Based in Detroit, Michigan, Triple SSS Sports Cards offers a full range of PSA-graded cards of leading professional athletes. In addition to cards from base sets, the Triple SSS Sports Cards team inventories highly sought-after inserts, which are seeded into packs at various odds as a “chase” and feature a distinctive aesthetic of their own.
One of the most iconic inserts in the hobby, Precious Metal Gems (PMG) were first introduced in 1997 within the Skybox Metal Universe sets of football and basketball. Featuring the same design as cards in the Marvel-inspired base set, they replaced the full-color backgrounds with red and green. Only 100 of each player’s cards were released, with green cards serial numbered to 10, while the remaining 90 were red. This is an early example of artificial scarcity, which saved sports cards after the mass printing of the so-called “junk wax era” in the early 1990s led to a devaluation of even top rookie cards.
Among the iconic players featured in the 1997-98 basketball set are Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, and Michael Jordan. A single version of one of the PMGs of even a common player can cost thousands of dollars. Driving value even higher is condition sensitivity, with the embossed foil cards extremely easy to scratch and damage. As an example, out of more than 500 total PSA-graded examples of first-year PMGs, only a single example has ever merited a gem mint 10 grade.
A 1997-98 Clyde Drexler /100 graded PSA 6 achieved an auction price of $7,777 in March 2023, while an ungraded Grant Hill /100 sold in a buy-it-now transaction for $6,450. While these are respectable numbers for hall of famers, they pale in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that top stars in higher condition can fetch.
