I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite Piazza cards, year by year. Obviously, my collection is far from complete (except for '92!) so it's only fair for me to highlight the ones I have. Trust me, my favorite '93 Piazza is the Finest Refractor but trust me... I ain't got it.
To start this off I'm gonna do both '92 and '93, since I did a post about some of the '92 cards a little while back. Let's begin...
1992 (reeeemixxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
To the best of my knowledge, I have every Piazza card produced in '92 except for a minor league team issued set or two. As far as I'm concerned, those'll be a bonus if I can find them. At only 7 cards it wasn't too hard to pick a few favorites.
First up and my overall favorite from the year is Bowman's offering. I think I got this off the bay for around $8 with shipping, give or take. This is my only card from '92 Bowman, ever. So when I got it and took it out of the top loader, my initial reaction was "This is a fucking reprint!" When you think junk wax bowman, you think cardboard stock, no gloss and overall shittyness. Common knowledge quickly set in, however, and realized that '92 was Bowman's first effort at making "premium" cards. Take THAT voices in my head that speak Spanish...
Next up is Fleer's version. This card took FoReVeR for me to get. Not because I couldn't find a copy, but because I couldn't find a copy that was
1- Ungraded
2-Not graded a 9 or higher and priced lower then $100 by some prick seller
I stopped looking for a while, but when I decided to check it out again I saw a couple copies, graded of course, with a BIN of $30. I figured I'd wait a couple days and if nothing else came up, I'd get that. My main problem was that once I get the card, I'd have to take it to the bandsaw to get it out of that case, but luckily a few days later an ungraded came on ebay with a BIN of $25. Niiiicceeeee. My favorite part of the card? Jersey #25!
Lastly for '92, we've got a Donruss "Phenoms" out of the Donruss Rookies set. I'm not sure if this is technically a RC since it's an insert, but I could really care less. I've lost track of what a RC is anymore once Bowman starting making cards of Middle Schoolers.
1993
SP's first year as a brand and the beining of the "Platinum Power" insert. This was one of the first Piazzas I got off ebay when I began collecting again. I couldn't believe the price I got it for (.99 cents + shipping) because I was still living in Becketts fantasy world of cardboard at the time. Does it make it less cool now though? Nuh uh. My favorite part of the card? Know that look you got on your face as a kid when a ball you hit or threw went through the window? Yeah, he's got that look in the card.
Another brand first, '93 Finest! Another card I won for the price of shipping and yes, it's in a screw down holder. Again, Beckett...
Anyways, what's not to like? It's a '93 Finest, it's shinyyyyyy and it's of my favorite player ever in the history of the entire world.
One more brand first by way of Flair. These cards are still amazing now, I can only imagine what they were like back in '93 when shit like Triple Threads, Sterling and UD Black weren't around to make snobs of everyone. Super glossy and thick, but not to the point of it ruining the page. I'm pretty sure I could run this card through the washer and it'd be fine. Not gonna, just saying.
Lastly we have that years Ultra. Nothing fancy here at all. No insert, nothing "premium" just a great photo on a clean design. I feel you couldn't have gotten a better photo for this card if you set it up in a studio and posed it.
So that's that for that. A couple of my favorites through the first two years. If the snow doesn't kill us all, maybe I'll be back with a few more years!
(...Joe)
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