30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Friday, February 24, 2012

Nifty 90's Nostalgia #9: 1997 Pacific Card-Supials

Hello... my name is Fuji & I'm addicted to 90's inserts and gimmick cards.

Wow... that felt good to get that off my chest.

Let's celebrate by taking a closer look at one of my favorite 90's "gimmicky" insert sets: 1997 Pacific Card Supials.

Anyone else remember these? If you busted Pacific baseball, football, or hockey products in the mid 90's, then you probably do... if not, then I'm sorry to say... you're missing out.

Card Supials. A play off of the "marsupial", which is a type of mammal sometimes known for having a pouch to carry their young.

1997 Pacific "Card Supials" #32 Jerry Rice

(Back Without Mini)

There's a regular sized 2.5" x 3.5" card that contains a little pouch on the back and a miniature card that fits snugly into the pouch.

1997 Pacific "Card Supials - Mini" #32 Jerry Rice

(Back With Mini)

It's been awhile since I've pulled some of these... but if my memory serves me correctly, when you pulled one of the larger cards, you received a random mini card inside of it's pouch. This encouraged collectors to go and hunt down the appropriate card counterpart.

Thankfully... a trip over to COMC produced these sweet Card Supials pairs:

1997 Pacific "Card Supials" #5 Troy Aikman

1997 Pacific "Card Supials" #10 Barry Sanders

1997 Pacific "Card Supials" #15 Marshall Faulk

1997 Pacific "Card Supials" #33 Steve Young

According to Beckett, a pair of these 1997 Pacific Card Supials (football) was inserted into packs at a rate of 1:37 packs. There are a total of 36 pairs in the set, which happens to book for $150. I was able to build these five pairs for $4.90.

Now I know some of you are tired of "gimmick" cards... but I personally can't get enough. These cards motivated collectors to bust open packs in search for pairs of their favorite players. And when they couldn't find a "match", it encouraged collectors to trade and help each other out.

Isn't this one of our hobby's foundations? I know for me, it is.

So, what's your take?

Are these Card Supials a waste of cardboard or a nifty piece of 90's nostalgia?

Happy Friday everyone! Sayonara.

5 comments:

Daniel Wilson said...

90's inserts were the best! You have nothing to be ashamed of!

Fuji said...

dkwilson - thanks, i needed the reassurance ;-)

Offy said...

I like them enough to have purchased the Piazza cardsupial pair for my collection. Innovation is always good for the hobby. Even if the result isn't the best, companies need to continue trying to come up with new things.

Anyone know where the link to have replies emailed to you went in this Blogger redesign?

Fuji said...

offy - totally agree... it's better to try and fail, then to never try at all (sounds like something yoda would say).

as for the email button... not sure where that went. just noticed it today

Fuji said...

not sure where you click to have replies sent to your email