A quest 10+ years in the making

As a collector, my biggest problem is having a short attention span. It took me nearly twenty years to pick up a Jose Canseco certified autograph and within a month I sold them all to focus on my Andrew Miller collection. Now a year later my Miller collection is something special and Jose is getting overlooked.

Recently, a fellow Canseco collector sent over a stash of cards which included two parallels from 1997 Upper Deck SPx. I already had the base version (silver) but the Bronze and Gold versions, while not exactly rare, never found their way into my collection. After 12 long years, I am a proud owner of the entire set and I couldn’t be happier.

As a longtime collector, I must say that 1997 SPx is Upper Deck’s best version of the brand. If was the second year of SPx but also the last in which the base cards featured holograms. I cannot explain just how “high-end” these cards were back in 1997 but I’d say they were the equivalent of today’s Exquisite line.

If anyone ever comes across an unopened box I would highly recommend picking it up. It may not bring the guaranteed autograph or relic per box that collectors are used to these days but if you are extremely lucky, you actually have a chance to pull an on-hologram autograph of Ken Griffey Jr., among others.

You can read my review of 2009 SPx here.

(thumbnail leads to a full-size scan)