In 1996 I was single making good money and still living at home. I spent a ton of money on cards. I concentrated on football though and hardly bought any baseball cards in the late 90s. When I did buy them it was playing home run at my LCS. Needless to say I have a giant hole in my Red Sox collection through the late 90s. For the last few years I have been attempting to rectify that but it has been a slow road. My good there were a lot of sets back when Fleer was still in the game.
Pinnacle Zenith are really good looking cards. Way better than these scans. The Duffex technology (I learned that term from reading Wax Heaven, never heard it prior to that) really makes these look good.
Don't pitchers have the funniest looks on their face when they are throwing? To me this was the worst year of Ultra. The Golds looked great though.
I never realized that there was a Topps Gallery that wasn't an art set. To me it looks a whole lot like Stadium Club. It is crazy to think that I have a 1996 Red Sox card of a guy that is still playing for them in 2011. Not only that but with Dice-Ks injury, Wakefield is now in the rotation. He only needs a few more wins to catch Clemens and Cy Young for most wins as a Red Sox. I hope he gets it.
I never liked this Select set. It did however have a parallel that was amazing. I don't remember what it was called though. I have a Marino one in my Marino collection but to be honest I'm not 100% sure they used it in baseball too.
I spent more money on 96 Select Certified than any other set ever. Not baseball however, football. I must have bought a case of it. I was trying to build a complete set and never pulled them all. I had to use parallels to finish it off. According to Beckett the biggest hit I ever pulled was out of 96 Select Certified Football. I pulled a Mirror Blue Emmitt Smith. It booked at $750. I traded it for $1000 worth of Marinos and Kordell Stewerts...
I think everyone has a former collection that they can't quite explain. (or more than one...)
Lots of people like these gaudy cards but to be honest I never did. It just does nothing for me.
These are Score Parallels. If you couldn't tell what is was all you have to do is flip it over and it tells you it is a Gold Rush card. Score didn't do as well with their gold parallels as Topps or Upper Deck. They are more bronze in color and just not very appealing. But I am a sucker for parallels and I'm trying to get them all.
I have a few of these Afficinato cards now and to be honest they are kind of ugly. The pixilated close up is crap and most of the action photos are blury.
I can't explain it, don't know what it is but I kind of like the Fleer matte sets. I don't know if it is just cause it is so different from everything else or what? Fleer was never afraid to try something, that's for sure.
Speaking of something different, Metal cards are defiantly different. It doesn't scan worth a damn but they are really shiny and so so different.
This two different Red Sox cards I received but just barely. The Mike Stanly on the bottom is one of those horrible cards that say it is a Red Sox card but he is in a yankee uniform. I didn't want that junk on the blog so I covered up the crap jersey. The girls over at Cardboard Problem may not agree with covering up the jersey but may like the cropping.
1 comment:
All those Score cards are making me nauseous. I don't know what it is about Pinnacle products but they were either hit or miss for me. Some of the more gimmicky sets were better in my opinion - like Pinnacle Inside (the cards in a can), Mint (with the coins), etc. Maybe it's that ugly bronze foil they poured onto the cards, or as you point out with Aficianado, the blurry photos.
You never realized that there was Topps Gallery that wasn't art, and when I returned to collecting I was surprised to learn Gallery had become an art set.
Yes, the Fleer matte cards have a certain attraction to them, probably because they're so simple and different, but still pleasing. They're a different kind of matte than the 1980s cards, too.
And I agree that there were way too many sets issued in the late '90s. At least most of those sets were companies trying out new things, so there may have been 50 different major releases in a year but they didn't follow a formula. Compare that to 2005, which had over 80 different major releases, most of which looked about the same and followed the base/rookie auto/jersey formula.
Keep it coming!
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