Sunday, May 17, 2020

Pack Sampling: 1998-99 UD Ionix


It's not uncommon these days to hear collectors lament over being priced out of "The Hobby". This particular complaint isn't by any stretch of the imagination, a new one, but is being magnified more by our modern social media driven world.

I'm not sure if these carping collectors are just new to the world of cards, are too young to remember, or have just forgotten, but expensive packs and/or boxes have been around for awhile now, and today's pack is a perfect example of this not-so-new phenomenon.

Were you to travel back to 1998 (where do I sign-up?), go to a card shop, and pick-up a pack of the newly released UD Ionix, you'd find yourself holding a $5 ($4.99 on the pack) pack -- and that was five bucks for just four cards by the way!


1998-99 was around the time that my interest in cards started to wane, although it would be another two more years before I'd take my decade-long sabbatical. I'm not sure if the increasing pack prices had anything to do with my diminishing interest, but I do know that I never bought any of those "expensive" packs that started becoming more common in the mid 90's. Five dollars for a pack? No thanks, I could get two packs of Topps for that price... and end up with a whole heckuva lot more cards to boot!

Even though 20+ years have passed, and I have few more bucks to spend on cards nowadays, I still wouldn't pay $5 for a four-card pack, even a pack of this "vintage" -- in fact this particular pack only set me back a dollar. However I do have to give public thanks to my mom for finding it, as it was her that called me from one of those town sales that are oh so popular here in the south, to ask me if I was interested in any of the $1 packs that vendor was selling.  This was about two years ago now, so the details have gotten a little foggy, but I do recall her finding today's pack, as well as a couple from the 1998-99 Black Diamond basketball set.

I don't know how I managed to wait so long to open this pack, but I did, and since all things basketball from this era have shot through the roof in recent years, I would imagine that this will have ended up being the only pack of Ionix that I'll ever be opening.

So, did I pull one of those elusive MJ autographs? Or maybe a Warp Zone? I don't know, I guess you'll have to scroll down a little further to find out.

Even though I've never opened up a pack of these, I have found quite a few in dime boxes over the years, so I already knew what to expect design-wise. I'm fan of this set's look, but unfortunately my scanner doesn't seem to share the same opinion, as it ended up washing out a lot of the finer details, as well as the red section on the top, and near the bottom. I snagged a pic from COMC, to try and show you what the cards are supposed to look like...

... but their picture wasn't much better, although the red shows up a little better, and you can see that there is an image to be seen through the slats.

I like the backs on this set too, they're certainly not great for stats, but I find them to be very pleasing aesthetically, so I can live without a more complete stat line.

Some people might not like that the checklist is only 80 cards deep, but having the set made up of mostly established stars and rookies doesn't bother me all that much, I do however have to point out that this was one of those sets where Upper Deck went a little overboard with their MJ love, as he's got at least a dozen different cards in here -- which seems like a bit much for an 80-card set.

Hey... it's a Houston hot pack!

Nuts, no MJ autograph! I'm okay with this pack though, all four cards were of guys that I collect, and all of said four cards were new to me, so no complaints there.

Even though I was happy with what I got, can you imagine paying five bucks for this pack back in 1998? No? Me either. And what about paying whatever crazy price these packs are going for now, and ending up with these four cards? Talk about your disappointment! For a dollar though, it was a pretty solid pack, and I certainly wouldn't hesitate to buy any more for the same price, not that I think this will ever happen again, but you never know...


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

19 comments:

  1. So cool! I was out of the hobby at that point, so I missed out. I am not a pack buyer either, but for $1, I'd grab those!

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    1. Well, I hope that you luck out at some point and find some then, I am of the opinion that everyone should get to open a pack of these at some point.

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  2. I was collecting heavy that season, but never opened a pack of Ionix. Very cool set.

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    1. I think the price of the packs prevented a lot of us from not opening any of these at the time.

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  3. I was rapidly approaching the end of my first round of collecting, not to return until 2012. I may have purchased one or two packs of baseball IONIX but likely no more. It was all things foily at that time but certainly not overly memorable to me. Now for a dollah, yes I'd buy a few packs. Glad you pulled some keepers!

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    1. I don't think I've ever owned any cards from the baseball side, but would certainly grab some cheap packs of those too, were I to ever come across any that is.

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  4. The late 1990s had some terrible uniforms. Those Rockets and Cavs unis are a mess. I do enjoy a good Charles Barkley card though. Always enjoyed watching him play.

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    1. The Cavs unis were especially bad around this time.

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  5. Voting for the Reggie. I like Barkley more, but as a 76er.

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  6. Went through a bunch of these packs looking for a Vince Carter Rookie card. Never got one :(

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  7. The mid to late 90's were filled with $3 to $7 packs. You got a steal finding this for a buck. Or should I say... your mom found a great deal. This was a pretty solid pack. Three legends and a hobby fan favorite. I remember the Rockets having Barkley, Olajuwan, and Pippen. Talk about a dream team.

    1998-99 was the year I went all in on basketball, so I probably opened some of this stuff. I remember the reciprocal parallels being really nice.

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    1. I don't remember any $7 packs, but I do recall that $5 packs started becoming fairly common by the late 90's. It was a bit of a dream team, wasn't it? And the best part was that they were brought together by deals made by management, as opposed to nowadays where players decided to build super teams because attempting to win anything on their own is too hard.

      The Reciprocal's are very nice, I've picked up quite a few cheap ones via COMC over the years.

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    2. I'm pretty sure packs of Topps Chrome and SP Authentic were at least $7 a pack, if not more. And there's a good chance that SPx, Finest, and E-X Century were in the $5 to $7 range as well. Plus there were those autograph heavy packs like Sage and Press Pass too. The hype over Kobe, Duncan, and Carter really drove up the price of packs back then.

      Yeah... that's what made me step away from the NBA. It kinda started with the Lakers with Malone and Payton... but then it really got bad with the Miami thing. After that... it sort of got out of hand in my mind.

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  8. Can't say I'm a fan of the design, but you got some solid players. That was about the downfall of my collecting too but my best pull came the next year I believe pulling a gold Jordan card. Too bad I didn't keep that one.

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    1. Don't feel too bad, I've got more than my fair share of stories about cards that I should've held on to.

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  9. Crazy how today that pack was just a buck considering what they wanted for it back then. Nice pulls, nonetheless 👍

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    1. Getting one this cheap was an anomaly, they were probably going for at least $10 apiece just a few weeks ago when the MJ special was at it's peak.

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