The awful packs keep coming and this one is no slouch either. I took a look at eBay to see whether or not there is any merit to this set and of course I got a resounding NO! The best part about these packs is not the pure awfulness, but pulling the pack out of the box and trying to figure out who was a rookie in 1991. In this case the best card is Favre, however, he wasn’t available until the update set. The Ultra set (Fleer’s premium set at the time) did have the Favre card, but let’s face it the Topps Stadium Club card was where it was at. So here is what the WAX pack looked like:
On the back of the pack it says to look the 10 Pro-Vision cards and the All Pro subsets. This I believe was the begining of the chaser cards. It also says that these sets will be highly collectible for years to come. Ebay has the set for sale for 5 bucks. So I guess forget about the valuable aspect. Anyhow the pack has 14 cards so here we go:
1. Mark Carrier – DB -Bears – 216 – First off I’m shocked that this passed as a great card design, more on that later. I see that Mark is a fan of 2 sweat bands on his wrist, you know just in case one falls off. Also I guess this was at the end of the time period where it was acceptable for a player to knot his extra jersey at the bottom of his uni.
2. Albert Lewis – DB – Chiefs – 93 – A 9 year pro, Fleer actually has no blurb on him. Looks like he was a starting DB but nothing special, other than a look on his face of, “Man I’m tired, maybe it’s time to retire.”
3. Everson Walls – DB – Giants – 321 – It’s a DB run folks 3 in a row. Also my second Grambling player. Walls was a Cowboy his whole carreer, this was after his first year with the Giants. If you were a football player can you think of anything stranger than going from the Cowboys to the Giants? That’s like Boggs going from the Red Sox to the Yankees? It shouldn’t even be allowed.
4. Tim Jordan – TE – Cardinals – 341 – Tim looks like one of those guys who when he was younger, his mom made him wear pads that made him look twice as big so he wouldn’t get hurt. Judging from his picture here, it looks like his mom is still running the show. Also since when is it acceptable for a TE to where a full cage helmet?
5. Chris Hinton – OL – Falcons – 203 – So far this is the first card I’ve gotten where there is more than one person on the card. They had airbrushing back then, why didn’t pull the other guy out of the picture? Here’s something interesting, Hinton was worth the number one overall draft pick. Traded by the Colts to the Falcons, and with the number one overall pick . . . Jeff George. Typical 90s Colts, by the way that was the same year Favre was available.
6. Dalton Hilliard – RB – Saints – 295 – Dalton did have a 1000+ yard season (I know I found that hard to believe too). In 1989 he started for the Saints. in 1990 after finally winning the job, he got injured, lost the job and never started again.
7. Chris Jacke – K – Packers – 254 – I hate kicker and punter cards. Why must they even be included? They are barely acknowledged on the team they are on anyway.
8. Andy Heck – OL Seahawks – 187 – For those of you who don’t know, I am a die hard Seahawks fan. Heck represents everything that was wrong with those late 80s / early 90s teams, evaluating talent poorly. I mean Dan McGwire? Andy Heck? These were first round draft picks. Andy never really got it in the NFL and his picture kinda shows that on this card. He always looked a little bewildered.
9. Randal Cunningham – QB – Eagles – 326 – In a lot of ways his situation reminds me of McNabb’s. Good QB, no talented receivers around him. Still puts up some outstanding numbers, 1990 being the pinnacle of his career. Then an injury hits, he’s never quite the same player, not bad mind you, just missing his mojo. When you think about it, the McNabb – Cunningham ties are eerie, both played on the Eagles, both had injuries that handicapped their speed., McNabb could even find himself in Minnesota, just like Cunningham. Spoooooky!
10. Haywood Jeffires – WR – Oilers – 63 – Where is Fleer’s QA department. This picture is blurry, I can’t believe no one caught this before putting it to print. Even worse, they probably had 10 pictures to choose from and went with the blurry one. But it’s not blurry enough to see that Jeffires has no idea how to catch the ball, which is probably why he didn’t have a successful career. Just to put the card over the top,his close up picture of his face on the back has him mid-blink.
11. Eric Green – TE – Steelers – 159 – If I’m not mistaken Eric goes on to a nice career, but this picture will not be a high lite of it as it appears that he is about to go number 2, while holding a football, the only thing missing is the toilet.
12. Jeff Lageman – DL – Jets – 151 – Jeff had a nice career too, he even played hurt as seen on this card with a big cast on his hand that he uses to fend off OLs.
13. Arther Cox – TE – Chargers – 174 – Card says he is 6-2, 277, there is not a chance in hell. Guy looks to be 350 easy, He looks like a center the way he is stuffed into his jersey. Here is an instance I would have loved to see2 people on this card so I could get a chance to see just how big this guy is. I can’t imagine he was a deep threat, but must have been a monster over the middle. Funny thing about the card, there is a foot sticking out in front of him and actually looks like he is going to trip over it since he is looking the other way. Just looks funny to me.
14. Steve Jordan – TE – Vikings – 284 – 4th TE of the pack. Looks like he is built to be a WR definitely at least 70 pound lighter than Cox and he is listed at 241. I know players take liberties with their height and weight but Cox is a liar. I don’t really remember Jordan, probably because he wasn’t a very good player.
14 cards, no gum (1990 ended the appearance of gum in cards), I think 1992 ended the appearance of wax. I don’t really care for this set at all, Fleer really mailed it in as far as car design and pictures. Here is how I rate this pack (all ratings are out of 5.0 stars).
Initial cost – Right around a dollar – 2.0 stars – It’s not an outrageous price, but given the fact that they mailed it in and created a bad looking set kind of upsets me. If the card looked better it might have been a 3.
Cards in pack – 14 – 2.5 stars – This was the begining of the end for cards in a pack. The previous year it was 15, but you know there was an executive at Fleer, playing with the numbers and saw that if they put one less card in each pack, their profits soared.
Stars in Pack – 1? – 0.5 stars – Is Randall Cunningham a star? I guess so, at least that year he was.
Value of Pack – I’m going to go out on a limb and say worthless – 0.0 stars – I just don’t think I could get a nickel for these players. Maybe I could in a eBay grab bag.
Card Design – 0.0 stars – I know you are thinking I’m being brutal here, but looks at this card (below). Absolutely no thought went into this design, the non-action shots are terrible, the close-up profiles are bad and the back of the card is like it’s been sitting in the sun took long and started to fade. Bad design, it was obvious that they poured all of their time and effort into the Ultra set.
Overall the pack was a dismal 1.0 stars and could have been less if it wasn’t for Cunningham. Just like his career of taking something awful and making it bearable. The only card from this set I might try and get an auto on is Cunningham, but because of the semi-gloss it might not even take a sharpie. I’ll have to let you know which one I go for on this one.
