There's rarity and then there's rarity

All the Smarts and basketball cards I got for Christmas came from a card shop in North Attleboro, Ma.  My Dad found a bunch of cool stuff there but I guess when he mentioned Michael Bishop the guy was most excited of all.  I mean Massachusetts card shop, former local hyped QB, they gotta have something right?  And they definitely did, which starts with this very cool post her of two of my favorite cards from all of Christmas!

The first card seemed pretty normal to me at first...I thought it was Michael Bishop's Crown Royale base card.  Looks like this:

I dug around and it turned out that this one's gold...so I was look cool...gold parallel.  Then I noticed that the gold parallel wasn't actually a die cut, which meant this one was the die cut version.  And what's the numbering on that one?  /10!  So holy cow, this card had the potential to be super rare.

Well...it's not that one haha, like that Smart I posted a little while back, this card's one of those Pacific cards that were held back for replacements and then released when Pacific dropped out of the hobby.  That said it's still a wicked nice get and I LOVE the look of it.  The Crown cards are always neat,and this one's especially golden especially the box down at the bottom where the name goes.

Here's the back:

There's a stamp I can't quite make out in the middle of the card, and that's one of the ways you know this card was released afterwards.  I just love the layout overall, especially the logos in the circles and the centering of the name and position under the photo.  Well done 1999 Pacific!

Now I thought that Crown card might be super rare and it wasn't, but it still rules.  This next card though...I thought it might be super rare and it is.  It's Bishop's Contenders Power Blue parallel, which is /50:

Beautiful card, with an excellent on card auto and a great design.  It's also textured - all those little star like things are indented into the card, which gives it a really neat feel.

The back is just like the Speed Red, only it's Power Blue and numbered lower.  Oooh:

I love it.  As cool as the Speed Red was, the Power Blue fits the Patriots color scheme even better.  Really ties the card together.  Easily the best card of my Bishop collection and it wouldn't be here if my Dad hadn't grabbed it from that shop, so thanks Dad!