This is the third matchup for Pack vs. Pack, but it marks the first old school version. Well, maybe it’s not completely old school, but I think I’ll consider 25+ years older than the previous packs as old school.
I normally save packs here and there to open at a later time I usually try to keep about 3-5 of each kind that I’m saving. Sometimes these come from the variety boxes in Target, sometimes I get hold of a whole old hobby box and keep a few from there. Then later on when I get the urge to open a pack I have something to go to.
Don’t get me wrong, it can be hard to hold off. But, when you go back to the pack later I think it outweighs the urge.
Check out the initial Pack vs. Pack scoring for more info.
Let’s dig in shall we?
Pack One: 1990 Upper Deck
Not one, but two Hall of Famers! And not just that… they are pretty sweet looking cards as well. All that red in the Larkin card is pretty cool. I love that it’s a shot of what I assume is either a steal, or taking a base on a passed ball, or even just starting to run after what might be a hit. The Ryno card is pretty awesome too.
Upper Deck was just so beyond what everyone else was doing as far a the quality of the photos at that point.
I’m labeling the Doc as an All-Star, plus it also checks the box for “my team” so that adds another point for this pack. It’s a pretty standard shot I guess.
The shot of Hrbek could be considered standard, but again the photo quality is so high with Upper Deck. It is a bit of a different pose for a card though. I was on the fence on how to consider Hrbek and I ultimately considered him a Star rather than an All-Star. Just because he’s made an All-Star game it’s not a guarantee that I would consider him as that. But I will consider him a Star.
I considered Brady Anderson and Jeff Russell as Star level as well. At a minimum I had some name recognition with them. The rest of these guys (both above and below) I considered commons. I know guys like Hammaker had lead ERA I a year and things like that, but in the end none of these other guys really bubbled up for me.
There are also no real rookies or future stars among the rest of these guys either.
This last picture is of my favorite back of the bunch. It’s not really something I planned to do in these posts, but with Upper Deck introducing these pictures on the back was great. I just like this picture as it fits the space so well.
Pack Two: 1993 Fleer
While I know that everyone has their favorite Hall of Famers, and I do to, but for my generation, Ken Griffey, Jr. might be the Hall of Famer of all Hall of Famers. He looks so bad ass in this picture too. He’s not even on my favorite team, but this card is just great to me.
What I think is interesting on this one is the color on the card. I can’t remember when the Mariners moved to the greenish color in their uniforms, but this uniform was blue and yellow. But Fleer obviously was using the green color. I just find it interesting because if it was before the color change maybe that was some kind of foreshadowing. But maybe it was used as the color because the uniform was changing.
Mattingly is my obviously All-Star in this pack and the only one that I would categorize that way. The Schourek card fits the “my team” category. So it turns out there was one Met in each pack and they kind of cancel each other out point-wise.
I gave Star level points to Gruber in this pack. I was thinking about it for McDonald but what that really was for was the rookie hype he had. I went back and looked at more of his career and there wasn’t enough to justify a point.
The rest of the cards were commons. I don’t even know if I’d considered them as exciting commons as the first pack either. There were a lot more names I didn’t recognize.
The Final Scores
This one turned out to be the first runaway victory. Ultimately the ’93 Fleer was kind of unexciting to me except for that Griffey. I’m glad it turned out that way in the points so that it matches how I felt while opening them.
Something I might have to look at it how much I give for a Hall of Famer. That might need an adjustment later. Just looking back at some of the recent packs I got this pack of ’90 Upper Deck would have beaten them I think.
Pack 1 – 1990 Upper Deck – Points: 16
- Favorite Team – 1 – 1 Pt
- Stars – 3 – 3 Pts
- All-Stars – 1 – 2 Pts
- Hall of Famer – 2 – 10 Pts
Pack 2 – 1993 Fleer – Points: 9
- Favorite Team – 1 – 1 Pt
- Stars – 1 – 1 Pts
- All-Stars – 1 – 2 Pts
- Hall of Famer – 1 – 5 Pts
In the end, this was no contest.
Check out the Pack vs. Pack Scoring System.