1995 Upper Deck Part 1: The Set

[Warning: this post is quite scan-heavy.  Just letting you know before you dip into your data plan.]

As you may or may not know when I make a post about a specific set I usually write a little something about the set itself then move on to the Griffeys, but in this case it would have made for one seriously massive post.  For this particular set about which I have a lot to say and show, I’ve decided to divide up the material for optimal digestion.

Check out Part 2: The Box and Part 3: The Griffeys.

Enjoy!

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Upper Deck has put out some iconic sets in our time – the Baseball Heroes inserts, ’95 Collector’s Choice, the universally-appreciated ’93 base set, and the inaugural ’89 set, of course.  Then we have our personal favorites, the sets and designs that really speak to us but that don’t get the attention we think they deserve.  For me there are three: the 1994 and 2008 sets are brilliant, but my absolute favorite UD set will always be the 1995 base set.

So I’m building the damn thing, and what better way to start than with a box each of series 1 and 2?  We'll get into the details of what came out of these later.  Let's talk about the set itself.

It can be difficult if not impossible to put the reasoning behind one's love into words, but I’m going to try and do just that right now:

This is the card that made me fall in love with ’95 UD, so I’m using it as an example. As you can see the low-interference nameplate allows for focus on the photography which happens to be brilliant.  It’s not just well-executed – it’s unique.  Check out Junior taking cuts without a helmet.  It’s clearly an All-Star event, most likely the Home Run Derby, but Junior is known for flipping his cap backwards.  Seeing it forward like this is refreshing.

Moreover, the photo is lit perfectly – Junior is practically glowing against the backdrop of All-Stars sitting around a dugout.  And speaking of the background, do I spot Frank Thomas?  This photo is so perfect I have to wonder if it’s even real.

These really show the shading by the nameplate.

Design-wise the bottom-mounted nameplate works perfectly in any orientation, horizontal or vertical; and slight shading at the bottom of every card gives weight to the player name and sets off the color of the foil nicely while also moving focus to the photo.  Similar to the 2008 set, this aesthetic can be summed up as “elegantly low-impact with stellar photography.”  That’s everything I could want from a card design.

Don't take it from me.  Decide for yourself.

Here are two typical '95 UD photos.  We have a perfectly-shot outdoor portrait of Larry Jones there and a unique action shot of Big Mac donning throwbacks.

Still not convinced?  Here are dozens more:

 

Even the backs got plenty of photo love:

All those would make excellent card fronts.

There are a lot of repeated thremes in the set photography.  Here are a bunch of autograph shots:

OK, so A-Rod might just be writing something.  Something cheater-y.  I still love that card.

Some nice interview cards, too, including one of the greatest ever made.  Can you spot it?

 

This set's got pitchers on offense out the wazoo, including my favorite Fernando Valenzuela ever (that's saying a lot - he's got a ton of great cards out there):

Lotta bunts there.

Hey, look what a nice day it was in Cleveland:

One of the best in the set IMHO.

Here's a different kind of throwback for Frisco:

This fellow's helmet made the front and back of his card:



Then to top it all off, Upper Deck made a five-pack of amazing Final Tribute for the last five cards of the set.

They absolutely nailed the card backs here, managing to squeeze in lifetime stats, a sizeable blurb, and even an additional color photo - and all this with a thick, tasteful border.  Perfect.

As much as I love these, though, my heart hangs heavy because GRIFFEY SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN ONE.  I like to think that had Upper Deck stuck around it would have happened.  Maybe I'll make one in MS Paint.

FYI, for the Electric Diamond parallels of these Final Tribute cards, they dropped the Final Tribute banner from the card front.  It's something I always wondered about, and now I know.  I'll show you one soon enough.

While they don't touch the excellence of the base set, the subsets are not too shabby, either.  Here's a few choice cards from each:

Some well-photographed rookies with psychedelic backgrounds plus Nolan Ryan's son appearing in the same set as his Dad

Another design for rookies, this subset ends series one and carries on into the beginning of series two.  It's an iconic design because of the solid checklist.

Yes, this makes three rookie subsets.  Sure, one is prospects, one is stars, and these focus on young players' major league debuts, but to a pack-busting adolescent they're all a bunch of rookie cards.

Of course the big stars of the 90's got their own subset which focuses on each guy's performance in the first half of the 90's.  The reverse-negative black & white backgrounds really make the photos pop.  Some nice one's in this set, but that Crime Dog may be my fave.

Nice subsets all, but the base set is the real star of this post.  Coming up next in Part 2, the contents of those two retail boxes.

2014 Topps Series 2: a Blaster, A Hanger, and Eight Packs...er

I went to Target to buy shoelaces (Target does not carry shoelaces, btw), and I came across a slough of Series 2 flagship.  I grabbed a little bit of everything they had.

Let's start with a Hit-ish:

This is the manupatch card that came out of the blaster.  You can't argue with a great photo, over-used as it may be.  There is a Griffey like this floating around out there somewhere, but I'm pretty happy with the other Kid.

Now for what really matters: base cards:

The vast majority of what came out of those packs was close-cropped action shots with a handful of unique poses mixed in.  The printing and photography are both high-quality as usual, but I'd like to see more cards like that one of Parra chunkin' the deuce.  How many rookie cards is Evan Gattis going to get?

That Pujols is gorgeous, no doubt about it; but the real star here is Pence's freaky focus face.

Remember the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when Christopher Lloyd shed his eyeballs and freaked everybody out with his devilish cartoon-eyes?  And how crazy and pulsing they were as Eddie Valiant (rest in peace) ran over his ass with the steamroller thus securing the fate of Toontown?  He looks like that.  Spoiler alert, by the way.

Cano in his classic Seattle grays, a super fun Justin Maxwell card, and Lorenzo at the wall.  The baserunning action shots average out pretty solid.

The Span and the Harper are real gems.  Check out the blue guy on the Nava card.  Sad catcher is sad. :-(

I rarely pull wacky parallels, but here are some of the gold that popped up.

Super into that orange Wandy.

And the sparkle pinks, of course.  I could take or leave these.  I miss the sparkle blue from 2013 Opening Day.  That was how you do a sparkly insert.  This puce color is just confusing.

Okay, inserts:

These were by far the most prolific.  I ended up with seven (dupes of the Wacha).  They look exactly as you would expect.

These are new and freaking love the fun new design.  That Randy Johnson is one of my favorite pulls of the night.  The backs describe each player's breakout moment in rookie-dom.  Thumbs up.

You've probably heard about these.  The backs are simple, just giving a short description of where each guy was in the standings of that stat.  The design is a bit dry, but so are statistics.  I'd like to see more of them. 

I covered up my code with the back of another code card.  A buddy of mine plays these games, so I'm going to give them to him to spend on in-game Griffey stuff.  Is that even how it works?  Am I close?

Speaking of Griffey.....

Score!  Same old pictures over and over, yeah, but I love the '89 design enough to not care.

So that's it.  I still plan on picking up a hobby box at some point and building the second half of the flagship set, but these have held me over well.

Now, go read the six dozen more of these posts that are probably popping up at this very moment.

Something for Everybody Mash-Up Mega-Post

This post consists of:

Trades with Zippy Zappy, The Lost Collector, Red Cardboard, Nachos Grande, and The Card Chop; a pack of Topps Chipz; my first ever Topps Redemption card; six wacky, oversized eBay oddballs; and a damn pog. 

You heard me right.  A pog.

Enjoy!

Let's look through some PWE's first.

AJ aka The Lost Collector surprised me with a six-pack of Griffeys from all around the spectrum.  Some nice ones, too, but that blue oddball in the top right stood out right away as new to me.  That Gallery card is also a real beauty.  Thanks, AJ!

These are from the immortal Chris of Nachos Grande.  Those Griffeys from the underappreciated DIII and Circa '96 sets are killer, but how 'bout that Ultimate Victory base card?  It's quite a sight in person and another new one for the collection.  Thanks, Chris!

These came from Matt of one of my favorite blogs out there, Red Cardboard.  Matt cracks my shit up on the reg.  The note accompanying these read simply, "Doubles.  Yuck."  I get that, big guy.  Tennis can be difficult if you haven't had much practice with your doubles partner, but you have to keep at it if you're going to improve.  I shouldn't drink and type.

That Playoff Prestige card is a big set need, and I'm super happy to have doubles of that "Just Over the Wall" Showdown card.  What a great photo.

This is the program from Griffey's last game.

This is a ticket from that game.  These came courtesy of Steve from the Card Chop, a blog I've read for quite a while before actually getting to trade with him.  I've read that program (very carefully so as not to damage it, or course) throughout.  Here are some highlights.

The Grand Salami sure doesn't pull any punches.  If you didn't bother to read this, it basically says it was high time Junior moved on.

Then there's this:

I have a resolution to the whole Griffey mess, Jon.  Shut up.

Honestly, I love these artifacts.  Thanks a ton, Steve.  As I told you before, I'm sending you lots of Braves.

These came from the popular Zippy Zappy at my request because I love the Adventure Time Card Wars app.  It looks like he bought this pack thinking he was getting actual Adventure Time cards like these:

Ironically, I bought these thinking they were Card Wars cards, but I was happy either way.  Adventure Time is like Lost meets Ren & Stimpy, and I'm crazy about it like the bronies are crazy for their thingy.  Anyway, thanks ZZ!

I also did my first trade with Topps.  This is from a redemption I pulled from a box of 2013 Series 1 last year.  I finally sent it in.  It's pretty cool, I guess.  I dig the free shipping.

Here is the unaltered picture of what I recently orderd from Dave and Adam's Card World.  It came with a free pack of Topps Chipz, and to be honest I was pleasantly surprised.

They're weighty like quality clay poker chips.  The sticker quality is also pretty amazing.  These qualities don't make them any less odd, but I do like them.

The Ellsbury is a gold (1:3 packs) and the Votto is a magnetic chip (1:4 packs), so I guess I beat the odds.  The only chip I plan on keeping is the Votto because of the magnetic quality.  If you look carefully you can see it in this picture of my Griffey cabinet:

Here's the peeled front of that Ellsbury gold chip:

I must admit, I kind of wish there was a Griffey in this set.

These are from an oddball set issued by Taco Time.  I got them on the 'bay for a song.  They're all 4"x6", so they're not practical ot anything.  Just neat.

That one of him with his Dad is great.  I'm asucker for those as well as illustrated cards.  These were  a no-brainer.

Okay, last thingy:

Yeah, it's that pog I was talking about earlier.  My buddy Craig gave me this "slammer" because he is the only person I know personally who reads this, and he knows I love all things OJ.

Witness the thickness.  I don't know what a slammer is meant to do, but I now fear it.

Hey, have a great weekend, kiddo.

Set Building: the Slippery Slope

I’m not a set builder, but I’ve made exceptions before.

I started building the ’89 Donruss set as a kid and never really stopped.  I still have a massive box of these base cards in an ongoing attempt to build as many sets as I can before I die.  I’m up to almost 2. Shameful.

I build Topps base sets as they come out just to stay up-to-date on the card market and because it’s great for trading.

I was halfway through completing the ’89 Upper Deck base set when I found the complete set minus the Griffey rookie for eight bucks.  Mission accomplished.

I recently completed the 1995 Leaf set by buying two boxes (one of each series) online and putting it together myself with a little help from some other collectors.  My purest set build yet.

I’ve also picked up a few complete sets through the years from card shows and shops, most of them overproduction-era and under ten bucks.

Despite all this, I still don’t call myself a set builder.  And yet there remain a few sets that stick out in my mind as real gems of the hobby that are cheap and accessible enough that I can’t justify not going for them.  Set building is, after all, the soul of the hobby – how can I not participate in that?

So I’ve made a few purchases online:

Here you can see some of the goodies I ordered.  There’s an ’89 Donruss set (seemed like something I should have anyway) and a box of Star Trek: TNG Season 3 (perhaps the slipperiest slope in this picture). There are also three other boxes that will comprise my two newest set building efforts.  I've hidden some of them with pink boxes.  Can you guess what they are?  As well as you guys tend to know your cards, I’m going to go with probably.

Coming soon: a couple of epic box breaks I’ve been fantasizing about since adolescence.  First I've got a plethora of trade packages to send out.