General Forum

Yes, these are the complaints of an overprivileged card collector.  I realize that...no need to point it out.

So I have this sealed '91 Upper Deck baseball factory set, but the cello is all ripped up and it's been bugging me for years.  For whatever reason, today was the day I said "you know, I'm never going to sell this as "unopened" or anything, and I've marked all these cards as "have" already.  I've never seen those alternative holograms on the back ("baseballs" and "hockey sticks")...let's take a look."

Box comments:  "800 card set in numerical order", "Includes high number series", "an assortment of team holograms", et. al.

So I tear off the cellophane and knife through the factory seal sticker on the box (it was very much intact), and was pleased to see a little separate box of maybe 30 team logo holograms or so.  That might be the whole set...cool--I expected like 5 or 6.  I set them aside (I love me my holograms).  One is partially out of the pack, though, and is quite bent after being like that for 30 years...Astros. I've got it separately already...no biggie, but disappointing.

I grab what is either cards 1-50 or so or else cards 750 or so-800 to take a look for those counterfeit-foiling holograms that I've never seen.  I pull them out and there's a card sitting at the bottom of the box.  How does this happen?  Is it a bonus card?  Or is it sloppy packing?  I don't know...can't tell what number it is from here.  Alright...I'll deal with it later. 

Back to those little holograms on the cards.  Do I have any?  Wait a second....these aren't in numerical order.  Seriously?  I mean, they're almost in numerical order.  And they packaged every 10 cards the opposite direction, too.  So I've got 791-800 going one way (number up) and 781-790 going the other way (number down) and 771-780 going number up again and so forth.  And within those groups of ten, they might be in the right order, or they might be 781, 783, 782, 784, 785... or something.  Grr.  Well I had to get through the whole box anyway to figure out if that card at the bottom is a bonus or if it fell in somehow.  And borderline OCD me can't have every ten cards going the other direction.  So all the cards come out of the box and I start sorting.  Turns out there are three cards laying at the bottom, and all three are part of this set, so no bonuses there.  

Now I've got them in sections of 100 cards each and stacked up next to each other.  Except there's no card #701.  How is there no card #701?  This morning I had the entire set (according to my mind and TCDB).  Now I open it and find I'm one card short?  Are you kidding me?  I hope it's common enough to find in a trade (it is, by the way...won't be an issue.  Don't send me 38 of them, please.)  

And do I really have all the cards from 101-200?  Sure enough, I do.  Why is that stack so much smaller than the others.  Heck, all these stacks vary in size.  I mean, it's a good 1/4" shorter than 1-100 or 201-300.  501-600 is similarly short.    Different card stock, I suppose?   Any thoughts out there?

I didn't look at all 799 cards, but looked at a couple hundred or so and only saw the same Upper Deck logo hologram that I've ever run into.  No big deal, but I was curious.  OK...team logos...my favorite!  Yankees, Phillies, Braves, Angels, Astros, Yankees, Phillies, Braves, Angels, Astros, Yankees...and so forth.  Wait...near the end it goes Angels...Astros...INDIANS!...GIANTS!... JAYS!...RANGERS!...M'S!... Angels...bent Astros...finished.  Oh well.  10 different ones. 5 each of 5 teams and 1 each of the other 5.  Better than 6 each of 5 teams, I guess.  But come on...if you're packaging 30, how hard is it to just put in one of each?  Oh...I'm missing card #701.  Never mind...apparently it's harder than I thought.

You know what?  As frustrating as that ended up, it was one heck of an enjoyable hour or so for me.  Going through these cards and really looking at them was really a pleasant experience.  I'll have to open some other unopened boxes and see what other cards I don't have that I thought I did.

Hope you enjoyed the story...that it made you smile and maybe brought back a memory or two for you.  Have a great weekend!

--Kent

Great story and quite a coincidence ... I have that set and had opened it long ago (probably when new). Just today, before I read your post, I decided to go through it and see if it was all still there. I came up 28 cards short and 26 of those are Braves so obviously at some point in time I had pulled them out.  My sons were 14 and 10 in 1991 and we watched pretty much every Braves game on TV so that probably explains that. I can't explain why Jose DeLeon (Cardinals) and Kent Anderson (Angels) are missing. Oh well... I will look through some other random boxes and see how many of the 28 I can find 

You won't find the different holograms, because I'm 99% sure they are exclusive to each series- not a variant at all, but a partial parallel resulting from a separate release. It's not a coincidence that the hologram change occurs at the series change. 

The factory sets are a wildcard I have not determined yet. I suspect they will match the hologram used in the high series, but the factory sets that don't have the High Series...which I know are out there...I am curious about those. 

I also never really trust factory sets because almost every one I've ever opened has been missing at least one card. 

Sounds like a fun day to me.  I bought a pack of 1996 Topps baseball at the shop today, and had fun opening it.  You always run into some players you forgot about, and some guys in uniforms you forgot they ever wore.  I had a Bret Saberhagen Rockies card.

And be thankful they weren't all stuck together in one big brick!

When I came back into the hooby a few years ago I bought a run of factory sets from all manufacturers from that period. The Donruss and Upper Deck ones were the most interesting. They were indeed factory sealed, the Donruss even still sealed in their individual packs. I had missing cards, cards torn or otherwised damaged and so on. And I was just as bewildered when I didn't get a full hologram set as one would think. Alas, the joys of that era....

I ran into the same sorting issues with my 1991 (but luckily I wasn't missing any of the 800) and also had the same issue with the hologram box. I didn't complete that hologram set until I made the effort last year to do it.

FWIW I ran into a similar issue with my 1996 set. Factory box with the 30-card update set included, and they forgot to include the first card of the update set (#481 Randy Myers). Imagine the frustration back then before ebay and the other online vendors were a thing when you couldn't get one card of an update set.

Pretty much from the beginning of Factory Sets, the word was don't open them, store sealed for greater value.

Now, I wonder if all FS should be opened and checked for missing, damaged, miscut, wrongback cards.

Heck we could be sitting on Inc. sets that was thought complete for years in our collection.

Would this thread prompt you to start the FS opening spree? I mean, What's the difference if it's in your personal collection, right?

Let's start................and tell us your finds!

Sounds like something I encountered. Purchased a  sealed 2008 Topps Football factory set from a local store, a couple years after the set had been isssued. It was sealed up, but when I opened it a handfull of rc were missing as it had obviously previously been opened then somehow resealed. Store wouldn't help because I had opened it. Luckily the cards weren't altogether costly to replace. 

I have a sealed ‘91 Upper Deck set; now I’m curious what it looks like in there.

While not a full set, this weekend I picked up a FS 1991-92 UD Hockey's High Number Series Box... I'll be cracking that one open to verify I've got all 200 of the expected cards - and will report back!