A 90's Set Building Kit

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to clean out my office and organize a bunch of card related stuff.  That's when I discovered a box from John (over at Johnny's Trading Spot) that I originally opened up last year.  Yup.  That's not a typo.  Last year.

According to the postage label, it was shipped back in August... but I think I opened it up in November.  Don't really have a good excuse or explanation on why it sat in my office other than that it was sitting under some other stuff.

Well it's been sitting in the back of my mind the past few weeks and yesterday I opened it up and started organizing the contents.  Now if you've ever received one of John's flat rate boxes, you know he packs a lot of cool stuff into them.  This time around he sent me several starter sets that I'll be sharing on this blog over the next month or so.

Today's post is going to focus on the 1997-98 Upper Deck NBA sticker starter set that John gave me.  Out of the 228 stickers in the set, he sent me 223 of them.

Plus he tossed in seven unopened packs to help me find the final five:

Each pack contained six stickers, so I had thirty-six chances.  I ended up pulling one of the stickers I needed:

Not sure if anyone is interested, but here's a closer look at the front and back of the sticker packs:

Depending on where you look, this set goes by a bunch of different names:

COMC:  1997-98 Upper Deck European Stickers

TCDB:  1997-98 Upper Deck NBA Stickers (European)

Beckett:  1997-98 Upper Deck Italian Stickers

The bottom line is they're stickers designed to be placed in a sticker album like the ones Topps produced in the 80's.  I don't have one of those albums, but thanks to John... I'm close to having a complete set of stickers.

The good news is these stickers aren't very expensive.  I've already picked up one of the Jordans on COMC and it only cost me a buck.  I'll be putting together an order on Sportlots in a few weeks and hopefully I'll be able to cross off the other three for a buck or two.

Thank you John!  I'm always looking to add new sets to my collection... especially when they're oddball issues like this one.  I look forward to writing about the other starter sets you sent my way in the very near future.

Until then...

Happy Monday and sayonara!