The Mythical Elite Lives On

Love him or hate him (most hate him), Jose Canseco was the biggest name in baseball and baseball cards by the time 1991 Donruss introduced serial numbered trading cards to the pre-internet world. Donruss Elite was as close to Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket as anything had ever been and much like the Wonka Chocolate Factory,...

A Junk Wax Treasure

Enough articles have been written about Upper Deck's introduction of the pack-inserted certified autograph in 1990. It was unfortunate that for baseball's first autograph in baseball cards, they chose Reggie Jackson. Thankfully, Upper Deck remedied that faux pas by inserting Nolan Ryan autographs into their '91 baseball release. Ryan, a 43-year-old legend, had reached the...

Does Pack Searching Even Matter?

While I never take part in message boards, I do like to lurk occasionally, especially Blowout Cards' forum. This week, one of the more popular topics was a guy who was photographed pack searching (with a scale) at a Target in Minneapolis. To no one's surprise, he was also involved in a pack-searching expose well...

Pepsi’s Forgettable Foray into Baseball Cards with One Anomaly

I remember being an 11-year old kid in 1991 and stuffing my face full of Pepsi in hopes of pulling a Jose Canseco. I probably went through 3 cases of the sugar water before I found my Golden Ticket, glued to the inside of the Pepsi box and immediately damaged by my chubby, pre-teen fingers....

Wax Heaven Flashback 3: The Mysterious Inverted Bowman Card

Originally published at Wax Heaven 2.0 on March 5th, 2015 - - - Without a doubt in my mind, 1997 for me was my all-time favorite year of collecting. Simply put, the hobby was full of amazing releases that wonderful year. I could go on forever but instead I want to discuss the card below,...

A Piece of Card History on eBay

Pinnacle's debut into the baseball card market probably didn't go exactly as planned. As it turns out, 1992 was a very strong year thanks to the beginning of Bowman's reign as the "Home of the Rookie Card", not to mention strong showings by Upper Deck and Topps' flagship brands. However, in just five years Pinnacle...