1996-97 Topps Chrome #138 Kobe Bryant Autograph Signed Rookie RC PSA/DNA Lakers
Tuesday, May 19th, 2020
You are looking at a 1996-97 Topps Chrome #138 Kobe Bryant RC card. This card was autographed for me outside the Lakers locker room at the Forum on February 13, 1998. Kobe signed this card for me just five days after his first all-star game – perhaps the most significant weekend for Kobe in establishing his relationship with his idol Michael Jordan now glorified through The Last Dance. ” Kobe signed his slightly sloppy “Kobe 8 autograph he signed between approximately late-1997 and about late-1998 reminiscent of a shortened version of his pre-NBA autographs. A few years ago I had the card authenticated and slabbed by PSA/DNA. I’m giving the long version of the story to help give some context to the time. If all you want to know about the card is the above pics and the price, quit reading now. I worked at a well-known sports memorabilia store in the 90′s here in southern California. In 1996, Magic had just made a comeback, Shaq was here, and we had just drafted Kobe. Basketball was on fire. No one ordered it from Topps. It ended up as a retail only release presumably because Topps couldn’t sell enough directly to wholesalers and shops. It was a TOUGH sell, but randomly it would sell out. People here and there speculated that Topps Chrome would be the best product eventually, but it definitely wasn’t the top product then. People weren’t quite ready for the super-premium products ubiquitous today. Fleer Ultra and Topps Stadium Club were the super premium products of Shaq’s RC time, so everyone assumed those would be the rookies to have socked away to help pay for their kid’s college tuition. What people were figuring out after a couple of years was the Upper Deck #1 Draft Pick card of Shaq from’92-’93 was really the toughest to find and held a sort of elevated collectible promise over the Ultra and Stadium Club rookies, and the price of that card rose more compared to the others. Enter Kobe and the quest by collectors for the Kobe equivalent of the Shaq UD #1 Draft Pick card – the Kobe that would be THE Kobe RC to have. Our pack prices went up… Through the store, I put together a’96-’97 Topps Chrome set from about a box worth that I opened, combined with the commons people would get rid of after they cracked a box or two, and I never pulled a Kobe. If we saw 16 packs bought out of a box but didn’t hear of anyone pulling a Kobe, I certainly would take a shot at a pack or two, and never pulled one. I appreciated how tough a Kobe RC was to get. And forget about a refractor because with perfect collation you were getting one every nearly 7 cases! I remember thinking: You’re getting 80 cards in a box… Subtract two refractors and inserts so you’re getting about 72 cards towards the set… The collation is really good, but collectors are going to need three boxes to put together something close to a set then go find the others… Let me just put a set together just in case this turns out good (I also put an unopened pack with the set that I still have in a binder). I t just seemed to keep going up in Beckett and had begun evolving into Kobe’s best rookie card. I had friends who had access to NBA games and events years ago and while one of my friends was more than acquaintances with a couple of the Lakers guys, he had a bunch of friends with the Sonics. In February of 1998 he called me and asked if I wanted to go to the Lakers game. Huge Western Conference game right after All-Star weekend. He also told me I would be able to meet Kobe, Shaq, and the players after the game. I began thinking about what to get signed by these guys. I’m not trying to bring a basketball, photo is going to get destroyed, I guess cards are the best bet. I can hide those and a good pen in my jacket and get a bunch of signatures. Flair Showcase had begun the alteration of the ultra premium product landscape. I thought about the Kobe stuff I had (I already had a bunch of signed stuff, including some stuff from the APE signing with him in preseason 1996, shout out to Scott of APE for being a good guy to me when he came into the shop), and for some reason thought I’m going to take my Topps Chrome cards down to try and get signed… If this happens more often, I’ll start a set! At the time you did NOT get rookie cards signed because of their intrinsic value as rookie cards. I thought, I don’t care, if I need an unsigned Kobe, I can get an unsigned Kobe. I really want to get a signed Shaq card… And a Dale Ellis. Get to the game… Topps chrome cards in my pocket, with a silver ultra fine paint pen that is going to make these autographs look amazing on the Chrome printing. There’s a ticket, I’m on the list for the Forum Club, a post-game pass, and a program waiting for me (see pics, they are NOT included in this sale). The game ends, and my friend pulls me aside to simply stand and wait at the bleachers at the end court until they let us down to the area next to the locker room. Shaq’s gigantic Rolls is parked 20 feet from the locker room exit. In between the two, there are some of the most beautiful people and strangest hangers-on I’ve ever seen. Eventually the players come out at odd intervals. Cousins reach in for daps. D-Fish is pretty much by himself in a suit, so I get him to sign my Chrome card in silver. Smooth (Sam Perkins) comes out and signs my card. Schrempf looks at me like I’m from another planet and signs my card. Who I loved as a kid… I ask him to sign my card… Dale deflated that balloon of fandom very quickly I eventually got him… I trapped him in front of his mom the next time I saw him… Mom was absolutely squealing with happiness over the fact that her son was getting asked for an autograph and he gave me quick, disgruntled “damn, now you got me” look… My friend who had been courting his friends and Shaq and Kobe calls me over. I hand Shaq my card and the silver pen and he nails it. My friend pulls out his camera and I get a pic with Shaq. My friend goes over to Kobe and hands Kobe a black pen to sign one of his things, a ball if I remember correctly (my friend actually showed up with a bag that had basketballs in it, thank god I didn’t know I could do that). The moment is inopportune for a photo, but I hand him my card and try to hand him my silver pen. In half paying attention, he grabs my Chrome card… And signs it with my friend’s black pen… Looks at the silver pen I was trying to hand him, and gives a split second of an “oops” look. I thank him and go to get a couple of other guys, including GP on the program. I thought, oh well, I’ll get a silver one signed some other time, this card is only about a year old. The Kobe card goes up… And less accessible, signs an autograph contract with UDA in 2000, and doesn’t sign a whole lot privately after that because he was on the singular mission to be the best. Shoot, I already have one. If the current health threat hadn’t taken front and center in the national consciousness, I’d still be feeling far more shock from Kobe’s passing. To say I was sometimes speechless for a couple of weeks afterwards is an understatement. I had been at my friend’s house in Calabasas a couple of streets over about eight hours before the crash, and the next morning one of the things that got me out of bed was the deep cutting sound of Sikorsky props – the sound of a helicopter, but not the usual police/sightseeing/traffic reporter helicopter sound. I later found out I was very close to the helicopter’s flight path and the dense fog really helped the sound echo. It still feels almost macabre. Over the years I have talked to collectors, chasers, and guys who had these signed at the Kobe camp and unless there is some super duper stash somewhere (I would think we would have seen cards from that stash by now), I’d estimate there are about 20 or so Kobe Chrome autographed RCs out there total, with nearly all of them signed after 2006 and most signed through the camp. Mine was the only one I had heard about for many years. The card you see pictured is the actual card you will receive. It is actually more impressive and bold in person than the scan signifies. An auto on Kobe’s most desirable RC was nearly impossible to replicate before because you seemingly needed to be fairly wealthy to get it done through Panini if they would do it at all, and now is sadly impossible. The item “1996-97 Topps Chrome #138 Kobe Bryant Autograph Signed Rookie RC PSA/DNA Lakers” is in sale since Sunday, May 10, 2020. This item is in the category “Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop\Sports Trading Cards\Basketball Cards”. The seller is “triumph_ohyes!” and is located in Reseda, California. This item can be shipped to United States.
- Modified Item: Yes
- Product: Single
- Player: Kobe Bryant
- Season: 1996-97
- Grade: Authentic
- Year: 1997
- Sport: Basketball
- Professional Grader: Professional Sports (PSA)
- Autograph Format: Hard Signed
- Autograph Authentication: Professional Sports (PSA/DNA)
- Team: Los Angeles Lakers
- Card Manufacturer: Topps
- Original/Reprint: Original
- Autographed: Yes
