I remember being 15 years old and full of teen angst in 1996. One day, while sitting in my room organizing my baseball cards, my mother walks in and throws a bag on my bed and walks out. Curiously, I got up off the floor and opened the bag and found a new, unopened wax box of 1996 Emotion E-XL. Being the ungrateful teen that I was, disappointment set in when I found out there would be no Refractors or shinny, 90’s cards that I was used to by then.
With each pack I opened I was more and more impressed with the elegance this product was dripping with. Each card came with a thick and somewhat dull border but the photos were glossy and you could tell they were very picky with their selections. Each player had his own word to describe him. Jose Canseco’s was “swagger”. How fitting, for the former M.V.P of baseball. Alex Rodriguez had, no joke…”fluid”. I’m not even going near that one!
To me, these cards are some of the most underrated of that era. There were no autograph or game-used and as far as I know, there was no parallels either. You could find some very interesting inserts but not much else. By 1997, Emotion would raise the bar of trading cards forever by releasing 1997 E-XL (link). As amazing as that set was, to me a box of ‘96 Emotion E-XL is truly wax heaven.
Not a bad card set, from what I see. The design is attractive and the photography is nice. I was in college in 1996, so I missed out on seeing most of the sets from the era… no time & no cash
I absolutely loved these cards as well. I had never seen them before until maybe 7 years ago I was at a flea market and someone had a ton of cards. Just out of curiousity I asked what kind of Mets cards he had. He pulled out a team set of these cards I have loved the way looked ever since.
I love this set, you know my collection rocks that Canseco.
Bonds….”Cool”…..I don’t think so. Pretty funny adjective to pick for him. Nice looking set though….