Episode 21:Breaking A Box Of 1999 Leaf Rookies And Stars Football

I recently made a big trade with my friend and fellow 90's wax buster Shane. He is the one who runs the Cheap Wax Wednesday and Other Stuff where he breaks boxes that cost under $50 from 80's, 90's and today.

In my trade, I not only got some set help along with some sweet singles,I will show off on here, I  was also able to land some boxes of stuff from 1995-1999 that I will bust and show off on here as well.

Today marks the final box in our trade with a break of 1999 Leaf Rookies and Stars football.

There was actually a shot at some hits in this break, it wasn't what I was going for, but would be fun to find. There are 24 packs of 9 cards each. This box was a higher priced one at $37. My expectations for this one was high.

The base cards are easy design. Team color down one side to to the bottom with player name and team logo built in. There are some decent action shots as well.

Had to show off a new Kerry!

I really have a hard time remembering Chris in a Falcons uniform, but he must have been.

Rookies in the set were 1:2 packs so you roughly get 12. I remember when I busted some of this in 1999 that the big chase was for Kurt Warner and that's who I hoped to get. Instead I got some no names mixed in with

A few known ones, the best being Kevin Faulk, Ricky Williams and Jevon Kearse.

Now onto the inserts. Unlike other boxes from the 90's, Rookies and Stars or any Donruss product didn't put odds on their inserts. They just randomly stuck them in there. So who knows which ones were rare or not but all were numbered. Which I think helped with their value.

Let's see what I pulled.

Great American Heroes Of Terrell Davis #d to 2500

Game Plan of Doug Flutie #d to 2500

Cross Training of John Elway #d to 1250

Greatest Hits #d to 2500 of Terry Glenn

Ticket Masters featuring two of the teams top players. I got Seattle with Watters and Galloway #d to 2500

Freshman Orientation of James Johnson #d to 2500

Woooooooo. Nice hit alert folks! Longevity parallel numbered to 50! I can't imagine these were easy pulls.

Well, no hits but a whole lot of fun still. Once again this trade for 90's wax left me wanting more. A big thanks goes out to Shane for another fun trade and I hope we can do this again!

Episode 14:Going Die Cut

Cool looking die cuts? Yep. Nice inserts? Yup. Not cardboard? Yup.

Collectors Edge was all of the above. They had the edge as I would call it.

In my latest additions from @card_a_holic I was able to add some cool looking inserts from Collectors Edge starting with todays.

These are 1995 Collectors Edge Instant Replay EdgeTech Die Cuts. There is almost a complete set from what he sent but I still have a few more to go.

I don't remember these at all, but I liked the design and thought "hey, why not and why not try to finish the set at this point?"

There were 12 in all to collect. I assume by their value these weren't particularly hard pulls back then.

Tim Brown. The design is simply a helmet die cut that features the team color on the helmet while the rest is blue.

Marshall, Marshall, Marshall

William Floyd

Dan the Man!

Deion

 

Steve Young

Set is a little 49ers heavy, but they had a great team and a Super Bowl winning one the previous year so it makes sense.

Thanks for these Brian!

Episode 13:LaserView

Upper Deck to me was the king of holograms, no doubt about that, but there was also Pinnacle who liked to use the innovation within some of their products as well.

For instance, today's product from 1996, Laserview. This product was a lot of fun not only for it's base cards, but it included autographs that everyone was chasing in Pinnacle Inscriptions.

The base cards were pretty simple. Black border, focused player and a holographic image of the player doing a play or movement as you tipped the card.

This is a set I am chasing slowly and thanks to my buddy@card_a_holic I was able to knock a few more down.

Steve Young

Steve Young subset

 

Steve Young insert. I hadn't seen one of these before.

Three base knocked down is better than none. I need to update my numbers to see where I am at. It's a short base set of 40 cards but I still had a ways to go.

Thanks for the set help Brian!

Episode 12:1997 Fleer Ultra Football Pack Rip With Insert Find!

Landing in as one of my Top 3 Favorite Fleer Ultra designs all time, 1997 Fleer Ultra was always a fun rip and when I saw the price of a pack I could get, I went and got it.

So let's check out the rip.

Each retail pack of 1997 Fleer Ultra football came with 6 cards. This pack I landed for $1.50 so that was pretty sweet.

Pack odds on the back

Let's check out that sweet design in a pack full of 90's names you heard often.

Rashaan Salaam.

Jeff Blake

Steve McNair

Brad Johnson

 Jason Dunn

Million Dollar Moments bonus card. Think this was a contest of some sort. I just collected the cards.

And the boom, a Darnell Autry Rookies insert that fell 1:3 packs. Out of the five packs I bought, this was the only insert pull. It's not like today's packs where you found an insert every pack.

Well that was fun and I already have my eye on more. I considered building the 1997 Fleer Ultra base set but not sure yet. That would be quite the project.

If you were at all curious what my top design favorites for Ultra were as I mentioned above, here they are in order.

1. 1995 Fleer Ultra
2. 1998 Fleer Ultra
3. 1997 Fleer Ultra

What are yours?

Episode 11:1999 Fleer Metal Football Pack Break

Did you say PMG? Wait, you don't know what that is? It's a Precious Metal Gem and it is awesome. You can only find the parallel in packs of Fleer Metal and they are not easy finds. I never once landed one in a pack. Not once. I busted Metal all day long.

Let's see if it helps that I waited 20 years to bust another pack.

1999 Fleer Metal has 6 cards per pack and pack for me was $2.50 like the Invincible one. My hope for a PMG was high.

Pack odds

The base cards design for 1999 was my least favorite one of the late 90's. 1997 Fleer Metal was my favorite with the funky fun worldly backgrounds.

Let's see how they look:

Mark Bruener

Larry Centers. He was a fun one to watch

Zach Thomas was a beast for the Dolphins

Ricks! I seemed to find a lot of his inserts in packs back at the time

Johnnie Morton

 

NFLPD subset card of Jessie Tuggle. That facemask alone frightens me.

Not the best pack rip in terms of players, but the memories of busting this helped cover that up. I may go back and try another seeking out that PMG or even an autograph as they were starting to be added. Will post on here if I do!

Episode 10: Feeling Invicible In This Pack Break

The mid to late 90's had some of the coolest base card set around. One of those was 1997 Pacific Invincible. I can't tell you how many great Pacific products there were as I can't even count that high but this was one of them. Sadly it didn't last long as a product line.

Every pack of 1997 Pacific Invincible you will find three cards. I paid a tad more for this one than a few other packs landing me a $2.50 price. Each pack comes with one Invincible base and one smash mouth or two smash mouth or one smash mouth and one insert.

Pack odds

Nice addition to my Kerry Collins PC. Smash Mouth insert.

No parallel or insert for me, another Smash Mouth. This time Jim Miller

And my Invincible base was Troy Davis rookie. I really dig all of the foil and inset acetate photo.

 

Back of the card

Most may say ,waste of money. Not me. I was pretty happy with this and I am planning on adding the Pacific Invincible base set to my needs soon. I can cross Troy Davis off so far.