Quite Possibly The Worst Set Ever

Still working on sorting out my cards sets.  I am spending a little bit of time each night putting one big set together or several smaller sets together.  Last night I ran into a small set from 2000 and almost ended up putting the entire into the infamous Cooper pile.  The Cooper pile of cards is a four-hundred count box of cards that have been "claimed" by my two year old.  The cards in the box have been chewed, folded, and all kinds of other acts of destruction.  Here's an example of one of his favorite baseball cards.    

2009 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects Ubaldo Jimenez

So, after pulling a set 2000 Skybox EX cards from a box a few years back, the cards went from mint condition to something like the card above.  Maybe less crinkles, bends, and tears, but still damaged enough to turn into the same collection that claims the fabulous Ubaldo Jimenez card pictured above.  The cards in their pack fresh form originally looked something like this:

2000 Skybox EX Alex Rodriguez 

The 2000 Skybox EX set was the only EX set that I did not open between 1997 and 2003.  The set was one of the best Fleer products put out every summer and I always made sure that I took time to bust some wax and put together a set and a good collection of inserts.  I found a cheap box on Ebay and was able to put together a set from one box (only a 60 card set) and even pulled a few cool inserts.  Most of the EX cards are heavy cardboard stock or plastic.  However, the 2000 set is regular card stock with a thin foil overlay on top of the cardboard.  This Alex Rodriguez is one of the few cards from my set that is actually still in mint condition.  The rest of the cards have literally fallen apart over a short period of time.  

The two cards above show the typical pattern of damage on the 2000 Skybox EX cards.  Note that the foil picture on the front of the card has rolled from both the top and bottom of the cards.  No doubt that Fleer just simply glued the foil onto the card stock, or printed the cards as stickers and applied them to the stock.  Either which way, clearly the cards did not hold together well and have aged poorly over a short period of time.  A side look at the cards:  

Note the thin piece of foil curling up near my finger tip.  Interestingly the front and back of the cards are made from the same material, but only the front part of the card is curling off.  Reflecting back on this box of cards, this was clearly not a good investment and I will be sure to steer clear from now on.  In the meantime, my son just added a big stack of cards to his box.