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.

5 Packs of 1993 Flair

Oh yeah going really old school.  I couldn't resist these at trade night the other night.  I remember when this came out in 1993.  This was the Cadillac of Sports Cards this year.  And in 1993 these were 3 to 4 bucks a pack. That was super pricey back then.  I didn't rip to much of it for that reason and being a poor college student didn't help either.  But at trade night these were sitting there in their box, the last 5 packs, for fifty cents a piece, how could I pass them up.

I have to say this is probably one of the nicest card sets put out in the bad wax era. And I think they still hold up today.

Lets take a look at Big Dave Stewart here.  I love looking at old wax.  Seems strange to see Dave in an Blue Jays Uni, I think I'll always remember him as an A.
Here's a look at the backs.

Pudge!!! So young and skinny.

The infamous Gary Sheffield. Another thing I love about old wax is seeing players that use to be or will eventually wear your teams colors.  Of course Gary here spent his early years with the Brewers, until he whined enough to get traded to the Padres.

Tino.

Barry Larkin. 

You get 10 cards per pack and they of course came in that nice slip case and were packaged in a cello pack inside.  Ah the premium of the day.  This is the grandfather of Ultimate and Triple Threads right here.  I won't make you sit through all 50 cards just the highlights here.  Although I'm disappointed out of the 50 cards not a single Brewer. 

There is also an insert set to be chased in this product.  Only one though.  Wave of the Future.  And the odds are about 1 in 4 packs.  Well I hit those odds out of my 5 packs and did get one.

Speaking of a guy who would eventually were the blue and gold, but only for a couple of years and not for another 8.

Next the highlights, yes there were a few, from my Series 1 and 2 boxes of 1992 Donruss.



Something Old: 2 Box break of 1997 Proflicks

I went to Bosco's trade night last night thinking that I'll grab a couple slices of pizza, buy a couple boxes of the new Score football, and hopefully win there grand prize drawing, which was like 300 worth of packs.  Well at least I got some pizza.  No Score Football, but I think that's a good thing, because I've decided to not bust any this year.  If you didn't know Panini is not numbering any of it's Score inserts this year to keep costs down.  And last year I spent way too much trying to put together a set that I could have bought complete and with bonus jersey cards for 29.99. 

However the Sports Card section did have a huge selection of older wax.  Mainly mid to late nineties.  And the prices were super cheap.  I ended up picking up a box of 92 Donruss Series 1 and 2 for under 10 bucks for both and a box of 92 Pinnicle Baseball, 5 packs of 93 Flair for 50 cents a pack and two boxes of this.

What can I say I'm a sucker for oddball stuff.  Plus the checklist wasn't too bad either.

Not everybody on the checklist is HOF material but there are some big names in there.  Plus you get a screwdown holder in every box.  The holder is sized for a regular card however, but bonus!

The front of the box mentions the QB Greats refractors.  It doesn't mention that there are about 5 or 6 refractor parallel cards in the box as well.  Unfortunately they didn't scan well and you can't tell them apart from the regular cards.

ProFlicks was suppose to be the ultimate paper football.  Remember table top paper football back in grade school?  The footballs come embedded in a thick card, that is about 3/4 the size of a regular trading card.  Lets have a look at some.

I was disappointed that I didn't get a QB Greats Refractor and that both of my QB Greats were the same guy.

Could be a worse guy though.  Though not stated on the box these fall one per box.  I was hoping for a Favre, but at least I didn't get two Mark Brunells.

I was thinking of putting a set together but I bought the last two boxes the store had and I really don't feel like trying to track more of this down.  Between the two boxes I got multiple doubles and those refractor parallels so I'd need at least 2 more boxes to try and finish it.  Not probably going to happen.

Here's Troy's base card.

And his teammate Emmitt.

Here's what a back looks like.

A classic Barry.

Elwood!

Jerry!
Of course not everybody turned out to be long term superstars.

Since I had multiple of some of the lesser stars I had to punch one out to see what the back of the footballs looked like too.

And of course I got some Packers for my Packer collection and Favre collection. This was right after their Superbowl XXXI win after all.

The Reggie and one of the Favre's is the refractor and one is the base, can't really tell from the scan though.

Another easy contest brought to yo attention by the Contest Pimp

That's right another easy contest being held over at Justin's World.  Tell the man you favorite non-mainstream sport and win a prize, maybe.

Pimp out.

Well looky here!

I started entering my Diamond codes for Series 2 the other day.  More of the same, mostly junk.  I did manage a few 60's and one 50's and then I got this bad boy.  Tulo!!!!!!!

Not that I'm excited about this card in particular, I'm excited about what I might get for this card.  Right now I'm trying to trade him for Ryan Braun, but I might be willing to let him go for a Prince Fielder die cut also. 

Another easy contest plug!!!!

Contest Pimp here again to pimp another easy contest.  Head on over to Plaschke, Thy Sweather is Argyle to enter.  Some cool swag to be had there as well.  You have been informed!!!

I'm back!!!

Whew, that was a long work trip.  Let me tell you Juneau is a nice little city but 10 days of nothing but going in and out of culverts and looking for fish is exhausting.  I'm in the process of adding a few new sets to my need list.  I've been buying singles from Mr. Mem on JustCommons.com but they don't have everything I need, so if you have a stack of 2009 Upper Deck Baseball or some old 1982 Topps Baseball sitting around check out my new needs.  I've also got up my Series 2 Kimball Champions needs.  I have about half the set right now.  I'm slowly working my way through all my old set attempts and figuring out what I still need. And I'll be adding as I go along.  That being said I might have a few post up before the 4th of July but if life gets in the way just let me say Happy 4th to you all, and happy July 1st to my Canadian readers.

cb out.