Complete Set: 2000 Pacific Aurora

I am now a weeks into my reorganization project and I have started to pull together a few complete sets.   Slowly, I am going to get a few posted over the next few weeks, but I am going to not repeat anything that I already put on my 30 Year Top 50 countdown from late last year.  That group of sets is intact and I have generally kept most of those cards separate from the general stash of baseball cards.  So, here's my third complete post set of the year and my first since the reorganization project began.


I actually stumbled into sorting out my 2000 Pacific Aurora cards this weekend while helping a regular trade partner find a copy of a really cool Ken Griffey Jr. card.  More on that card later.  I went ahead and sorted out the whole set while I was looking for that one card.  The late 90s and early 2000s Pacific sets are generally all the same, but each has it's own wrinkle which makes it unique in some way.  Aurora actually started out in 1998 as a retail product which was advertised as a per pack insert.  Most of the inserts were missable, but the set slowly evolved over it's three year run into its final run in 2000.

2000 Pacific Aurora Will Clark

The cards in the 2000 Pacific Aurora set are all horizontal and feature a large player picture with a colored background and a small circular black and white photograph in the top right-hand corner.  Like all Pacific sets the Aurora set was mainly driven by parallel cards and insert cards.  The most common of which was the pinstripe variations which were a one per pack card.

2000 Pacific Aurora Pinstripe Craig Biggio

The rest of the parallels in the set are the typical colored foil parallels with different print runs for the different color of foil.  While this set does not seem to stand out in any way or shape from other Pacific sets the aforementioned Ken Griffey Jr card is one of my favorites and one of the best examples of a card company properly handling a star player changing teams.  Last fall I posted an entry about my thoughts on the common practice of airbrushing.  The executive summary is that I do not like the idea and card companies should find a better way to handle players changing teams.  Which leads me to:

Favorite Card in the Set

2000 Pacific Aurora Ken Griffey Jr. 

2000 Pacific Aurora Ken Griffey Jr.

What team doesn't hold a press conference these days when they trade or sign a new player?  Pacific managed to put out two versions of the Ken Griffey Jr. card (#133) in the 2000 Aurora set by snapping a few pictures of the future Hall of Famer trying on his Reds jersey at the presser introducing him after his trade from the Mariners.  What's not to love about the two cards?  There is no airbrushing on these two cards and Pacific managed to capture Griffey in both his old Mariners uni and also with his brand new Reds digs.  Well played by Pacific and a great idea for a current card company to follow at some point in the near future.