Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Marlins

That trip to the antique mall last year keeps on providing fresh material, and I haven't even opened two of the Mystery Packs yet, though I know they're for the Twins and the Expos. But for this round, we'll be taking a look at the Rockies' expansion counterpart, the Florida Marlins.

Yes, they're now called the Miami Marlins, partially because they haven't been the only team in Florida for close to twenty seasons, and partially because marketing got involved and decided they were in need of a re-brand. But all these cards are from the "Florida" era, and most from when their primary color was turquoise.

1994 Donruss Special Edition #5 Gary Sheffield

We see that color a little bit in their road uniforms, but there's more gold than turquoise on this card, thanks to baseball card trends of the time. Donruss wasn't quite fully on board with gold parallels, so this Special Edition set only had a hundred cards, fifty from each of the two series. Which is just as well, since the card number on the back is also done up in gold foil, making the it pretty tough to read. Hand-collating 660 of these would involve plenty of squinting.

It depends on the light, but sometimes these Special Edition cards look a little more copper than gold. But the giant Donruss logo provides plenty of area for the gold to look shiny and rainbowy. But more on copper later.

1994 Topps #20 Bryan Harvey

A common theme of these packs has been lots of 1994 Topps, and while this isn't quite the glamour shot we saw for a Giant, it's definitely a posed studio photo, along with some cartoony motion blur. Most of the card brands got into double or triple exposures and motion blur, but the flame thing that's happening here doesn't really reflect what it would actually look like if they did a long exposure.

1994 Topps #370 Benito Santiago

But there were plenty of great action photos in 1994 Topps, like this card of Benito Santiago, listed here as "Benny". I do recall various announcers referring to him by that nickname, but I heard his given name of "Benito" much more frequently. Maybe it's just one of those cases of Topps deciding what they wanted his name to be, sort of like their 1960s "Bob" Clemente cards.

Don't forget that cameo of current Mets coach Tim Teufel. You can't quite tell what the outcome of this play was, but thankfully we can date this card! The Marlins visited San Diego (Santiago's previous team) twice in 1993, and a quick look through the box scores leads us to June 6th, 1993, about a week before I attended my first-ever Major League game. The Marlins won that one, helped out by an outfield assist from Jeff Conine on this exact play. So though it doesn't quite look it, Santiago got his guy!

1994 Topps Gold #161 Darrell Whitmore

Darrell Whitmore had a short, three-season career with the Marlins, and I don't really recognize his name other than from his various inaugural Marlins cards. But this is the Topps Gold parallel, which I'll be able to add to a sizable stack of these one-per-pack cards, a good chunk of which I got on eBay several years ago.

1993 Leaf #384 Charlie Hough

Charlie Hough was definitely past his prime by the time the Marlins signed him, as he built just a 14-25 record in his final two seasons. The Marlins employed a strategy similar to the Rockies, as Colorado signed Bryn Smith in 1993 to wrap up his long career. Smith in purple and Hough in turquoise must look extremely odd to most collectors, but since I found so many of their cards in my first year of collecting, they don't look that unfamiliar to me.

Flip this card over and you'll see the same gold rainbow foil on the team logo that Leaf/Donruss used the following year on those Donruss Special Edition cards. The premium brands always get the cool stuff a little earlier. Sometimes decades earlier, as 2016 Topps is finally losing the borders and going with full-bleed printing.

25 years coming on that one.

1993 Pinnacle #562 Cris Carpenter

This is probably our best look yet at the retina-searing colors of the early Florida Marlins, especially against the black borders of 1993 Pinnacle. It even has the Expansion Draft logo, just like the Rockies cards you've seen before. And that means this Marlins card has a tiny bonus Rockies logo, which more than makes up for a little bit of damage on the left side of the card.

Cris Carpenter might sound like a familiar name, but this is not the same Chris Carpenter who won the Cy Young Award for the Cardinals in 2005. Different guy entirely, although both played for the Cardinals, confusingly.

2002 Upper Deck MVP #226 Brad Penny

As in the Mets pack, this black-and-copper 2002 Upper Deck MVP remains one of my favorites. It's always nice to see some specialty sets like this in a 50-cent pack filled mostly with overproduction cards. I guess that's the magic of antiquing.

The color coding works really well with this design, and I've found that the black background is pretty sturdy, unlike say, 1994 Score, or 1993 Pinnacle. Or 1971 Topps, for that matter.

1996 Upper Deck #339 Al Leiter

Upper Deck was still pushing the copper envelope in 1996, and it's in a bold bar at the bottom of every base card in this and the following year's set (other than the numerous subset cards, of course). They hadn't quite thought to tone it down until a few years had gone by for that 2002 MVP design. This is a fairly boring photo of Al Leiter, but 1996 was the year he pitched the first-ever no-hitter for the young Florida Marlins, which happened to be the first no-hitter pitched against the Colorado Rockies. Interesting and unlikely trivia fact, isn't it? Both expansion teams had their first taste of a no-hitter while facing each other.

1996 Upper Deck #338 Pat Rapp

Pat Rapp never threw a no-hitter; in fact he only had one winning season his whole career. But we can all appreciate a card of a pitcher at the plate, right? As with most pitchers, it looks like unfamiliar territory for him. His uniform number is 48, but the bat he is using is marked #11, the number of fellow pitcher Chris Hammond. Maybe he was just trying to break out of a slump by switching out the lumber.

1998 Ultra #295 Todd Zeile

But copper is Upper Deck's color, not the Marlins'. Fortunately, the raised green lettering found on other 1998 Ultra cards happens to match well with the Marlins' colors. even if it is obscuring the catcher in this photo, Tom Pagnozzi of the Cardinals. Though Walt Weiss beat him to it, Zeile was one of dozens of players to play for both the Marlins and the Rockies, but that was still a few years off when this card was printed, as was his two-inning pitching career.

2000 Upper Deck Hitter's Club #77 Julio Ramirez HS

I have never heard of Julio Ramirez, who "Hit The Show" in 1999, but didn't play in 2000. Nor have I heard of Upper Deck Hitter's Club, a small 90-card set entirely devoid of pitchers. It has a little bit of mint green foil, an unusual but pleasing color for a card. But that's what cards were like around the turn of the millennium. You can spend a couple decades building a collection and never know of the existence of a set like this.

Who knows what I'll unearth in the next Mystery Pack?

Not Mickey Mantle (Part 1: Not Topps)

Even when I make a special trip to my local card shop to pick up the new centerpiece of my collection, I'm always up for some low-priced goodies. The beauty of a well-stocked LCS or card show is that there's something for everyone, so in addition to a half-century old Mickey Mantle card, I was sure to pick out some $1 foil packs from the mid 1990s.

1994 Leaf #395 Paul Molitor

I know most people probably think of Paul Molitor as a Brewer, but he was a member of the 1993 champion Toronto Blue Jays, which was the first World Series I watched (or at least remember watching). I saw so many cards of him that year in a Toronto uniform, so it doesn't seem that unusual to me. The same goes for Bob Welch as an Oakland A.

If I've learned anything about this hobby from all my fellow bloggers, it's that the first cards you were exposed to seem to set a pretty strong benchmark by which other eras are judged. Night Owl is a huge fan of the mid-1970s, but some strike-era glossy, full bleed cards with more than a little gold foil is right up my alley.

Especially for a buck a pack.

1994 Leaf #269 Kent Hrbek

I only knew Kent Hrbek and many of the not-quite-superstar AL players only from their baseball cards. 1994 was long before the days of MLB.TV, and even a few years before my family ponied up for cable television. I saw Matt F. mention Hrbek's Twitter account not long ago, when the slugging first baseman followed him, so why not throw him in here?

By the way, if you're a fan of podcasts, Matt from Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius and Dave from Card Junk get together once a month or so and discuss the latest in the card collecting hobby. I'd say it's worth a listen if you want to branch out from the blogs or Twitter for some card discussion. And Dave's movie reviews always leave me chuckling.

1996 Rockies Fleer #3 Ellis Burks

Of course, podcasts lack the benefit of the visuals we can include on our blogs and in our tweets, so I'll stick to writing for now. How else would you get a look at one of the Rockies' three 30/30 club members, and his 1995 commemorative Coors Field patch?

This card of Ellis Burks came from a 1996 Fleer Rockies team pack, an item I see quite frequently in the Denver area. It's a 20-card team set, and the cards come 10 to a pack. What's unusual about them is that they have a glossy finish, unlike Fleer's 1996 and 1997 base sets, which had a delicate but distinctive matte finish. These have a plain silver foil, unlike the parallel Tiffany cards, which had a rainbow foil. I had these misfiled for quite some time until I took a closer look.

1994 Score Rookie/Traded #RT32 Brian Harper

The giant rack of dollar packs was pretty full of football, so I had to dig pretty deep to find a dozen packs to my liking. Three were from Score's 1994 Rookie/Traded set, one that I think reminds us all of 1990 Donruss. And few of us want to be reminded of 1990 Donruss. To be honest, I thought these were of the 1994 base set until I opened them. I chose one of the traded veterans to scan, because the names on the rookies are almost completely unreadable. That's quite a trick without using any foil.

1994 Score Rookie/Traded #RT131 Norberto Martin

See what I mean?

1997 Score #7 Ryan Klesko

By contrast, 1997 Score doesn't really struggle with readability problems. Other than a widely spaced, all lower-case, sans-serif font that really stretches itself out on horizontal cards, it's fine. What isn't so fine is that in just ten cards, I got two duplicates and two checklists. So if you want a card of Ryan Klesko at the bat rack, let me know. I can spare it.

Overall, these non-Topps packs were about 50/50. I'll open mid-1990s Leaf all day long, but the Score products were scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit.

Let's move on to a more interesting section of Mike's Stadium Sportscards, the unnamed center table bargain area with 4/$30 pricing. Which happens to decrease to 4/$25 when you're in the store for 1962 vintage.

This LCS is absolutely packed to the gills with cards and memorabilia. Mike, myself, and three other customers were practically climbing over each other for 45 minutes trying to move to different sections of the store. The bargain area has quite an assortment, ranging from stacks of junk wax to plaques to hardcover books. I found a copy of Harry Caray's Holy Cow! for a Cubs fan coworker. But what I really went for in this area were the complete sets.

1994 Sportflics #146 Will Clark

It's no secret that lenticular cards don't scan well, but Sportflics did an interesting take on a traded player here, depicting Will Clark with a Giants cap, then a Rangers cap following an off-season trade. They don't line up perfectly, but it's a clever idea, and Clark has the same half-grin in each photo.

Mr. Clark came along with 192 other Sportflics cards, a complete 1994 set that I found in the large plastic bins underneath the bargain table.

2004 Upper Deck #549 Paul Lo Duca

I also found a few sub-100 card small sets, and I had to consult my Completed Sets page in-store to check whether I already had various Fleer Update and Topps Traded sets.

This Paul Lo Duca, in another unfamiliar uniform, is from the 2004 Upper Deck Update set. Unlike most other brands, UD numbered these 50 cards consecutively with the 270-card series 1 and 2, something I wish Topps would do. But then that would mess with their card #661 gimmick.

1992 Pinnacle Rookies #14 Monty Fariss

Even smaller, coming in at just 30 cards, was 1992 Pinnacle Rookies. Though they don't have the same cult-classic design as the 1992 base set, I believe they mark Pinnacle's first foray into gold foil. It's unusual that they left the logo alone in the upper right. Usually that was the first thing to get the gold treatment. There's also a bit of gold foil on the back, which may have been an industry first.

I really couldn't tell you much about Monty Fariss, but I do appreciate a good broken bat card on a set that's new to me. It was even packaged in its original box with that same card-sized styrofoam padding Pinnacle liked to include.

1992 Donruss #153 Kevin Maas

For a mere $6.25, part of my haul was a complete 1992 Donruss set. Especially on the card backs, Donruss had been giving us pretty much the same card ever since their inception in the early 1980s. By 1992 at least they saw fit to shift the elements around a bit to make room for a headshot.

1994 Donruss #436 Reggie Sanders

Gold foil made its inevitable appearance by 1994, and they finally did away with the practice of including the player's full name on the back. After a dozen years of "Ronald Maurice Darling, Jr.", it was long overdue. I found the complete series 2 in the bargain area, a perfect complement to the series 1 already in my collection. We're going to need a bigger box.

1992 Upper Deck Gold Hologram #183 Chris Hoiles

Last of all for the non-Topps portion of this two-post series is another factory set, 1992 Upper Deck. Kevin Maas makes another appearance just a couple cards down (I swear that was an accident), but this time he's sporting Yankee pinstripes in a cameo on Chris Hoiles' card in a great play at the plate shot.

Preceding Upper Deck SP by one year, the 1992 UD factory set cards are slightly differentiated from their pack-based cousins. Flip these over, and you'll find a gold hologram on each one of the 800 cards. I've run across these a few times before, but they do take a bit of an eagle eye to spot on their own.

It's definitely not counterfeit.