90s Showcase...E-XL Natural Born Thrillers

Up today is an 90s insert set, that has taken me just under 17 years to complete! My first entry into NBA cards was back in 1994 and by the 1995-96 season, I was fully established in the hobby, buying new releases at a rate of knots and even selling a few cards at card shows that used to take place in London. 1995-96 E-XL was a release that I remember breaking a number of boxes of when it first landed. It was pretty unusual at the time with cards that were multi-layered and a texture to them that I had not witnessed before. 

I quickly put together the base set  when it first came out, but then pretty much left it along. I have though off and on gone back to the set and added more inserts. This week the final couple of cards to complete the 'Natural Born Thrillers' insert set arrived in the mail.

This 10 card set was a pretty hard pull at one every 48 packs, which when you consider that there were 18 packs in a box, meant that one of these cards only turned up every third box. The set featured a mixture of established stars with Jordan, Kemp, Drexler, Hill & Hardaway being found alongside a crop of rookies from the 1995 NBA Draft in the form of Finley, Garnett, McDyess, Stackhouse & Stoudamire. 

Clearly in terms of value today, the Michael Jordan card jumps out. Looking through some old Beckett magazines, when originally released it was priced at $75 - $125. By 2008 the book price was down to $20 - $60, but with the recent spike in prices for Jordan inserts cards from the 1990s, it is back up to $75 - $150.

Fortunately I picked up the Jordan card a number of years ago and so not need to fork out $100 that collectors are now have to pay to win this card on eBay auctions. The remainder from the set can be picked up pretty cheaply. 

It is certainly nice to see this one complete after such a long time!