Topps went nearly ten years without releasing a basketball card set after 1957. Imagine that happening now in the hobby! The comeback brought one of the most iconic sets in our collecting world - the 1969 Topps "Tall Boys." Today, we'll teach you about these incredible treasures in our new series: The Set of the Week.
After nearly a decade out from releasing a set of basketball cards, Topps returned to the market in a BIG way! Nicknamed "Tall Boys", their 1969 cards each measure 2 ½" x 4 11/16" in size. For comparison, a standard card size is 2 ½" x 3 ½".
A total of 99 cards make up the entire set, and there are legendary names in the checklist including:
You can see the front of the card features a player name and position at the top with the team name at the bottom. Each player is in a cool oval-shaped cutout in the center with a few characters around the border. The easiest way to spot a 1969 Topps card? The size!
The Kareem rookie card is the anchor of the set. In his career, Kareem accomplished more than we could fill this blog up with!
When he retired, Kareem was the NBA's all-time leading scorer!
Condition is very important when determining the value of your cards. When grading a card on a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being Gem Mint, a change of just one grade such as from a 4 to a 5 could change the value of a card by hundreds if not thousands of dollars! The cards you see above were each graded by PSA, one of the top grading companies. Currently, only TWO of the Kareem / Alcindor cards have been graded a PSA 10. To date, 6,006 of the Kareem / Alcindor cards have been graded by PSA. As you can imagine, a PSA 10 is worth a fortune. There are 173 cards graded PSA 8 by PSA and the last 8 was sold for $19,520.00 in April of 2026.
Just Collect opened a sealed pack of 1969 Topps basketball cards live at The National Sports Collectors Convention in 2021. Our sister company,
Check out the pack opening:
What a pack! We'd LOVE to open another.
We hope you enjoyed learning about the 1969 Topps basketball set. Make sure to come back next week to learn about our next Set of the Week.
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