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Sunday, June 18, 2017

Old School Box Break: 1991-92 Upper Deck Basketball

 
I know I know.."junk wax" but this is a box I've always wanted to open some day just because of what it meant to me back in the day when I first started collecting. I started collecting basketball cards in 91-92 and bought so much Hoops and Fleer with the occassional Skybox thrown in too, but Upper Deck? It was THE card set of that year, fueled by the best rookie cards of Larry Johnson and Dikembe Mutombo. As a kid, I don't remember even seeing much of this product anywhere much less getting myself to pay so much for 1 pack of cards (when packs of Hoops were like 50 cents). I might have opened 1 or 2 packs ever of this stuff (I know for sure 1 pack). Since today is the 1 year anniversary of me being back in the hobby after a 5 year break, I thought it would be cool to finally cross this off the list. For $8, the memories alone are worth it to me. Back to a time where there were no serial numbered cards, no SP's, no Game Used Cards, to a time when you bought boxes to complete sets...where even common player base cards meant something and weren't just treated as filler. A simpler time that sometimes I miss.

Rookies of Note
Dikembe Mutombo
Stacey Augmon
Terrell Brandon
Steve Smith


Award Winner Holograms

Detlef Schrempf (X2)

Overall Thoughts: Obviously this break was purely for nostalgic purposes as these were the cards I would buy when I was in 2nd grade. Before this, the earliest old school box break I had done recently was 96-97 Topps Series 2, which I was in 7th grade when those were released, so to open a product from the year that started it all for me was pretty damn cool. The names brought back a smile to my face. Now it's not all sunshine and smiles. Honestly, 8 year old me would have probably been SUPER frustrated with the collation (of course 8 year old me wouldn't have known that term and would've been angry and said "I keep getting REPEATS..AND TRIPLES...AND 4 CARDS OF THE SAME PLAYER). Honestly I complain about Panini's collation problems but here we are some 26 years earlier and this box took the cake. With 36 packs in a box and I only pulled two insert cards (not that there are many to pull, I believe for regular packs it's just Award Winning Holograms and Jerry West Heroes) and the Detlef Schrempf Award Winners Hologram is literally the worst of the small 9 card set..and I pulled 2! Hilariously and ironically..I distinctly remember out of the couple of packs I opened of this..I pulled a...you guess it Detlef Schrempf Hologram..so 26 years later..and it's the only Hologram I've ever pulled lol. My main goal was to pull the Dikembe and LJ rookies, the Team Checklist, Base, and All Star card of MJ and possibly an MJ Award Winning Hologram. Got the Dikembe which was sooo cool. I know it's literally like a .10-.25 card but that card was SUPER hot back in the day and it's one of the cheap white whales I always wanted to own but just never did until now. I really wanted to pull the LJ too but no avail which is disappointing considering the collation issues. All in all though a fun trip down memory lane and well worth the 8 bucks and time sorting it all out. Sorry for the long read about such a boring product and just in case you want a trip down memory lane yourself, here's some pics of the cards I pulled.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Top 5 Pulls of 2017

#1- 2016 Donruss Optic Gold Vinyl Cam Newton 1/1
#2- 16-17 Donruss Optic Jaylen Brown Rookie Signatures
#3- 16-17 Donruss Optic Larry Bird The Champ Is Here Gold Holo (#4/10)
#4- 2016 Donruss Optic Derrick Henry Rated Rookie Autograph (#43/150)
#5- 2016 Donruss Optic Kenneth Dixon Rated Rookie Holo Autograph   Redemption (# to 99)


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