Yet Another 90's Insert Set: '97 Ultra Court Masters

As I'm sure you're all well aware of, I love 90's inserts sets. The quality of design and creativity was at its peak during that time. Whether it was holograms, die cuts, acetate or the early jersey and auto'd cards, 90's card companies had it going on. I have about five separate 90's insert set collections going right now between basketball and football products, but none is more exciting to me than the '97 Ultra Court Masters acetate basketball set.

I've been working on putting the 15 card set together for sometime now, but it seems there are also a number of other collectors assembling the set. Many of these cards sell for above their book values. Not by much, but enough to make it difficult to put the set together quickly. I'm used to the half priced cards on eBay, so $5 or $10 over book value is expensive to me.

The set has all the usual 90's suspects including Grant Hill, David Robinson, Charles Barkley and John Stockton. Of Course, the Michael Jordan is the most sought after card and fetches the highest price tag of $100 to $125 (checkout this overpriced BIN Jordan Court Masters). The Hardaway is the gem of the set for me. His cards are easily my favorite to collect (click here), and the Court Masters PSA Graded 10 is a very nice addition to my "Penny" Hardaway collection.

The other three cards in the set I've been able to secure are of Juwan Howard, Reggie Miller and Shaquille O'neal. I'm not a huge fan of graded cards. Basically, I only search out graded cards if I'm looking for a vintage card. The reason I have three graded cards in the start of this set is solely due to price. Most of the time there are 3 or 4 cards from the set listed at the same time by one seller. In order to keep shipping costs down or to get a jump on completing the set, collectors are driving the bid prices up by zeroing in on the multiple listings. I bought all four of these cards from sellers who only listed one Court Masters card at a time. Three of them just happen to be graded.

Either way, these cards are fairly rare with an insertion ratio of 1:180. The set isn't cheap either at $450. So I'll try to grab these awesome acetate cards anyway possible, graded/ungraded, trade/buy, whatever. I have a ways to go with 11 more cards in the set, but hopefully I'll be able to update any progress soon.