The response that I've gotten from the last couple of early 90's packs has been far greater than I expected. I'd like to think that it's because of how well the posts are written (is there an eye rolling emoji that I could insert here?), but I'm pretty sure that it's just the nostalgia that most collector's have for this particular era that's driving the interest (how else can one explain a pack of Pro Set hockey generating 10+ comments?).
So with that in mind, I've got yet another twenty-five cent early 90's pack from ye olde "copy/print/cards-on-the-side" shop... and this time the cards are from a set that I don't remember buying a lot of way back when (happy day!)
I mean I know I bought some at the time, but I don't recall owning a ton of it like I do with the Hoops, Skybox, and Topps sets from that year. I guess there was only so much money to go around, and Fleer was the odd man out that year. It's kind of interesting too that this set was basically the last Fleer release to have minimal insert sets, because the following year would be the start of Fleer's famous insert blitzkrieg -- which, as a dedicated set collector, I didn't much care for at the time, now of course I adore the insane amount of inserts that were made during the 90's.
Before we get to the opening, I just wanted to note that this pack was an absolute pain in the butt to scan! The scanner kept chopping off the borders, and the crisp glossy finish was rendered considerably less glossy (and crisp), but I figure you people were worth the aggravation, so even though I thought about scrapping this pack, I powered through for all of you :)
I miss the days of league leader subsets. Cedric led the league in field goal percentage (57.6%) during the 1992-93 season.
I don't remember Randy White at all! Apparently he was taken by the Mavs with 8th overall pick in 1989 (ahead of guys like Nick Anderson, Tim Hardaway, Shawn Kemp, Vlade Divac, and Clifford Robinson), spent five fairly unproductive years in Dallas, and then left to play overseas.
This might be the scariest (best?) basketball card ever made!
Sweet dreams are not made of this.
I've talked about giving up on set collecting many times over the last year or so, and just recently I decided to give up on trying to finish any insert/parallel (90's stuff) sets as well. I'm still very much interested in such things, I just don't want to have to feel like I've got to complete anything anymore, especially since I already rarely pay attention to what I do and don't have when looking through boxes at shows, or even when I'm looking around on COMC -- I always just end up getting whatever appeals to me at that particular time, even if I already have multiple copies of whatever it is.
Because of this change in collecting, I've also started changing how I store and sort my 90's basketball inserts and parallels too. In an effort to make things easier to put away (and to look at), I have started sorting everything by player, and then bindering them. This will all be talked about more in a future post, but I brought up now for two reasons: A) I've been somewhat surprised by how many cards I have of certain player's, John Stockton being one of those. And 2) The image on this particular card seems to be a familiar theme on John's cards, in that there's often a defender (Greg Anthony in this case) trying to prevent him from doing what he did so well by keeping their body right up on him... hindsight tells us that this defensive strategy didn't work out so well.
There are a handful of guys who are often associated with "a dunk", John Starks is one of those guys:
If you're the sort to send out TTM requests, good luck if you ever try to send one to Chris Morris -- I've tried two different addresses, both were failure's. I wish I knew whether it was because he's hard to track down, or if it's just because he doesn't like signing autographs?
Fun fact: Reggie Williams, Muggsy Bogues, Reggie Lewis, and David Wingate all played together on the same high school basketball team (Paul Laurence Dunbar high school in Baltimore).
David Robinson is another guy that I apparently have more cards of than I had previously realized. This addition now makes for an even 100 cards of The Admiral, which doesn't seem to shabby, especially since only two of those are base cards.
Fleer backs were almost always good during those early years, they opted for less stats on the '93-94 set, but in my mind the back was still just as good as ever, if only because I really liked the secondary image over the player's last name.
Is that a young Anthony Bourdain in the background? eBay here I come! :)
People always give Shawn Bradley the business for getting dunked on (while trying to contest the shot) so much, well, Patrick Ewing got dunked on quite a bit too, and yet nobody ever tries to drag his name through the mud for doing so. Double standard?
Good player, but boy has he made some terrible decisions over the years, and in his case... age doesn't seem to be bringing wisdom.
Led the league in three-point percentage (.453) during the 1992-93 season.
Grant Long is one of those guys that seemed like he was around forever (15 seasons), and if you collected cards in the early 90's, you probably pulled your fair share of his cards (they were like water).
Spent the first eight years of his career with the Cavs and Clippers, scored a lot of points and suffered a lot of losses. Spent the last seven years of his career with the Bulls and Lakers, scored a lot less points and won five rings... funny how things work out!
It looks like Vlade's about to get got by Manute.
This is a set that I wouldn't mind opening up more of, maybe even a box (or two), but with it's glossy finish, I don't think that I'd chance buying a box, lest they all be stuck together -- $20 (that's with shipping) seems like a lot to pay for a potential brick. At least buying by the pack, you can tell when they are or aren't stuck together, this pack clearly wasn't, hence my purchasing it!
Normally this is where I would mention that if anyone's interested in anything, be sure to let me know, but there were an awful lot of keepers in this pack. There's only four that I'm not keeping: Randy White, Chris Morris, Reggie Williams, and Mark West -- so I guess if anyone's interested in those, you know what to do.
Pro Set? Hockey? Saturday? I know, but I'm not doing this one for the views, or the comments, just trying to switch things up a bit. Plus, there's that whole Stanley Cup finals thing starting on Monday, so this post will be sort of timely as well.
I have opened more Pro Set football packs than I can remember, but never did open even a single Pro Set hockey pack, so when I saw some packs for a quarter each awhile back, I figured why not give one a go?
Anybody that's ever come around here before, probably already knows that hockey isn't my forte, so if any of the info is wrong, blame the internet.
A member or the United States Hockey Hall of Fame. I didn't even know that there was a United States Hockey Hall of Fame! So apparently he's good enough for our HOF, but not THE Hall of Fame?
The last time I watched a hockey series, this guy, and his Mighty Ducks were playing in the Stanley Cup Finals -- although I'd be lying if I said that I remember him specifically, or anyone else from the series for that matter.
The first name in the pack that I recognized, and that's only because he was once a member of the Portland Winter Hawks. I did have to go look up when that was though, saw that he was on the 1982-83 squad that won the 1983 Memorial Cup.
As I'm reading about some of these guys, I'm starting to notice a trend here, in that half of this pack so far has a Whalers connection, and that's a team that I actually know a little bit about thanks to Chris.
From what I've gathered, this is basically the "good human" award.
And here's your good human of 1990! Evidently being good paid off for Mr. Lowe, as he also has six Stanley Cups to his name.
Hey, Vincent! One word... dehumidifier! It'll work wonders :)
Went to school at Bowling Green State University, I don't really associate Ohio with hockey, but what do I know?
Another Whaler! He also has a fairly well known brother, who may or may not be coming up later in this pack? [spoiler: he will be]
Apparently Petri was hot sh*t over in Finland, came over here and didn't do so well against the NHL's better player's, then went to Denmark and became a legend.
The first player to go straight from high school to the NHL after being drafted.
I'm kind of amazed at how long most the guys in this pack played, at eight seasons, Todd had the shortest NHL career, at least from the fellow's that we've already seen.
John had his career ended by a bout with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which is unfortunate, but he did beat it, and is still alive and kicking 20+ years later, so eat it, cancer!!!!!!
P.S. Also another former Whaler.
Ooh, the first member of the real Hockey Hall of Fame in the pack. He's also the all-time leader in power-play goals (274).
Another all-star, and another Hall of Famer! Coincidence? I'm not even going to try and list any of his accomplishments, otherwise we're gonna be here all day. Also another guy who spent some time in Hartford... former Whalers are all over this pack.
And with the last card in the pack, we get to the only other name that I knew. I would've bet money that Pierre was in the HOF, but apparently he isn't, anyone know why? I didn't see anything that talked about why he wasn't, I did read about the Punch-up in Piestany though, and how a lot of his teammates were disappointed in his lack of participation. Makes me wonder if something like that could be what is holding up his induction?
It was kind of neat to get a pair of brothers in the same pack, I would imagine that it would have been really cool to do so back in 1990.
I'm sure that everybody who opened these packs back in the day is quite familiar with the coupon cards, but they're new to me, so that's why I'm showing it.
I'd be curious to know if anyone ever used any of these, and if so, what did you get? Kind of interesting too seeing the three states that these couldn't be used in, I kind of wonder what that was all about as well?
Overall it was a pretty fun pack, got some Hall of Famers, got a guy with Portland ties, and learned a few things while putting the post together. The place where I got this has boxes for $8, which is a little high for me on something like this, but I wouldn't mind picking up a few more quarter packs somewhere down the road.
And I'll probably only be keeping Ray Ferraro, so if anybody wants any of the other cards, don't be shy about saying so.
1991-92 Fleer? Basketball? Sunday? Mother's Day? I know, I know, I'm just asking for disappointment with this one. But that's okay, this is a fun set, so if I'm writing this one for crickets, well then... chirp chirp chirp!
I picked up this mildly mushed pack for a quarter a while back at the "copy/printing/sports cards-on-the-side" shop that's about twenty minutes away from me. I've opened more than a few boxes of this stuff over the years, but I figured .25 cents for a blog post was a pretty good deal, so I went ahead and grabbed a pack.
If you collected cards back in the early 90's, you know what to expect with this one, 14 very blue cards (none of that 4 cards per pack nonsense), with a chance at pulling one of those hot new Pro Visions.
This ended up being a very Blazers-centric pack, not that I'm complaining mind you, I just thought that it was worth noting before we got going. Oh, and apparently my scanner really dislikes these cards, so that's something to be aware of as well.
A year later he was playing in Portland. Also came back for a brief stint in the early 2000's.
A decade later he would be coaching in Portland.
An actual Blazer! There's also ex-Blazer Mychal Thompson to the left of Jerome. JK was my favorite Blazer when I was a kid, and this is one of two cards that I got Jerome to sign in person back in like '92.
As a kid, I always felt like his name could only be said out loud if there were no adults around :)
Blazer killer!
Ripped the heart out of Blazers fans on more than one occasion.
One of the few guys that I don't remember seeing play from this era, my only memories of him come from his cards.
No Blazers connection that I know of, but he did coach the Oregon Duck's woman's team for a few years.
Played on the same high school basketball team as future (at that time) Blazer, Darnell Valentine.
Brother Jim was an absolute stud with the Blazers for almost a decade.
Fleer used to have such great backs.
No direct link to Portland, but he is a guy that I would've liked to have seen in a Blazers uniform (I know, it's a stretch).
Served two stints as a Blazers assistant coach.
I saw Mark play a lot as a kid, and I've just learned that he's third on the all-time list for field goal percentage, only Artis Gilmore and Shaquille O'Neal are ahead of him... not bad company.
Fun fact: Joe Wolf is a distant cousin of Don Coyote :)
See, what did I tell you, at least half the pack had some sort of connection to the Blazers!
I will be keeping Kersey, Stockton, and Strickland. I can't imagine that anybody would want any of the other cards, but if you do, don't be shy about saying so.
