on the players achievement.
Topps continued this trend, by releasing the whole 1992-93 Topps Stadium Club Basketball set with a "Members Only" set as well, available only to mail in members. These cards have no identifying marks other than a stamped embossment, and can be hard to spot without fenagling around the card in different lighting or feeling it with your fingers. While no stated print runs have been made public, it is believed to be between 8,000 and 10,000 making it rare compared to the rest of the print numbers on regular 90's cards. The popularity of this set has blown up over the course of the last couple of years due to the fact they are factory sealed, and contain the ever so popular Beam Team insert cards. The most notable out of this year's set being Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal rookies. At the time of writing this article, a PSA 10 Beam Team Michael Jordan has 2 eBay listings for $15,000 and $35,000 and a BGS 9.5 for $9,500, and only one Shaquille O'Neal PSA 10 listed at $10,000.
The Beam Team cards are particularly a hard grade due to centering issues, and black background backs which chip very easily. Even when cracking open a factory sealed set searching for these cards you will still have a hard time finding a perfect example due to cards sticking together, and the plaguing centering issue.
The base Shaquille O'Neal rookie with the gold Members Only foil stamping in a PSA 10 holder has a few examples on eBay as well, with asking numbers around $650 and base Michael Jordan's asking around $500.
Topps continued with the Members Only sets until 1998 when they discontinued them, but bringing them back in later years in different variations and insert sets. It is believed the inserted ones have print runs of /10 and /50 , although they are not stamped, making them not as desirable.
Before the card boom, you were able to pick up these sets factory sealed for around $200, now they can be picked up for around $950, with their height being around $2900 during the pandemic.
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