Top 5 cards of the 2000's
miwlvrn
Posts: 4,235 ✭✭✭✭✭
OK, now seemed like as good a time as any for piling on the inevitable completion of list of top 5 by the decade. This 10 year span seems easier to me than most of the others, but I'm sure there will be plenty of other options besides my initial list:
2004 Panini Sports Mega Cracks 71 Lionel Messi
2003 Panini Sports Mega Craques 137 Cristiano Ronaldo
2005 Upper Deck the Cup 180 Sidney Crosby Platinum Rookies or 2005 Upper Deck 201 Sidney Crosby (wanted to pick one of these base issue cards instead of a chase insert hit)
2000 Playoff Contenders 144 Tom Brady Autographed or 2000 SP Authentic 118 Tom Brady
2003 (take your pick) Lebron James - I just honestly don't know modern basketball well enough to know which one or two would be considered the best choices here, but I know enough about it to place him on the list.
Comments
Brady and Lebron for sure. 2009 Steph Curry would be another option. Also like the 2007 Topps Chrome Adrian Peterson. Possibly an Aaron Rodgers.
I do love baseball, but interestingly enough, I think this is the only decade in the history of sports cards where a baseball card does not have a chance at objectively cracking the top 5 sports cards. Subjectively, yes maybe some who aren't into or as much aware of the other sports might suggest a baseball item for this list. Curious to see other opinions on that though. While they may fill in the back half of the top 10 somewhere, I don't see how potential HOF'ers like Pujols, Cabrera, Kershaw, Verlander, Scherzer, etc. can tip up into the top 5, not because they aren't great but because the other sports just happen to have such dominant players to choose from.
I agree that it's tough but I also don't think it's possible to omit the 2001 Bowman Chrome Albert Pujols. Yes, there are definitely bigger stars than Pujols in the other major sports but that card was a huge turning point for the baseball card market. I'm not smart enough to tell you if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's a legendary piece of cardboard!
Picking a LeBron rookie is difficult but I tend to lean towards the base Topps Chrome card. It's still very much attainable and will likely go down as a Mount Rushmore type basketball card, popularity wise when it's all said and done. It's on the same trajectory as Kobe's 1996 Topps Chrome rookie. You could easily go with Exquisite as well but it's tough to include a card that so few people could reasonably afford upon its release.
I agree about the SP Authentic Brady 100%. I think you could go with his Bowman Chrome rookie as well but the SP Authentic has a bit more clout.
I'll jump to hockey and include Crosby's Young Guns rookie card. Classic card that is still available at a reasonable price for a guy whose legend just keeps on growing. His Cup patch-autograph falls into that LeBron Exquisite section for me. Just too high end a product to be considered a trading card personally. Also, I think that set is beyond ugly. Tiny pictures, patches that eat up the center of the card, just not an appealing looking set at all.
I'm at four and I'm stumped.
1.) 2001 Bowman Chrome Albert Pujols Autograph
2.) 2003/04 Topps Chrome LeBron James
3.) 2000 SP Authentic Tom Brady
4.) 2005/06 Upper Deck Young Guns Sidney Crosby
5.) I guess I'll go with the Exquisite LeBron rookie despite my reservations above. Every time I see one in person I'm still in awe, so that has to count for something, no?
Kershaw's Bowman Chrome rookie might crack my list if he continues doing what he's doing.
I would add the 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Autograph Mike Trout to the list.
Good call, that one totally slipped my mind. He's still sooo current, hard to remember that card came out last decade.