NOT an Extremely RARE Shaq 1992-93 Hoops Rookie card

I’m always super interested when I find cards that are older than 10 years that I’ve NEVER seen before. I’ve always maintained that the most interesting aspect of the junk era in sports card collecting (1985 – 1995-ish) is that there are still super interesting gems to be found. Whether it’s a rare variation, or a test-proof or promotional issue card, there are indeed interesting and scarce cards to be found.

Just this morning, I’m peeking at feeBay per my usual procrastination schedule, and something pops out at me that initially I think is a Jose Uribe-esque junk listing. Granted, it’s for a hall of famer, and one the greatest basketball players to ever live – not a no-name common player. It’s a Shaquille O’Neal rookie card, but still – Shaq rookies usually only are worth a few bucks. At first glance, this 1992-93 Hoops Shaq rookie looks like a junk era card that someone is putting out there for (literally) $1.5 MILLION dollars.

The listing is titled 1992-93 Shaq Rookie Card (Beckett says it’s one of the rarest cards ever) and is accompanied by a less than desirable distorted photo. At first, I smirked and scrolled right past it. But then I go back to it to see what the scammer is trying to pass it off as. And this is where it gets interesting. Nothing about the card photo jumps out at me as being obviously valuable. It’s not gold plated and diamond encrusted. It doesn’t feature any super cool refractive holographic coating. It looks like a fairly standard card you’d see from the era. I looked at the couple photos that were included in the listing, and there were screenshots from an email conversation with Beckett included. Hm, interesting. The email is short, but sure enough (barring a faked email, of course), Beckett’s response to the seller’s inquiry on the card is that they’ve never seen it before, which is why it’s not listed in their price guide. Beckett goes on to say it’s “one of the rarest cards that we’re unable to provide any information on it or list it on the website…” and that “it is one of the low print run cards, which is very rare…”.

Of course, I did some quick searching myself. The Shaq card in question is of the typical 1992-93 Hoops design, however, instead of the gold colored bar behind the name, it is a BLUE bar behind the name, and the name and ‘ROOKIE’ text at the bottom are what appear to be gold foil. It’s the same photo on the front, of Shaq going up to the hoop. The back also appears to be identical to the base card, however, it is using set number ‘S12’ rather than the standard base set number #442. This indicates an insert or variation of some sort.

I’ve searched everything I can think of to figure out what this is, but have turned up nothing. I have yet to find another “gold” version of 1992-93 Hoops basketball cards.

Could this be THE holy grail of Shaquille O’Neal basketball cards? I don’t know yet. Is it worth the $1.5M (starting bid) price tag? Or the $5M buy-it-now? I’m highly doubting that. I wouldn’t be too quick to say that this is the single most valuable basketball card in history. But who knows… I don’t blame the seller for listing it high, you never know! If it does not sell, my advice to the seller would be to get that card to PSA. If it ends up being one of the rarer Shaq cards out there, surely getting it slabbed and graded would maximize the value – whatever that may be.