Thursday, November 15, 2012

Top 5 Upper Deck Baseball Products of the 90's

In our opinion, this is our top 5 list of Upper Deck Baseball products of the 90's.Some we chose because of the iconic cards they present. Others for design and uniqueness.

Here is our list starting from the Number 1 product:

1. 1989 Upper Deck (Yes we know this isn't 1990 but we counted it anyways how can you not and we can't do a Top 5 Upper Deck Products of the 80's so it got put in here)

KEN GRIFFEY JR. 1989 89 UD UPPER DECK# 1 MARINERS ROOKIE  1989 UPPER DECK BASEBALL FACTORY SEALED SET 1-800 GRIFFEY ROOKIE RANDY JOHNSON 1989 UPPER DECK RANDY JOHNSON ROOKIE RC MARINERS DIAMONDBACKS
How can you not rate this one at number one? One of the most iconic sets that contains one of the top 5 most iconic baseball cards of all-time? This was the start of a great stretch of Upper Deck Baseball. This product included many great rookie cards as well other than just Griffey Jr. Randy Johnson, Gary Sheffield, John Smoltz to name a few. It also contained the error card of Dale Murphy.

2.1993 Upper Deck Sp Baseball

1993 Upper Deck SP DEREK JETER Rookie Card  #279 FOIL RC NOLAN RYAN 1993 UPPER DECK SP, #198, TEXAS RANGERS, CALIFORNIA ANGELS, NY METS

When you think iconic...what about one of the other most iconic Upper Deck baseball card of their once spokesman and World Series Champion and one of the cards that will never seem to leave the hot list...Derek Jeter anyone???  This product was the start of a line of many Sp related brands for Upper Deck.


3. 1997 Upper Deck

1997 Upper Deck Hot Commodities #HC4 Frank Thomas  Derek Jeter 1997 Upper Deck "Predictors" Insert ~ Unscratched !  1997 UPPER DECK ALEX RODRIGUEZ CARD #500 SEATTLE MARINERS NEW YORK YANKEES

1997 Upper Deck Game Jersey #GJ2 Tony Gwynn
Just some of the images to explain why this one was chosen at number three. It included the first game worn baseball jersey cards on the market! The base set was good sized and consisted of a Jackie Robinson tribute, 10 GHL Sp's that fell around 1:4 packs, and great photography. It was a fun and challenging set to put together but looked great once it was completed.


4.1996 Upper Deck Spx

1996 Upper Deck SPx BOUND FOR GLORY Baltimore Orioles CAL RIPKEN JR. #4 1996 Upper Deck Spx #58 JUAN GONZALEZ
Alright...you have issues if you do not like the combination of base cards and holograms. These cards look outstanding and the color, the holoview just glows right off the cardboard. And they are die cuts another collectors favorite! This set consisted of 60 cards,  a Griffey and Piazza tribute cards that also came as autograph versions as well. There were also Gold parallels to be found.


5. 1998 Upper Deck Retro 

 YANKEES Derek Jeter 1998 Upper Deck Retro # 67  1998 Upper Deck Retro Willie McCovey Autograph Signed HOF SF Giants 1999 UD Retro Alex Rodriguez Lunch Box (Empty)

And finally, I know this set doesn't seem right compared to the other ones..maybe it was the packaging of the lunchboxes UD used to pack these cards in but there was something special about these that made our list. The design was nice. But besides packaging, the hard to get on-card autos were the real chase with print runs for all of them under 1,000.  The inserts were catchy with such names as Quantum Leap, Time Capsule, and New Frontier.

Do you agree with our rankings? Would you have changed something? Let us know in the comments. We love to hear from our readers!

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