Tom Brady, LeBron James top chart as collectors vote on Top 25 cards of past 25 years

When LeBron James made his NBA debut in 2003, he instantly became one of the faces of basketball.

As his popularity surged, so did interest in his cards. Some of James’ rookies are the most recognizable pieces of cardboard in the hobby. That became quite evident when four of James’ cards landed in the top 25 of all cards produced in the last 25 years.

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Content creator Adam Gray and GemRate founder Ryan Stuczynski partnered to conduct a straw poll that was voted on by 450 collectors and a panel of 45 experts in the hobby. The general community of collectors made up 50 percent of the vote, while the experts accounted for the remaining half.

“The whole idea of it is, if you were to just put all the collectors all around the world in a room and say, ‘What do you think is the most iconic?’ that might be the best way to get a sense of like what the cards are that matter,” Gray said. “But not just within each niche, because basketball card collectors are going to tell you certain things that are iconic that baseball card collectors don’t even know exist, and vice versa. When you put them against each other and you try to have the best sample of voters as possible, what happens.”

After tallying all the votes, the No. 1 card ended up being Tom Brady’s 2000 Playoff Contenders Rookie Autograph.

Coming in at No. 2 was James’ 2003 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Patch Autograph (RPA).

Rounding out the top five are Steph Curry’s 2009 Topps Chrome, James’ 2003 Topps Chrome, and Brady’s 2000 Bowman Chrome.

“I think the top five, they weren’t my five, but they’re the five that I expected would be on the list,” Gray said. “I think it’s interesting that Brady finished twice as high as he did, and that he didn’t get another card on the list. I really thought Brady would get the SP Authentic on the list. But the Bowman Chrome, which is paired with the Bowman for the purposes of this survey because they have the same image, that card has become very clearly Brady’s everyday man’s card.”

The No. 1 spot was up for grabs with a handful of cards vying for that honor. While tabulating the results, Gray thought the 2009 Topps Chrome Curry could have been the winner since it earned the most votes by far from the collecting community. However, the experts voted the card fifth.

“What’s crazy is that the LeBron RPA, the experts have that number one, but the community had it sixth,” said Gray, who is making the list into a book that will release most likely in October. “Seeing some of those differences, I was shocked that the LeBron didn’t finish first. Everybody sort of thought, ‘Oh, basketball’s got to finish number one.’ Basketball’s had this amazing run and they have the most recognizable athletes. No, the Tom Brady Contenders finished number one. So, I thought that was super interesting.”

To narrow down the list to the top 25 cards, the survey included a sample size of 135 cards for collectors and experts to choose from. There were 30 cards each from baseball, football and basketball, 10 from soccer, along with hockey, golf, tennis, WNBA and UFC.

“Then we went out to the community and asked, ‘What’s missing here?’” Gray said. “We asked several other experts and we added to the list. It started at like 90 or 100 cards, and it kept increasing.”

Gray came up with the idea of the top 25 poll after conducting similar crowd-sourcing projects as editor of Basketball Card Fanatic magazine.

“We took every single step we possibly could based on the other lists that we’ve done in the past and say, how do we make sure that the community gets the best say in here,” Gray said. “There are two specific sort of like classifications of cards that really felt like they got gypped. One is people who love 2012 Prizm, because people split votes between Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Those are the three cards that made the survey, all three of them finished in like the top 55.

“The other one was hockey as a whole. Hockey’s such a problem for a list like this because hockey collectors, I think honestly, are the most passionate of all the collectors. They are crazy, crazy passionate collectors, and they know their cards better than anyone.”

Gray’s top 25 list was also a spinoff of a project he conducted while working at PWCC Marketplace a few years ago. He compiled an Iconic 100 list, ranking the top 100 cards of all time amongst every sport.

TALLYING THE VOTES

Basketball finished with 11 cards in the top 25, including five in the top 10. Baseball was second with six cards.

Gray was a little surprised that the top six cards overall were either football or basketball. Baseball didn’t check in until No. 7.

“When we did the Iconic 100, three of the first four cards were baseball cards. That’s because that was for the history of the hobby,” Gray said. “But when you look at the last 25 years, baseball really has a problem in that it doesn’t have athletes that are even close to as recognizable as the world of basketball and even football and soccer. They really don’t.

“I thought getting six cards in the top 25 was actually a pretty strong showing for baseball,” Gray said.

Football finished with five cards on the list, the two aforementioned Bradys, and three for Patrick Mahomes. His 2017 Panini Prizm came in 11^th, 2017 Panini National Treasures Patch Autograph was 13^th, and his 2017 Panini Donruss Optic was 21^st.

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Coming in sixth overall was Luka Doncic’s 2018 Panini Prizm, followed by Mike Trout’s 2011 Topps Update, Steph Curry’s 2009 Playoff National Treasures Patch Autograph, Lionel Messi’s 2004 Panini Sports Mega Cracks, and rounding out the top 10 was Trout’s 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Autograph.

Gray was interested to see Curry’s Topps Chrome rookie beat out his National Treasures rookie.

“I think that probably takes me to the biggest two learnings, which are in general the community feels the cards that are accessible are the ones that are iconic,” Gray said. “Cards like the LeBron [Exquisite] that don’t have an accessible entry point, those ones don’t come across as iconic to the general public as they do to the experts. The other part that’s really interesting is the Steph card—this happened with the Mahomes Optic as well—that have really great portraits did well. You can see the image of the player’s face really well and really good photography of just their portrait—those things performed better than I expected, especially in the community.”

Slots 16-18 belonged to baseball. Paul Skenes’ 2024 Topps Chrome Update Rookie Debut Patch Auto (RDPA) was voted 16^th, while Shohei Ohtani was 17^th with his 2018 Bowman Chrome followed in the next slot by his 2018 Bowman Chrome Rookie Autographs.

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Gray believes that if Ohtani had just one true rookie card, it could have ended up in the top 10 or even top five. But having a pair of Ohtani’s split the vote.

Skenes’ RDPA was the newest card that landed in the top 25. Gray believes it cracked the top 25 because it is a recent card and is still fresh in collectors’ minds.

Also See: Topps bring popular Rookie Debut Patch to NBA

“There’s very few cards in the history of our hobby that have been discussed as much as the Skenes cards both within the hobby’s general community and also outside the community,” Gray said. “We love it as hobby participants when the world sort of talks about us. That is one of those cards where you remember the bounties, you remember the team getting involved. Then I think the other part that’s really important is that the Skenes card is less about Skenes, although I think he’s an important part of it. I think it’s more about the Debut Patch Auto. I think you can make the case that it’s the most interesting advent in the history of sports cards. It’s gotten us closer to the sport than anything else.”

REST OF THE BEST

Michael Jordan made the list even though he only played just three NBA seasons at the start of the century. Jordan’s 2003 Ultimate Collection Ultimate Logos Signature 1/1 came in at No. 20 with his 2003 Upper Deck Exquisite Limited Logos Patch Autograph placing 25^th.

Also See: Michael Jordan autographed rookie card sets record

Golf legend Tiger Woods made the list twice. His 2001 Upper Deck golf base card was 12^th and his 2001 SP Authentic Golf Authentic Stars Autograph was 15^th.

Besides his two cards that landed in the top five, James had his 2003 Topps place No. 14 and 2008 Topps Chrome (chalk toss) finish 23^rd. Kobe Bryant’s lone card on the list, at No. 19, is his 2008 Topps where he is being guarded by James.

Doncic’s second card to make the list was his 2018 Panini National Treasures Patch Autograph at No. 22. Albert Pujols snuck in at No. 24 with his 2001 Bowman rookie card.

Topps and Bowman combined to place five cards in the top 10 and 12 in the top 25. Panini landed four cards in the top 10 and eight in the top 25. Upper Deck finished with five cards making the list.

After the final votes were tallied, it left some collectors wondering why certain cards didn’t make the list.

“People talk about Prizm being the brand of the era, but there were just two cards [in the top 25 list],” Gray said. “Then there’s Optic, so I guess you could sort of throw that into the same mix.

“This is something that a lot of basketball fans really got on the list about. ‘How in the world can you have multiple Tiger Woods cards and you have this Albert Pujols card and the Skenes made the list but Caitlin Clark’s Prizm didn’t make the list? How can no 2012 Prizm basketball cards make the list?’”