I decided to get myself an early Christmas gift.. I bought a box of 1994 O Pee Chee baseball.
So some general information on the set first.
It's a set of 270 cards that was released in one series. In each pack there was an insert card of some sort.
Most commonly was an OPC All Star card which also doubled as a redemption form.
Other cards that were inserted were World Champion cards celebrating the 1993 Blue Jays win, Hot Rookies, and Diamond Dynamos. These would take the place of the OPC All Star card.
Here's the wrapper these sweet bastards were in..
The Blue Jays listed in the baseball are the World Champions set
So this is the OPC All Stars insert/redemption I mentioned. If you sent in 5 cards and $20 CDN to the address they provided on the back, you'd get a set of Jumbo All Stars Foil Stamped. They were 5*7 as opposed to the regular card but had the same image on the front.
Just to throw a little more confusion in.. There's also a jumbo box topper that comes with each box. They're like the redemption cards in that there's no foil, but they're 5*7 as well.
The Box Topper I got was Barry Bonds. Someone already claimed it on TCDB.. lol
This was one of the alternate inserts. This was a set of 9 cards. Conveniently enough I have Carlos Delgado and Alex Gonzalez.
Other names in the set are Cliff Floyd, James Mouton, Solomon Torres, Raul Mondesi, Manny Ramirez, Ryan Klesko, and Javy Lopez.
This is the back of the card, just in case anyone's curious.
Another insert was the World Champions insert set. This set is a set of 9 cards.
The people in the set are the members of WAMCO, Henderson, Borders, Sprague, and Fernandez
Here's the back of the card.
The last insert set is the Diamond Dynamos. I got two cards, both the same guy. Neither I'm keeping..
That card, of course, is Aaron Sele.
There are 18 cards in this insert set. There's also a Diamond Dynamos set that was distributed without foil stamping.
So now that all the insert nonsense is out of the way, I hear you shaking your head and asking "What do the regular cards look like already?" Or I guess more Bender-like, "Let's Go already!!"
The fronts have a nice borderless photo with the team name along the side. Depending on the photo, though, the team name can be tough to read. We also have the player name and position. The position being in French and English because OPC. We also have the logo in the corner.
Overall, I really like the way these cards look. I like the way they feel. It's a shame the company finished working on cards. This was their final baseball issue.
The backs are a little different. We have the player name on the top of the card alone with a picture of the player. We have the player's record on the bottom of the card and the pertinent contract information, etc on the side.
My one quibble is the card number. Having the OPC logo over the card number makes it very difficult to read and understand the card number.
They had two orientations for the card backs.. I almost prefer the Landscape style and wished they did it for all of them to be consistent.
As you can see, on these ones, the name is just over the player photo, the information on the top beside it and the player record beside the photo.
I have a theory that they did it this way for players who had longer player records. Again, the logo is over the card number.
I do like the fact they used team colours for the names on the front and back. Some of them look very sharp. The Pirates look especially nice.
Out of one box, I got 240/270 for the set, and 17/25 of the All Stars. The others I'd just be looking to get the Jays and Expos for.. (And obviously the World Champions insert set)
Definitely a set I'm looking to complete.
