Collecting is an addiction. You know it, I know it, the companies definitely know it. After all, you are reading the blog of a man who bought 20+ year old chocolate bars featuring Jose Canseco just so he can add them to his collection.
There have been some pretty dumb releases over the years with Pacific Christmas ornaments topping my personal list. While those cards are some of my least favorite, nothing compares to the CD-Rom cards done by Donruss & Upper Deck in the late-90’s.
It’s not that these cards weren’t designed well, especially Upper Deck’s Power Deck (bottom scan), it’s just that collectors won’t collect everything you release. Not to mention that back in those days computers cost a heck of a lot more money than they do today.
One perfect example: In the year Donruss released VxP 1.0 (top scan), I was 17 and surfing the Internet on a PC with 1,000 MHZ and 40 Gigabytes. The price tag on that bad boy? If I recall correctly, well over $3,000 dollars and that was even with the free MSN Internet package that gave you cash back.
Below I present to you 1997’s Donruss VxP 1.0 and 1998’s Upper Deck PowerDeck.
Which of these would YOU want for your collection?
Neither. Irregular sized and shape discs will easily destroy a CD drive. The top one especially has the potential to be slightly unbalanced and mess up a drive real bad.
I remember our first HP computer back in 1997. I was 12 at the time and made a Beckett collector “webpage” along with a few sites on angelfire to buy and sell cards, Yo Yo’s, and used Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren clothes. I made a good amount of money with those, and since I found ebay in 1997, and to register to sell you needed no credit card info, I was on my way to making internet bucks! Man I love the old days.
I remember when UD Powerdeck came out. I worked at a card shop from 1998-2003, and not alot of people bought that product. I tried a few packs trying to get Mcgwire, but had no luck. Lets say thats a product not worth its weight it was trying to push at the time.
Computers were slow, and I think I remember trying to insert 1 and not wanting to deal with it on the computer.
Man how times have changed!
I have both but won’t play the rectangle one. It screams “I’ll screw up your machine”. I think you are right about these cards being slightly ahead of their time.
Did either company make a Tony Gwynn? If so, I’d want one for my PC (not b/c I collect 1 of every Gwynn, but b/c it’s unique and I’d want to watch it).
@sendmeyourjunk, if you still need that McGwire, I think I have one! I have no idea why I have it, because I dont remember EVER even wanting to buy this product back then.
I have the Cade McNown autographed PowerDeck in my McNown collection. Man, what a stupid, useless card that is.
I remember getting that Ripken disc and thinking it was so cool and revolutionary. I never used it but still think it’s cool.
I have a Jeter powerdeck. So, yeah.
Ha, my shop has a VxP (pretty sure that’s the brand, if not it’s whatever the Ripken is) of Frank Thomas on the bargain table. I’m always soooo tempted to buy it but can never bring myself to pull the trigger. Did anything else come with these in the box or just the disc? And what’s on the disc?!
I love the look of the Donruss way better but i still havent bothered to pick up the canseco Power Deck
I have a couple of the PowerDecks but never saw the Donruss product. I’ve always been a Macintosh guy and was never sure if they would work on a Mac. As several people mentioned, I was never keen on putting one of these weird sized discs into my machine. My Mac now has a side loading CD player so I’m sure if I put one of those PowerDeck cards in it I could kiss it and the drive goodbye.
Oops. I hit the wrong button and posted too early. Anyway, HA! Those are kinda neat.
I think I’ll write an article about my experiences with VXP. In short, I never saw the product upon its release, but I did buy a Ripken, Griffey, Thomas, and A-Rod of them about three years ago, and added them to my Hobby Tomb. There were about 2 bucks apiece, and in the original packaging. I’ll put up some scans of the packaging, too–for such a little card/disc, it’s got more packaging than bottle of sake sold to tourists.
I bought a duplicate Thomas to just rip open and see if I could get it to work.
Oh, the humanity. I might as well have stuck one of these into my CD drive.