Friday, July 31, 2020

1993 O Pee Chee

Well, since Awesome didn't get delivered in the mail today, I'll cover what I did yesterday. 
First a little backstory. 
I have a little extra money between the government help and my driver retention cheque finally showing up, so I wanted to get myself a little "I've survived this hellish year this far" treat.. 
So I got a box of Big League, a box of 2019 Archives, and I thought a box of 1993 OPC Premier. 
Well, I get an email from the place I tried getting the OPC from, Past Time Sports stating they didn't actually have the OPC Premier, that they made a mistake on the website. They did have 91 and 92 Premier though.. I didn't need either one, so I got a refund.. Then I got to thinking.. If they actually have the base year, why not get that? So I did.. 



The box.. 
It came with 36 packs. 8 cards per pack.. Each one has a card from the 18 numbered World Series Champions set and 1 in 8 had the World Series Heroes, which was numbered to 4 

There's the packs! 
Now the fun thing is on the back there were three different things. One was an offer for MLB pens. One was for a book.. 


And one was the obligatory Say No To Drugs. 

So let's dive in!

1993 O Pee Chee was a 396 card set produced licensed to Topps, but in a departure from previous years, did not use the Topps design. 1993 was the second last year for OPC as a card producer. 
There was a 1994 set and that was the last of it until Upper Deck resurrected the brand in the 2000s. 
1993 was also the last year for OPC Premier, but I digress.. 

So how did this one turn out? 


I'd say pretty well. The front had a lot of good action photography. (improved greatly over 1991 and 1992 OPC Premier) 

The backs were nice as well with a headshot in the corner, the normal information and the stats everyone loves. 

Some guys (who don't have a giant sheet of stats) get a short writeup. Obviously, in both English and French. 
I honestly didn't realize Boucher pitched for the Rockies. 


The first thought I had when I saw this card is "What could have been?" 

Ah here's the front of Denis' card. Some are pictured wearing the Rockies uniform. Others have the "now with" that OPC was famous for. 




Speaking of a "Now with" we have Tony Fernandez pictured as a Padre but signed with the Mets. 


Junior Felix as an Angel but is a fish. 


I just liked the photo.. Can you blame me? 

We have some Hall of Famers in here as well. Boggs, Fisk, Brett, Yount, Ryan, Walker, Raines, etc etc etc. 

Hey it's Mike Piazza. 


Had to show this to appeal to everyone's favourite Darryl Strawberry/John Kruk fan PK Steinberg. 



Speaking of Nolan Ryan.. 

I love this set.. Is it perfect? No. 
In some cases the back can be hard to read for the card number.. 



They're better in scan, but in hand it's tough to read. 
There's really no issues that came up previously. The card stock is nice and it seems like something sharper than a butter knife was used to cut the cards this time around. 

I bought one box and I have 63% of the set done. I definitely will be finishing it. 



15 comments:

  1. not a bad design! glad to see you treating yourself! much deserved! :)

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    1. It's something I very rarely do.. With all that's going on I decided why not..

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  2. I liked it when O-Pee-Chee did their own card designs instead of putting their stamp on Topps designs. I wish it would have lasted longer though.

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    1. It would have been nice.. Now I'm debating whether or not I want to hunt down the 1994 set.. lol

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  3. Nice-looking cards. Ryan edges out Walker for my vote.

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    1. Can't go wrong either way.. Hall of Famers both.. Though Ryan did have the longer career..
      He was my favourite Never Jay/Expo.

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  4. Don't remember this product. The backs are solid. And the front remind me of Pacific with their well-cropped photography.

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    1. Yeah it's much better photography than the 1991 or 1992 OPC Premier.. The closeup shot of Mark Whiten's back as he's sliding is burned into my mind..

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    2. I was able to get a full set of both inserts. I have one extra World Series Heroes and a few of the Champions.
      Overall only about a dozen dupes in the box.

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  5. I think I like the design of the pack's wrapper just as much as the cards themselves.

    The Larry Walker card is interesting. Normally in images like that you get the hitter during or after impact, not before. Looks like he's going to make solid contact, though. I wonder what the result was.

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    1. The pack did have a nice design. I want to say the image on the pack is from the World Series.. It looks like Borders at the plate and a Brave sliding in..
      It would be cool to figure out when that Walker pic was taken and maybe find out the result.

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  6. I missed out on the O-Pee-Chee set that year, I think it came out later than the other sets (I was working in a card shop in Kingston, Ont early in 93 but we closed in June). Reading this post makes me think I missed out.

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    1. Yeah 1993 I was living in a small town in Northwestern Ontario. Closest place I could buy cards was in Thunder Bay, 300 KM away.

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