Thrilled

I sent a package to Will Clark, and today I got it back.

A few weeks ago my wife informed me quite nonchalantly and in a single breath that she works with a guy who hangs out with Will Clark, and if I get a few cards together she would pass them on to this fellow who would get Will to sign them.  My response was, "Wait, what?!?"

So I scrambled through my collection, trying to figure out which cards to send.  Should it be all rookies?  Should every team from his time in the majors be represented?  When I was done I had 34.  She told me that maybe I should whittle the pile down to ten, and I begrudgingly agreed.

So I chose the best ten from that stack of 34 and put them into a snap case secured by rubber band.  I put that case into a small white card box along with a sharpie, a business card for my blog, and a note.

I'll admit that thenote was a little fan-boyish, letting him know things like the fact that we went to the same high school, and my uncle who is a teacher there taught him English, and I'd written a blog post once about the major leaguers of the school's alumni that he could check out if he wanted.  I also invited him to inscribe the autographs however he wished.
 

I didn't tell him that my cousin was a huge fan who also went to the same school only a year behind me, and that my cousin had even met Will once after a morning assembly in the late 90's.  I left out that my cousin kept in his bedroom a framed picture they had taken at that meeting that I still look at whenever I visit my cousin's house.  I didn't tell him that my Will Clark collection is really a tribute to this cousin who left us seven years ago.  Maybe I'll tell him someday.

So Will didn't know what a gesture this was to me.  I like to think that were my cousin around today I would share these cards with him.  Maybe I'd tell him to put together a box of his own.  The way I see it, they're kind of his, anyway.  I always liked Will Clark, but he was undoubtedly my cousin's baseball hero, probably in part because his Dad taught Will English.

Look closely and you can see that Will inscribed each auto with his corresponding uniform number.  How cool is that?  You've got to admit, too, he's got his underlining swoosh down.

The last of the bunch is a relic card I was a bit conflicted about sending off, but I'm really glad I did.  If you are a regular reader you probably have seen this before:

That's Will in our high school's baseball uniform.  It had a nice, big field of empty space that was just begging for some ink, and it's finally got it!

If you do read this, thanks a lot, Will.  You've made an even bigger fan out of me.

1995 Upper Deck Part 3: The Griffeys

This is the final post in a three-part series all about 1995 Upper Deck.

Check out Part 1: The Set and Part 2: The Box.

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At long last, let's look at some Griffeys:

1995 Upper Deck #100

I talk at length about why I love this card in part one.  Suffice it to say, yeah, it's pretty good.

There are two parallels of this card, Electric Diamond Gold (1:35 retail packs) and Silver (1:1 retail packs).  I only have the silver, and here it is:

1995 Upper Deck #100 Electric DIamond Silver

The only difference is the color of the foil and the little home plate Upper Deck logo with the parallel name.  Not much to it, really, so I'm not hurting for the gold version.

1995 Upper Deck #110 90's Midpoint Analysis

I turned this on its side so you can get the full effect.  Our guy is above-average in every category here.  Can I get a "what, what?"

I have both parallels of this one:

1995 Upper Deck #110 90's Midpoint Analysis Electric Diamond Silver

1995 Upper Deck #110 90's Midpoint Analysis Electric Diamond Gold

Electric Diamond was the 1:1 retail parallel.  Let's look at the 1:1 hobby box insert:

1995 Upper Deck Special Edition #270

This has all the qualities of a parallel, but it's not.  It's really just a massive insert.  While I'm not crazy about the unscannable front, I love the back here.  That oversized bat sure has made the rounds on cardboard, hasn't it?

1995 Upper Deck Predictor #R4 Home Run Leader Game Card

 

Before we talk about this card, let's take another look at the boxes:

These are clearly all taken from the same photo session.  And why not?  It's a great portrait and made for one of my favorite Griffey cards of all time.  A great-looking design with a classy marble border.  These cards look expensive.

I won't sit here and type how the Predictor cards worked.  Suffice it to say there were no winning Griffeys this year.

1995 Upper Deck Predictor #R4 Home Run Leader Redemption Card

This redemption card for the series two first-set Predictor is one of the few that adorn the background of this very blog.  As you can see the design was identical to the game card but with holofoil instead of bronze.  It's also got a proper back instead of game rules.  The blurb is bittersweet.

1995 Upper Deck Predictor #H3 Most Valuable Player Game Card

 

This is the series one hobby box version Predictor.  It's red instead of green and features an action shot in lieu of a portrait.  Not as iconic as the sharp portrait cards but still very much a looker.

1995 National Packtime Trade Card

I don't count these as Griffeys per se, but I do keep a couple in the binders next to the National Packtime redemption cards.  It's got the Kid's name on it - that's good enough for me.

There was also a Griffey in the Upper Deck Minors set from this year:

1995 Upper Deck Minors Craig Griffey #59

 

Craig is just a little younger than Junior, but his major league career never really panned out.  We still got a very small number of cards for him including a very nice family portrait card in '92 Upper Deck and this card depicting Craig laying down a savage bunt.  Again, I don't count this in the Griffey totals, but it belongs in the binders.

Here are the Griffeys I need from 1995 Upper Deck:

#100 Electric Diamond Gold
Special Edition #255 Gold
Predictor #H3 Redemption
Predictor #R45 Game
Predictor #R45 Redemption
Predictor #R52 Game
Predictor #R52 Redemption

Those last two Redemption cards listed are going to be tough to pin down as there was only one winning card in that entire half of the Predictor checklist.

So that's everything.  I've got a few more scans of some side-by-side comparisons among parallels for you to enjoy if you're so inclined, but when it comes to 1995 Upper Deck posts, I'm spent.

Have a great week.

Base card Electric Diamond Silver vs. regular

90's Midpoint Analysis Electric Diamond Gold vs. Silver vs. regular

Predictor #R4 vs. Predictor #H3 vs. Predictor Redemption #R4

...

1995 Upper Deck Part 2: The Boxes

This is part 2 of a 3-part series about how great 1995 Upper Deck is.

Check out Part 1: The Set and Part 3: The Griffeys.

Note: team collectors out there who are in need of cards from this set should contact me for a trade sooner rather than later while I still have my dupes separated from the rest of my trade cards.

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Series One Griffey head > Series Two Griffey Head

I busted all these packs in hopes of building one of my favorite sets of all time: 1995 Upper Deck.  I spent a lot of time dividing, and sorting; and by the time I was finished these boxes looked like this:

Wrangled!

I grouped them into runs of 50 by card number plus another pile for inserts and parallels.  First we'll look at the Electric Diamond Silver (1:1 retail) and Gold (1:36 retail) parallels.  If you're like me, you're wondering what goldies I pulled.  Wonder no more:

Gotta say, pretty solid.  I lucked out with a pair of 90's stars.  I received 72 silvers, so I'm only going to show you a few favorites:

See?  Nolan's Final Tribute banner goes bye-bye on his Electric Diamond card.  As much as I'm not much of a collector of Bonds and the Straw, they have some of the best-looking cards here.

Hey, that A-rod is actually worth a couple of bucks.  Used to be, anyway.  Lots of great slides here, especially dusty Cal.

The Series two box did one thing right: it gave two predictor cards instead of one.  These are all the "League Leaders" Predictors.  "Award Winners" Predictors came from Hobby boxes only.  I got no winners, but if I had I'd have been able to send it in for a special redemption set of Predictor cards 18 years ago.  The foil on these is gold in series two.

These checklists are a tough pull at 1:17.  I beat the odds and got five.  They have cool nameplates and photos from the actual moments described on the bottom, but I'm not terribly excited by them.

I wasn't all that excited about this one, either; but at 1 in 34 packs I think I was supposed to be.  This came only in series two boxes, and it is unscannable.

Here is the 1:34 insert from series one, and I really like it despite the massive miscut.  Scans nicely.

I would have gotten so excited about these as a kid.  Primary colors!  These are all from series two.  I can't redeem them anymore, obvy, so I'm a little concerned that the last 45 cards of the base set will be tough to get a hold of.

Not only did I pull one of these back in the day, I redeemed it.  So while I have the complete redemption set, I won't consider it part of '95 Upper Deck.  It deserves its own post someday, anyway.

Now I'm sure you've been wondering, "Junkie, didn't you pull any Griffeys??  Cuz if you didn't I'm just gonna lose it right here."  Feast your eyes:

One each of the two most easily-pulled Griffeys in 1995 Upper Deck.  I got the wrong box.

I'm happy to report that the series one box (the one with the superior Griffey head) produced the full series.  The series two box so did not.  Here are the cards I didn't pull from that naughty box:

244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 259, 271, 291, 307, 337, 353, 361, 368, 369, 373, 378, 389

This is not my current want list - just what I didn't get from the box.  I will update this post with a link to my current set needs soon.

Each box contained 432 cards, 36 of which were Electric Diamonds.  That leaves 396 regular base cards (not including a handful of inserts) to build each 225-card series.  For series two I ended up with 208 of the 225 cards, an output of just over 92%.  Not horrible, but the series one box output of 100% make me wonder what changed at the factory between the production of these boxes.

The bottom of the series one box included an offer where you get a a signed Roger Clemens card limited to 8,000 copies for five bucks and 35 pack wrappers.  The series two box bottom gave a rundown of how the Predictor cards and trade cards worked, but apparently there was a similar offer for a signed A-rod.  Hmm.

Well that was fun.  I don't think I'll buy another box of series two to build the set.  My hope it to trade for it and maybe supplement that with pickups from Just Commons.

The final post in this series is the icing on the 1995 UD cake: The Griffeys.  After that I'll never again mention 1995 Upper Deck's superiority to most other sets at least until such time as I totally mention it again all the time.

Happy Father's Day

Call yo Dad.