What is Best Looking card Set ever Made

[AbraCalabro]

Originally Posted by LovelyLlamas

1994-95 SP probably gets my votes. From the etched rookie cards to that distinctivehalf diamond border on one side.

1992-93 Fleer was the first pack I opened and I’m a sucker for the bronze border.

1995-96 Upper Deck has such a simple, classy design.

1996-97 EX-2000 has a case hit look for every base card. So perfectly designed

The EC Gold is out of this world from 95/96. Great set for sure!

[luke1014]

Originally Posted by Tommy1380

1996 Flair Showcase and 1996 E-X2000 are the top 2 for me.

Another vote for this.

[Unwrapit]

1995/96 Flair - 1995/96 Skybox Series One
Honourable mention 1994/95 Skybox E-motion


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[LovelyLlamas]

Originally Posted by AbraCalabro

The EC Gold is out of this world from 95/96. Great set for sure!

Yes! The simple foil switch from Bronze to holographic gold is very impactful! The photography on that set is just amazing too.

[n1nesports]

I got a soft spot for these ones.

[duron]

I go back and forth between 1996 spx and ex2000. Next up for me has to be either 96-97 or 97-98 Showcase.

Ex Century for honorable mention

[discodanman45]

1972 Topps and 1961 Fleer for me. When the colors are bright on those cards, they are hard to beat in aesthetics.

[mc1]

Originally Posted by LovelyLlamas

1996-97 EX-2000 has a case hit look for every base card. So perfectly designed

Just a rip-off of 1995-96 Hoops Skyview.

[bmf]

Base cards? 2005-06 Exquisite or 2008-09 Exquisite.

[PLB9eight]

Originally Posted by mc1

Well, technically 98-99 Topps Gold Label were inserts in 98-99 Topps Series 2. Theres only 10 cards in the set for that reason, it was sort of a preview set.

08-09 Chrome gets my vote!

The photography in ‘08 Topps is very nice


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[Giantrobot]

Originally Posted by mc1

Just a rip-off of 1995-96 Hoops Skyview.

Except EX-2000 is much better looking, and Jordan doesn’t look deformed on his card

[Asian62150]

Originally Posted by rifleman69

That would be 91-92 UD....there is no 90-91 UD set.

But yes those borders are top notch.

You're right. My bad. How could I forget the years? I had so many sealed boxes and factory sets thinking they would be so valuable as a teenager!

[sportsyard]

1996-97 showcase

[Tallboy]

Originally Posted by rogueriver

What is the best looking card set ever made.

My kind of question. I'll note first you didn't specify basketball explicitly, so let me mention some non-basketball landmarks I love:

1887 Allen & Ginter, pretty damn impressive:



1936 Ardath Who Is This?, really captures something:



1952 Topps Baseball, gave a new level of realism with eye-popping color



1955 Topps All-American Football, great use of horizontal design in a sport whose dynamic is so explicitly horizontal



On to basketball, to me the great vintage design is '69-70 Topps - the verticality of the cards is perfect for our vertical sport, the background design plays on 1930s baseball nostalgia while clearly fostering a Harlem Globetrotter-infused sense of playfulness in the photos - which happens to be the first majority Black set in basketball history, as well as the first set to perform well enough to get immediate sequels.



I cut my teeth as a collector in the '90s, and to me SkyBox always will be the brand of that decade. Radically different from what came before, incredibly influential on what came after.

The SkyBox set that has turned out to resonate the best over time is understandably '97-98 SkyBox Metal Universe, where the SkyBox team took over for the Fleer Metal team, and gave us something like SkyBox + Marvel.



In the '00s, to me the Topps program emerges as the gold standard of design, peaking with the '08-09 Topps basketball design, which takes '50s Googie design - also the period where Topps came to prominence - mixes it perfectly with team colors, and in the basketball design gives a slight tweak which gives the photos more room to breathe, while they also put a ton of effort into photo selection. An absolute virtuoso of a performance.



Moving on to the Panini era, it's hard to decide what to single out for a variety of reasons, and so I'm just going to give shout out to the two that are coming to mind most clearly, which also happen to be a in a similar direction:

'14-15 Noir Black & White



'18-19 Court Kings Level 1



In both cases you're talking about a design that could have been used for every card, but should maybe be disqualified because it's only one part of the entire set.

In both cases you're talking about black and white imagery. I've heard some who just can't stand modern black and white imagery, and I get it. It can imply a history it has no claim to.

But I'd note that in both of these cases, it's very clear that these are modern cards, they just happen to be choosing to work in greyscale for the player image, and when done well, it enthralls me.

[mc1]

Originally Posted by Giantrobot

Except EX-2000 is much better looking, and Jordan doesn’t look deformed on his card

Ok, a rip-off of 1995-96 Hoops ROY Hill case hit insert.

[ShaqMagic]

92-93 upper deck. I really like their name plate/position in team colors design.

[2010GBPackers]

I would say 2008-09 Topps Chrome but there are too many horizontal cards for my taste. The photography is there, but I dislike horizontal cards.

I know it's a recent set, but 2019-20 One and One has all the elements of being a great set.

a) great photography
b) shiny
c) current players and vets
d) vets are in color with the rest of the photo in b&w - love it!
e) base to /99 - simple
f) did I say great photography?!

[solt0131]

Anything Ultimate Collection.

[kaisersoze]

1997 spx

[sportsyard]

is flair legacy the first big time #'d card?

[LovelyLlamas]

Originally Posted by mc1

Ok, a rip-off of 1995-96 Hoops ROY Hill case hit insert.

Which goes back to the whole “case hit quality” base card. That’s really what makes the set so impressive, even if the design was lifted. The blue/green/pink/orange borders really gives the set some nice variance too.

[AutoPatchRookie]

Modern bias here but 2018 Panini Kaboom with gold and green parallels is breathtaking. Would much rather have the 1/1 Green Giannis Kaboom than any of his RCs.

[rustywest]

Originally Posted by LovelyLlamas

Which goes back to the whole “case hit quality” base card. That’s really what makes the set so impressive, even if the design was lifted. The blue/green/pink/orange borders really gives the set some nice variance too.

Not sure it even really matters if the design was lifted, when the same company produced all the cards mentioned. It was just tweaked and improved. Typical design modification?

I know Skybox International was purchased by Fleer in 1995. The guess is mc1 is just stickling again from some sort of weird angle. Shame on them for improving the design and producing a timeless masterpiece LoL

[tjforce]

Originally Posted by 2010GBPackers

I would say 2008-09 Topps Chrome but there are too many horizontal cards for my taste. The photography is there, but I dislike horizontal cards.

I know it's a recent set, but 2019-20 One and One has all the elements of being a great set.

a) great photography
b) shiny
c) current players and vets
d) vets are in color with the rest of the photo in b&w - love it!
e) base to /99 - simple
f) did I say great photography?!

Have you ever seen what the Black 1/1's look like in hand? Stunning.

[Tallboy]

Y'know, lemme shout out something else:

2018-19 Donruss/Optic...or 2019 Donruss WNBA

The veteran design is just plain incredible:



They lose points for the rookie design though. While it makes sense to adopt a separate design for an early-release set when it comes to rookies who haven't played yet, some work better than others.



To me, the rookies in this set are essentially given a "hunchback" design, which is really not flattering.

I prefer the rookie design that was used for the 2019 WNBA set, whose veteran design is the same as the '18-19 NBA veterans, and to me shows that Panini saw some of the same issues with the '18-19 rookie design I did.