1992 Fleer Ultra Old Schule Break

Busting out the German for this one.  I was in Bosco's the other day picking up issue #1 of the new Justice League.  Been a fan of the zine a long time so I thought I'd check out the new version being put out by DC. I guess that DC is doing a huge across the board revamp of all it's core titles this month.  I've been out of the loop for awhile, my reading in the graphic storytelling genre steers more toward more adult, ie non-superhero, books.  But I'd figure I'd give it a go. I guess if you buy the first 3 issues of any of the new titles you get issue 4 free. But that's not what this post is about


 I ended up stopping in to the baseball card section as I always do when I go in and looking over the stacks of old wax piled up there.  Pat the sports card manager bought a huge collection recently and I've posted some other old school breaks from this stuff.  Well he had a box of Series 1 and Series 2 Fleer Ultra sitting there for $7.99 a box.  I couldn't resist.  I remember when this stuff came out it was the shit.  And the boxes still had their original price tags on them.  Series 1 was marked for $100 and Series 2 $50.  Needless to say waiting almost 20 years to buy this two boxes netted me a huge discount. 

I have to say these cards hold up really well.  They still look great even by today's foil and chromed out cards.  And the 92's looked way better than the 91 flagship offering. 

Of course the 93's look very similar to this years.  Take a look.

Here are some more of the HOFer's and Stars from the set.

Great photography, a touch of foil, shiny finish.   In 92 Tony Gwynn was the Fleer spokesman and the feature of a commemorative set.  Series 1 also featured the possibility of pulling a Tony Gwynn autographed card.  But at the stated odds of 1:17,000, I wasn't expecting to pull one.  In Series 1 there were also an Award Winners insert set.  Series 2 featured more rookies, less stars and two more insert sets, All-Stars and All-Rookie Team.  Lets have a look at what I pulled.

My one Tony Gwynn Commemorative Series card.  You could also send in for a special set of Tony Gwynn cards with wrappers.  In 93 I remember it was Dennis Eckersley that was featured.    I guess these are about 1:36 since I only pulled one.

Glavine Award Winners.

I guess these are about 1:12 packs.  The odds aren't on the wrappers of series 1, except for the Gwynn auto.

The only name I recognize from the all rookie team was the Karros.

A few names you might recognize here.  I have to say I'm going to see how this collates. There are 300 cards in Series 1 and 2 and you get 504 cards per box so in theory there should be a full set in there.

Cheers
cb out.

Old School Finale( At least for now): 1992 Pinnacle Jumbo Series 1

Another purchase from Trade night. This is going to be a let down after my last post and box break but I already had the images scanned so...

 I got this box for under 10 bucks, I know 92 Pinnacle Series 1, ung.  But each pack had 3 inserts, plus there were also the Shades and Icon sub-sets in this release that were actually kinda cool, there was also the Sidelines sub-set that was not.

This box was of course the Jumbo box, but back in 92 they called them Super Packs!  Hard to believe that the retail price for this box back in 92 was over $70!  Do the math, 24 x 2.99 = 71.76.  Wow.  Needless to say I got a lot of 92 Pinnacle for my dough.

Here we have the base design.  Not terrible.  This was Scores "Premium" brand at the time. 

The back. Good old Paulie Mo. Again not terrible, especially when you see some of the other offerings from 92.  Of course if this design had been put out today I'm sure it would be unabashedly adorned with foil, lenticular optics and super rare colored and numbered variations. 

There is at least one decent rookie in series one. 

I did manage to pull two of these so that was nice.  I do believe this is the highest book value card in the entire set.

There were a couple insert sets available depending on what type of pack you bought.  With jumbos you get 3 Team 2000 inserts per pack.  The whole 80 card sets will set you back about 3 dollars today.  There were also 3 sub sets in the set itself.

My least favorite like I said above was the Sideline insert.

Here we have Robin Yount riding a dirt bike and it's probably the best of the lot.  Other subjects include John Burkett bowling and Bob Tewksbury drawing among others.  Kinda lame.

The shades sub set is alright, but kinda pointless.

Here's Daryl Strawberry .  Neat image in the reflection of the shades.

My favorite sub set is the Idols.

Here we have Ken Griffy Jr. and Ricky Henderson.  These I get and I really like the design.

Here's Jim Abbott and Nolan Ryan.

There are a few other interesting match ups. George Brett and Wade Boggs, Ozzie Smith and Chuck Knoblauch.

So you get 3 of these Team 2000's per jumbo pack but that's still not enough to possible get a full set, plus I had multiple doubles.  I really like the design and here we see the tasteful use of some foil on the cards.

The Backs.

Here are a few more.

Over all not too bad.  Nothing earth shattering. Fun to rip though.

Old School Continued: 1995 Studio

This is a product that screams cheap group break.  I vividly remember this offering in 1995 as well. Pretty much because this was Donruss thinking way outside the box.  Way before retro sets and off the wall designs were cool, along comes... Credit card baseball cards.  I guess it's not that original as Permagraphics put out a series of cards printed on plastic back in the early 80's, but these were kinda cool.  And you also got one insert card per pack.  Another innovation you only got 5 cards per pack as well.  Ah the future of things to come.  I remember these were pretty pricey back in the day so snagging a whole sealed box for 10 bucks seemed like a steal.  And this offering gives up lots of old stars and a few new ones (at the time) as well.

The hologram in the lower right corner doesn't scan well but it's a nice addition to the overall Credit Card look of the card.   The letters are raised just like a credit card too.

Even the backs get into it with the fake magnetic strip and signature strip.

Some great stars and HOFers and of course...

A fresh faced A-Rod.

Well the inserts are just parallels of the base cards.  The gold parallels the first 50 cards of the set and the Platinum parallels the first 25.  So needless to say for a Brewers fan, I get no love here as there are no Brewers in the first 50 card so no parallels for me.


The Platinum fall about 1 in 10 packs so for a box of 36 packs you can expect 3 maybe 4.  I got 3. and 33 golds.  I won't bore you with pictures of all of them just  a few.

Another nice addition to my Big Hurt collection.  I only wished I'd of snagged a Platinum too.

Oh and these parallel cards are cut like a credit cards and printed on plastic to feel like a credit cards too.

Not a bad haul and fairly decent collation.  I don't think I had many doubles of the base cards, but I had quite a few doubles in the gold.

Up next 92 Pinnacle Series 1, yep it's kinda a let down.

Old School - 1992 Donruss Series 1 and 2 boxes.

When I was at trade night last week and saw these boxes the first thought that came to mind was cheap group break, especially since Colbey over at Cardboard Collections is on Maternity Leave this month from his usual group break and August's group break is going up scale, but then I thought, man that's a lot of work and I'm getting hitch at the end of the month, so I decided to just buy a couple boxes and enjoy the cheap thrill of the the rip.  And when I mean cheap I mean cheap. $5.99 a box is pretty cheap.  That's pretty much the price of anything decent on the shelves at the moment.  And I was going to stick with a one box of Series 1 and 2 and leave it at that but I had so much fun and actually hit something that I had to go back and buy 2 more boxes before I did this post.  So this is the goodies from the 4 boxes. 

What first attracted me to the boxes was what could actually be inside.

Specifically the 5000 in the lower left hand corner.  There is a slight, very slight, chance that this box could contain a Cal Ripken Jr auto card in it.  Hell for 6 bucks I'll play the lottery.  Of course the same claim is made on the series 2 boxes too.

I'll be honest the base cards are pretty tame considering the last couple years of Donruss cards before this.  1991 looked like an 80's acid trip.

And the 1990 set looked like somebody threw up on the card.

  Although not too terrible, but definitely not my favorite.

I will spoil the suspense and say I didn't hit a Cal auto. But there is some goodness at the end.

1992 marked the year that Donruss put the Diamond Kings in there own Inserts set, instead of numbering them into the base set.  And I have to say that this year's Diamond Kings, well judge for yourself.  Here's a 1990 and 1991 DK and then all the DK's I got out of my 4 boxes.

1990 Bo Jackson DK

1991 Cecil Fielder DK

1992 Jeff Bagwell.

The back.

I think by getting rid of the base border and allowing these cards to stand alone was brilliant and these cards are truly the highlight of this set.  Glossy card stock and foil accents really make these cards pop. Falling about 4 per box there were a tough hit and to be honest you usually got 3 and card #27, the Perez checklist.

Here are the rest.

And of course the Checklist.  Out of 4 boxes I got three #27 cards.  It's an interesting collection of future HOFer's and who?

Series 1 also had the usual puzzle, while Series 2 did not.  This years puzzle was Twin's HOFer Rod Carew.

Yikes!! I knew I should have just popped the pieces and put the puzzle together. I mean this whole puzzle books high at 50 whole freaking cents. Makes Rod look like an alien. Don't stare at it too long you might get hypnotized or sick.

But after opening the my first series 1 box and getting pretty much 3 DK's I moved onto my first box of Series 2 and about half way in hit this.

If I'd have opened this pack in 1992 and gotten this card I would have dropped a load.  These were the bee's knees in 1992.  A numbered limited holofoil card!!!  These are still pretty desirable.  This is what made me want to go back and bust 2 more boxes.  Even though I'm sure these were only 1 per case or rarer than that.  I won't lie I would have rather hit a Cal Ripken, Ken Griffey, or a Frank Thomas, but still a pretty sweet hit from some old wax.

Oh and if anyone's looking for any 92 Donruss to fill a set let me know I've got a ton.

Next the highlights from some 92 Pinnacle and 95 Studio. 

CB out.