Two Portland Pickups
Some cards capture the beginning of a career. Others arrive after the ending, when the legacy is complete and the history has already been written.
These two cards live somewhere more interesting: in the middle.
We brought both home from the Front Row Card Show in Portland. One is Tom Brady’s first Topps Chrome card, issued after his first Super Bowl—but before the dynasty, the records, and the argument over football’s greatest player had fully taken shape.
The other is a Kobe Bryant Scoring Kings Press Proof, limited to just 25 copies and released during the season he passed Michael Jordan on the NBA’s career scoring list.
By then, Brady and Kobe were already stars. What collectors could not yet know was how much history remained.
This week is about two remarkable raw cards—and two legends before the final chapter had been written.
Next: After the first ring, before the dynasty.
The Scoring King Passes His Idol
“Scoring Kings” was not simply a dramatic insert name for Kobe Bryant. By the time this card was released, it described his place in basketball history.
The 2014–15 Donruss Scoring Kings Press Proof Silver was limited to 25 copies. Scarcity gives the card its immediate appeal, but its timing gives it a deeper story.
On December 14, 2014, Kobe passed Michael Jordan for third place on the NBA’s career scoring list. It was a milestone tied directly to the player who had shaped so much of Kobe’s competitive imagination. Years earlier, a teenage Bryant had sought Jordan’s advice. Now he had moved past his idol in the record book.
The card’s design feels appropriately direct: Kobe attacking with the ball, “Scoring Kings” stamped across the front, and a silver Press Proof parallel made in a run of only 25.
It captures Bryant after five championships, an MVP award, and nearly two decades of defining moments—but before his career totals were final and before history had settled the full meaning of his impact.
Only 25 copies were made. This is one small piece of the season in which Kobe climbed past Jordan.
After the First Ring, Before the Dynasty
By the time this card reached collectors in 2002, Tom Brady was no longer anonymous.
He had gone from the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft to the starting quarterback of the New England Patriots. On February 3, 2002, he led New England past the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI and was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
Then came this card: the 2002 Topps Chrome Tom Brady #100, his first appearance in the brand that would become one of the defining chrome issues in modern football collecting.
It is not a rookie card. It may tell an even more interesting story.
Brady had won his first championship, but almost everything we now associate with his career was still ahead: six more Super Bowl victories, five more Super Bowl MVP awards, the records, the longevity, and the transformation from unlikely starter into the standard by which quarterbacks are measured.
In 2002, collectors knew Brady was a champion. They could not have known they were looking at the opening pages of a dynasty.
Before the Legacy Was Finished
Tom Brady in 2002 and Kobe Bryant in 2014 occupied very different points in their careers.
Brady was just beginning to show what he might become. Kobe had already built a Hall of Fame résumé and was still climbing the record book.
Yet the cards share something important. Each preserves a moment when the athlete was already recognizable—but the final scale of the legacy remained out of view.
That is one of the great pleasures of collecting cards from the middle of a career. A rookie asks us to imagine the future. A late-career tribute asks us to remember the past. These cards let us stand inside the story while it is still unfolding.
One came after Brady’s first ring. The other came as Kobe passed his idol.
Neither legacy was finished.
