About Those Projects....

Yeah, I made some promise about finding specific cards from specific sets.  I made a tab at the top of my blog where I was supposed to track the projects and report on my progress.  That hasn't happened for a few reasons.

1.  I am writing about half of the posts that I have made in previous years

2.  A limited amount of posts means that I really have to think about which cards are deserving of a post versus what cards are not deserving of a post.

3.  Picking up a single card from a set I am trying to finish is not always exciting.

I know there are very good ways to solve these problems and I am planning on addressing them in a post sometime next week.  So, here is a quick update on where my set projects are versus what the little tab up at the top of my blog says......



1.  1999 Molten Metal Xplosion 

It's done.  It took forever to get a copy of the Pedro Martinez card that was ridiculously expensive because that card is ridiculously difficult to find.

The box that this set is in weighs more than any other set in my collection.  At least it seems that way.  I should take it to the Post Office and stick it on the scale.  It would be fun.  

2.  1999 Topps Gallery Heritage 

Done too.  These cards deserve their own post.  It doesn't even have to have words, these are just really nice cards.  

3.  2002 Bowman Futures Game Autographs 

I have had the opportunity to finish this set, but I am being a bit picky about the cards.  The surfaces of the card are glossy and the autographs tend to smudge off.  For example, I already had a copy of the Ryan Ludwick autograph.  I bought it long ago when he was on the Cardinals.  The autograph is basically gone.

I found a fairly clean copy for my set....

There are a couple of imperfections there.  If I find a really clean version I might trade up again, but I am not really sure I am going to do much better than this copy.  Mint seems to be a pipe dream with this set.

My latest card from this set is a Dennis Tankersley.....

He is a St. Louis native who never quite turned out the way he was supposed to turn out.  Again, I have seen a lot of copies of this card, they are not expensive, but I waited until I was able to find a decent copy.  I went with this card.

In conclusion, I have not finished the Bowman Futures Autograph set.  It has nothing to do with time or effort and everything to do with being picky.

Set Project #1 Update- Thanks Pedro

Back in 2016 I said I was going to work on a few set projects and post them on my blog.  I made a few handy little pages at the top of the page and started out pretty well.  I found cards, I posted the cards, and I crossed them off my checklist.  Seemed like a great idea that was going well.  There are actually a few finished sets up that tab, but probably not nearly as many as there should be.  

So far I have finished the 2001 Archives base set, an insert set from the 2000 Skybox EX-Century set, and the 1990 Upper Deck set.  I have a cool Topps Gallery Heritage project going that is actually just about ready for a completed project post and a Bowman Autograph set that is almost also done.  

My most frustrating set has actually been the first set project, that I started back in April of 2016, which was the 1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion cards.  Also known as the metal card set.  

As of late 2016 I was done to just a handful of cards.  I actually found them really quickly and then I was down to just one card.  I hate when this happens.  One card means that you are going to sit and watch all the different card sites.....waiting......waiting......

A few years ago I put together a 1998 Topps Tek set and I got down to just needing Jason Kendall.  It took forever and that was for Jason Kendall.....

for the Molten Metal set I was missing one Pedro Martinez card.  There were literally none up for sale on Ebay, COMC, and Sport Lots which are my usual shopping destinations.  I went to a card show, in Raleigh, and that felt like a wild goose chase trying to find one baseball card in a really big exhibition hall.  It might have been there, but I kind of gave up at a certain point.  Not a great idea.  

Welp, I finally found Pedro.  Not expensive, but I ended up with 10 others cards from the set that are dupes.  Can't complain to finally cross this set off after a year and half in the works.  Here is the card.

I will do another set project post in the next week or two.  Thinking about doing a few more junk wax type sets similar to what I did with the 1990 Upper Deck set a few months ago.  1990s large set with a big whole where I can find a cheap box or wax packs.  

#MyCardMonday

I have been on a big 90s card kick over the past week, so I had to go with a 1990s classic for #MyCardMonday this week.  The Leaf Signature set has always been one of my favorite products and I have it featured this week in my Friday Five post which is going to feature my favorite sets from 1996.  Honestly, I wrote the segment on the 1996 Leaf Signature set first and felt like I should just let it stand alone.  I could not do it, but I did decide it would be cool to include it in another post this week.  Considering I have a Bowman post, a Durham Bulls post, and a few singles I picked up in trades and purchases this was my best bet to get in a second post on this set.

I have to save something for Friday's post, so I won't elaborate too much on the card other than this might be my favorite card from the set.  Pedro was an awesome pitcher at the end of his time with the Expos.  I saw him a few times in person pitching against the Cardinals and always walked away really impressed.  This was a gem......

Throwback Month: 1996 Leaf Signature

I know a lot of people who hate this set.  This was the first autograph per pack set and it flooded the secondary card market with thousands and thousands of autographs.  I am still not sure the flood has ended.  Somedays I type in the search word "auto" into Ebay and filter the searches to show me the cards that are ending soonest.  It's actually a really good way to snag a few good autographs at the last second for some great prices.  About once a week my screen is loaded with someone's long list of 1996 Leaf Signature cards.  You know, these things....

Does anyone actually buy these things?  Are there actually any good cards in this set?  The answer to both of those questions is yes, and in fact you should go ahead and probably pick up a bunch of the cards in this set.  Here are three types of cards that I look for from this set:

1. Hard To Find Signers 

Up until Pedro started signing for Topps the past two years, he had very few certified autographs out on the secondary market.  The Leaf Signature set is very comprehensive and they managed to snag quite a few players who were not the best signers over their careers.  Sammy Sosa, Derek Jeter, Randy Johnson, and Rafael Palmiero are a few others who have tough autographs in this set and can be tough to find away from this set.  Mariano Rivera also has an autograph in this set, which looks spectacular, but be prepared to take out a second mortgage on your house.  

2.  Mark Gubicza, Mike Hampton, Shawon Dunston, Why Not?  

You guys remember Shawon Dunston?  Played for 18 years, first overall draft pick by the Cubs in 1982, two time All-Star, played on four division winners in Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, and San Francsico.  Solid player.  

Doug Drabek played 13 years, won a Cy Young Aaward, and was the ace of the early 1990s Pittsburgh Pirates teams.  Later played for the Astros, White Sox, and Red Sox winning 155 games in his career.  

Mike Hampton played 16 years, was injured for at least another 4 or 5, and still won almost 150 games during his career.  Had a great year pitching for the Astros in 1999, a pretty good year with the Mets in 2000, and then learned your change-up doesn't change plain, nor speed in Denver.  He could hit too....

Mark Gubicza was won of the better pitchers in the late 80s.  Won double digit games in his first six years in the bigs, including a 22 win season, two All-Star appearances, and a ton of Van Halen t-shirts.  

All these players were pretty good.  All of them played when this set was released.  Do you know another card set with a Mark Gubicza autograph?  There are a ton of solid players in this set, who are not Hall of Famers, but had good years and should be worthy of a place in your card collection.  Most of these cards a just a few bucks at most.  Really good deal for an autograph of a pretty good player.  

3.  This Guy Played For My Team!

Who remembers Allen Battle?  He played 61 games for the Cardinals in 1995 and was then traded for Todd Stottlemyre.  I buy Cardinals autographs.  For 50 cents would you buy an autograph of a guy who played part of a season for your favorite team?  I vote yes.  

Five 2000 Topps Sets later....

I need to do a comprehensive post again about my reorganization project I have been working on for the past year.  It just keeps going and going.  This week I was snowed in my house and tackled my stack of 2000 Topps cards.  It was a pretty big stack. 

They are not even all in the picture.  Basically, I have been breaking my boxes, sorted by team, into sets of cards.  Some sets I might have gone overboard.  Slightly.  I really liked the Hank Aaron reprints in this set, but at some point should have just bought the insert set and stopped opening packs.  I broke several giant stacks of cards down into the sets. 

 

Five sets later I decided it was time to stop.  I still have a big stack of cards from this set, but it is less than 80% of the 470 cards needed to complete the set.  I am taking all of the leftover singles and putting them in with the rest of my dupes which I am using as trade bait.  I am also going to start selling them in player lots.  Some of them are pretty pick lots of cards.  Anyway, if you are not familiar with the 2000 Topps set here's my quick run down.  

2000 Topps Cal Ripken

The base set is your usually Topps base set.  The 2000 set is a little bit smaller than most of the Topps sets at only 479 cards plus a Mark McGwire reprint.  Topps went through a phase in the late 90s were they put out a few smaller base sets.  This set was the last of the little base sets.  The 2001 Topps set is 792 I believe.  Inside and outside of the base set there are a few things to like about this set. 

2000 Topps Mark McGwire 1985 Topps Reprint

I really liked the Mark McGwire rookie reprint.  Yes, I like the Cardinals.  This set was issued before Topps had any of the Archives or Fan Favorites lines and this was a singular reprint.  Topps had done reprints with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron in this set.  What's one more reprint?  Besides, many collectors actually count this as the last card in the set and Topps did short-print this card.  Although, I always seem to remember landing more than a few of these.  My stack of dupes agrees. 

I also really liked these 20th Century Best subset cards which showed the active Major League leader in a particular category.  Check out Frank Thomas and his OBP.  Pretty cool that Topps threw this card into the 2000 Topps set.  I wonder if Billy Beane helped design the set?  There are also sparkly versions of these cards that are serial numbered and cost $4 on Ebay instead of $0.50.  Worth a look around. 

Outside of the base set I had two inserts I really liked from this set (three, but you've all seen a Hank Aaron card-imagine it reprinted).  The Topps Combos insert was ten cards that looked a lot like the art work Topps had been using in their Topps Gallery Heritage Sets.  Only these cards had combinations of players instead of a singular player.  Always really liked this Pedro and Big Unit card.  Pedro might be too tall, or is Randy Johnson too short?  Something is off, but I still love it. 

 

I am not sure what happened here with the scan, but this card is really cool.  If I wasn't working tomorrow I would rescan it.  School on Saturdays is fun.  Anyway, this set is die-cut and focuses on really good defensive players.  Some different names in here and the cards are die-cut.  That's always fun.  

My Top 50 On Cardboard- #25 Pedro Martinez

My Top 50 on Cardboard
#25
Pedro Martinez

1991 Upper Deck Final Edition Pedro Martinez RC

Pedro Martinez was one of the top pitchers of his generation.  Some would argue that he could be the best of his generation.  I am not going to get into a debate about where he ranks amongst his peers this evening, but I will argue that Pedro should probably get a little bit more love in the world of cardboard. His rookie card appears in the abundant Upper Deck Final Edition set from 1991, although his 1992 Bowman card is often collected, bought, sold, and traded for more like his rookie card.  In my opinion, they are both really cool early 90s rookie cards, but the 1992 Bowman card is in a very significant set, which makes it the more desirable of the two early Martinez cards.  To make up for it, I posted a picture of the Upper Deck Final Edition.

Hobby Impact-
Pedro really took off on cardboard when he was traded to the Red Sox.  His early cards on the Dodgers and Expos have a pretty good following, but most were put out in the early and mid 90s when the wax was abundant and Pedro was not really always recognized for the pitcher he was at that time.  Extremely under-appreciated.  Then the Red Sox years came and Pedro Martinez took off with collectors.  I remember the first of Pedro cards that Topps put out in 1998 after the Expos traded him to the Red Sox.

1998 Topps Pedro Martinez 

Almost all of Pedro's Topps cards that year featured the same picture of Pedro.  Some of the cards were basically a waist up shot, like the base Topps card pictured above, and others showed Martinez sitting on a wooden stool.  Same picture, just cropped differently.  As boring as the first round of Pedro Martinez Red Sox cards were, they briefly ignited a quiet spark which made Pedro Martinez cards extremely popular.  The Expos and Dodgers cards, outside of his few certified autographs, seemed to lag behind.

The first Pedro certified autograph Pedro signed was a 1996 Leaf Signature while he was playing in Montreal.  The card hovers around $50, but is pretty easy to find floating around different places.  Red Sox autographs were always pretty hard to stumble upon and there was an added premium on the cards due to the fact that he was pictured as a Red Sox.

2000 Skybox Autographics Pedro Martinez Autograph 

The really unique trend with Pedro Martinez cards continued when he left the Red Sox and signed with Mets.  He also later played part of a season with the Phillies.  The Red Sox cards, inserts, short-prints, premium cards, and autographs all trend considerably higher than those same cards where Martinez is pictured on another team.  Only later in his career the other teams were the Mets and Phillies.  Martinez does have a few autographs from his time with the Mets, but there are almost all sticker autographs and not nearly as nice looking as his Red Sox autographs.

I think if Pedro were a little bit more universally liked there would be a little bit more consistency to the value of his non-Red Sox cards.  As a non-Red Sox fan, I never had much of a problem with Pedro and always had a high level of respect for Pedro as a player.  Again, not debating his place amongst his peers, but Pedro is really really high on my list.  A good Pedro card is always worth a look whether he is a Dodger, Expo, Red Sox, Met, or Phillie.  In fact, Topps just added some new Martinez cards to some of this year's products including a few autographs.  It would be nice to add one of those one of these years.

On The Field-
You remember the debate surrounding last year's Cy Young award with Felix Hernandez were people were debating the value of wins as a stat for pitchers.  Yeah, well there are a few people floating around who question whether or not Pedro is a Hall of Famer because he only has a grand total of 219 career wins.  Too low?  There are other numbers besides wins.  While Pedro only won twenty games twice in his career he are some other areas were he excelled:

• He won a total of 5 ERA titles during his career.  One with the Expos and four with the Red Sox in seven years
• Pedro only led the league in strike outs three times, but he had nine season of over 200 strikeouts including four over 250, and two over 300 
• Pedro led the league in ERA+ five times, each time his number was over 200.  A stat line of 100 indicates an average pitcher's ERA+
• Pedro led the league in WHIP six times.  All six seasons his WHIP ended up being less than 1
• He won a total of three Cy Young Awards.  One National League and two American League

JAWS rates Pedro as the 21st best starting pitcher of all-time.  He is the third ranked modern pitcher on the list behind Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux.  While there are pitchers with better career WARs than Martinez, there is not a single pitcher on the list higher than Pedro with a better career ERA+ than Martinez.  His career number ended at 154 with the next closet belonging to Lefty Grove at 148.  

Pedro was also a pretty tough player.  He was really short and not sure he could out muscle many other players in the Majors, but that did not stop Pedro from standing up to other players, pitching inside, and drilling a few batters.  Here's a few of my favorites (Thank you MLB Classic channel):

The sound Gregg Jefferies make when he gets drilled is awesome.    How many times have you seen the pitcher charge the other pitcher?  

There was this gem against Reggie Sanders

and then there was this gem.  Great Pedro moment. 

Favorite Card-

This is really pretty easy.  It's got to be a Red Sox card.  Slight temptation to throw an Expos card here, but I just like Expos cards.  I've always really like his 2001 Topps card.  Pretty classy looking card here that has a really good picture of Pedro.  

2001 Topps Pedro Martinez

It also helps that this was a really good set too.  Pedro has several inserts in this product, and unlike the 1998 Topps cards, they actually use different photographs on the different cards.  Definitely worth your time to pick up a copy of this card and also worth checking into the inserts from this set.   

2000 Topps Stadium Club King of The Hill Game Used Mound Dirt

You read that title right.  Earlier in the week I posted a "unique" relic card feature a piece of wall from Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium.  To make the card a little bit stranger Donruss, the manufacturer of the card, decided to attach the wall piece to Dodgers/Mets catcher Mike Piazza.  I came across the Piazza card when I ran into a collector specializing in oddball relics.  I've met plenty of collectors who enjoy oddball cards, but I actually had a lot of fun looking at a few of the unique relic cards.  Besides the Piazza, I also decided to make a trade for a cool looking oddball relic of Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez.

2000 Topps Stadium Club King of the Hill Game Used Mound Dirt

Topps actually made a whole set of these for the 2000 Stadium Club featuring both dirt from several pitchers mounds and batter boxes.  I am not sure how authentic dirt can be, but if nothing else the card is a good discussion piece.  I am not sure whether the dirt came off the mound during the 1999 or 2000 season, but they were both pretty spectacular years that that resulting in the Red Sox right hander winning the American League Cy Young Award.  

Similar to the game used wall card of Piazza this card also features a relic from a common area on the baseball field.  I am sure that the dirt probably is from the pitchers mound in Fenway Park, but who really can quantify the use of dirt on a pitchers mound.  Needless to say, the concept of the game used dirt card did not make it past the 2000 Stadium Club set.  However, I will say that I am going to find a copy of the McGwire batters box dirt card from this set.  

1998 Topps Tek Set Update

Two weeks ago I started working on trying to finish up my 1998 Topps Tek set.  Last week,  I added a Ken Griffey Jr. card to my set brought which brought me to needing a total of 32 more cards to finish off the 32 card set.  This week I did a little bit better.  First, I found cards for trade which meant that I did not add any money to my total amount of money spent on the set.  I am still at $5.  Second,  I was able to add almost a quarter of the cards I need for the set in one week.

Seven more cards were added bringing my total needed down to 25 cards.  I was especially happy to land the Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez card.  One of the hardest parts about assembling a set is tracking down the cards of some of the star players and key rookies.  These two cards definitely fit that description.  I have a few more Topps Tek cards on my radar, so hopefully I will be adding a few more in the next few days.  

Updated list:

2 Kerry Wood, 3 Barry Bonds, 6 Frank Thomas, 7 Bernie Williams, 16 Brady Anderson, 17 Vladimir Guerrero, 18 Dave Justice, 19 Chipper Jones, 21 Roger Clemens, 22 Mark Kotsay, 23 Tony Gwynn, 25 Tino Martinez, 26 Andruw Jones, 29 Gary Sheffield, 32 Curt Schilling, 33 Robin Ventura, 34 Larry Walker, 37 Paul O'Neill, 42 Derek Bell, 45 Kenny Lofton, 51 Cal Ripken, 52 Jason Kendall, 60 Juan Gonzalez, 62 Jose Cruz, 64 Edgar Martinez, 70 Chuck Knoblauch,  76 Derrek Lee, 79 Jeff King, 80 Mike Mussina,  86 Mike Piazza

30 Year Top 50: 1999 Pacific Crown Royale

Number 47-It's hard to make a list of great card sets from the past thirty years and not include some Pacific cards on the list somewhere.  Pacific started out as an oddball brand, run by card tycoon Mike Cramer.  My first run in with Pacific happened in 1992 when they released the 100th Anniversary Team set for the Cardinals.  The packs were sold at McDonald's and were really popular that summer.  The sets can still be found in fine card shops throughout the Midwest and on Ebay.

1992 Pacific Cardinals 100th Anniversary Stan Musial 

The height of Pacific's run came in the late 90s and was followed by a quick demise, baseball wise, in 2001.  I really enjoyed the Pacific brand of cards and busted a lot of their wax boxes in 1998, 1999, and 2000.  Like many baseball card companies of the late 1990's, some of their products were repetitive and   overproduced.  However, there were some real gems too.  One of my hardest decisions in putting together a list of card products from the past thirty years was sorting out the Pacific products.

At one point, I thought about scanning the internet for old boxes of Pacific cards, finding a whole bunch of them, and spending a day busting old wax boxes to relive the experience.  However, I voted against it, my wife is thankful in advance, and just spent a little bit of time looking back through my old Pacific sets.  I choose this set of several others including 1998 Pacific Omega, any release of Paramount, Pacific Revolution, and the 1999 Private Stock release.  The base sets were nice, but not as good as the non-flagship releases and I never really dug Aurora or Crown Collection too much.  Invincible were cool too, but you only got one translucent card per pack.  

1999 Pacific Crown Royale Mark McGwire

1999 Pacific Crown Royale Manny Ramirez

So, what makes the 1999 Crown Royale set better than the rest of the other late 90s Pacific releases?  The best reason I can give is the use of die cut cards.  Thirteen years after this set was released we have all seen plenty of die-cut cards in our life, but this was an earlier attempt by a card company to use die-cuts in a base set and they look really nice.  

Pacific had always used die cuts in it's sets from the Cramer's Choice inserts to the inclusion of Christmas Ornament shaped cards in it's base set release.  The Crown Royale set took it to another level though.  The were much more serious looking than a Christmas Ornament insert and much easier to find then the Cramer's Choice Die Cuts which almost always had the longest odds of all the Pacific inserts.  

2001 Pacific Christmas Ornaments Todd Helton

1997 Pacific Cramer's Choice Albert Belle

Crown Royale also featured a few insert sets which were the hallmark of Pacific products.  Most weren't too difficult to run across and putting together a master set wasn't ridiculously difficult to accomplish.  The other big plus I give the Crown Royale product is the parallel sets.  There were a total of two.  How many parallel sets are in Topps products now?  I am not sure, but the Printing Plates are 1/1 even though there are probably four of each player per set.  Pacific issued an Opening Day parallel, which ran across all Pacific products, and a Limited which was numbered to 99 and inserted at one per box and a half.  

1999 Pacific Crown Royale Ray Lankford Limited 

Boxes of Crown Royale can be found, but they aren't plentiful or cheap.  The single cards can be found around, but they tend to be a little pricier than normal late 90's base cards.  They look like inserts and sometimes they sell and trade like inserts too. 

Like the 1999 Pacific Crown Royale set?  Not in my Top 50 of the Past 30 years is the 1996 Topps Laser set.  Topps went through an experimental phase in the mid 90s with die-cuts and shaped cards.  Topps Embossed is another set that could fit here, but still not as cool as the Laser release.  

1996 Topps Laser Pedro Martinez 

Topps Laser was only produced in 1996 and was released in two different series.  There were a couple different patterns used for the base set cards, but they were all die cut.  The cards were a little bit wild and really hard to keep in mint condition.  Even pack fresh cards had knicks and dings.  There weren't any really great rookies in the set, but the Bright Spots insert sets ranks high on my personal list of cool looking inserts.  The Bright Spots cards all featured young and upcoming stars with a really cool looking card background.  

1996 Topps Laser Bright Spots Derek Jeter

 I am not a huge Jeter fan, but this card and the Hideo Nomo in the set are my personal favorites.  Really tough to find and tougher to find in mint condition.  On a comical side note the cards featured projected stats for the 2010.  Jeter's aren't bad, but the card for one Jimmy Haynes is hilarious.  Check out the wins and strikeouts.  Guess they missed.  

1996 Topps Laser Bright Spots Jimmy Haynes

30 Year Top 50: 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition

I am fast approaching my 30th year of collecting baseball cards in just a few months and have decided to share some more of my cards with the people who take a little bit of time out of their day to read about my collection.  The past week, I have spent time go back through my cards and have picked out the 50 best sets that I have collected over the duration of my time in the hobby.  As I was sorting through my cards and compiling my list I tried to evaluate the sets on several criteria.  Qualities such as design, innovations, key players and important cards weighed heavily in my decisions.  I also tried to pick out a variety of different years, companies, and brands.  Some sets are high end, some are low end.  One of the hardest parts of this process was judging some of the late 80s and early 90s sets which were produced in ridiculous quantities, but still featured important cards of important players.  Of course, discussion of the picks is always encouraged and most importantly I hope you enjoy looking back at some cool card sets.



#50 on my list definitley fits into the hard to judge late 80s/early 90s overproduced category.  If you paid more than $10 for this set you would probably be overpaying.  However, there are some major pluses for this set which allowed it to creep into the tail end of my countdown.  Namely, it features the only pure rookie card of one future Hall of Famer and one of two pure rookie cards of another Hall of Famer.

1991 Upper Deck Final Edition Jim Thome RC

1991 Upper Deck Final Edition Pedro Martinez RC

This set was released at the end of the 1991 season and is available only in set form and features 100 cards.  Of course, the two most important cards pictured above, are the only true rookie card of Pedro Martinez and one of two true rookie cards of Jim Thome.

The Pedro Martinez rookie features him in a Dodgers uniform before he was traded to the Expos for Delino Deshields.  Pedro Martinez, of course, went on to be on the most dominating and important pitchers of the 90's and 00's.  There are many people who also count his 1992 Upper Deck and Bowman releases as rookie cards too.  The Bowman sells more like a rookie card then the 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition, but the Bowman card is apart of a very important set (It's on the countdown). 

The Thome rookie is also a very important card that appears in this set.  He is also featured in the 1991 Bowman set along with the rookie cards of Jeff Bagwell and Ivan Rodrgiuez.  Personally, I finally bought the set for $9 a few summers back after I learned that Jeromy Burnitz had a rookie in the set.  I've heard people try to argue that Thome isn't a Hall of Famer, but he's got over 600 home runs and he's been successful since drug testing started.  He didn't have the postseason success that Pedro Martinez had, with the 2004 World Series, but he was an important player on some great Cleveland Indians teams in the late 90s. 

Overall, the set is pretty typical of the early Upper Deck releases.  The cards have the white border with a small green grass like design on the side.  The 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition release is extremely cheap and very easy to find, but it's hard to ignore a set that has two rookie cards of players as important as Martinez and Thome of been over the past 30 years.  While many people are annoyed that there are early 90s overproduced cards in their collections I have made my peace with these cards and am very accepting of owning them despite the fact that they do not really have any trade or monetary value.   

Like the 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition Set?  Not appearing on my countdown is the 1993 Upper Deck set.  Just like the 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition Set, the 1993 release was completely overproduced and had lots of ho hum cards.  It also has a Derek Jeter rookie card that accounts for almost all of the sets value.  Seriously, I once went to a card shop that was giving away boxes of 93 Upper Deck with large purchases.  One guy in the store opened the whole box, got two Jeter rookies, asked for the trash card, and literally threw away the rest of the cards.  A little extreme, but ask around and you will hear other similar stories.

1993 Upper Deck Derek Jeter RC