Its name said it all: collectors either loved or hated this set. I happened to love it. It was the perfect antidote to a hobby spiraling out of control. A throwback created not two years removed from the sets it emulated in spirit, it was the first in what would become a kind of weird tradition at Upper Deck: the ‘manufactured nostalgia’ set. It had a parallel worth collecting (the only appearance of any type of foil within the set). Its checklist was no-frills in a frilly way. It had rookies you cared about, players you revered and a simple, seersucker pinstripe design that brought sipping lemonade on the back porch and listening to the game on the radio, Disney World’s Grand Floridian Hotel and 1973 Topps to mind all at the same time.
The Collector’s Choice brand was the logical next step in the evolution of the Kids Kards sets (Topps Kids, Donruss Triple Play, Upper Deck Fun Pack): a brand with a buy-in point (99¢ a pack, if I remember correctly) that appealed to kids as well as empty-wallet collectors. With clean, sun-drenched photography, no-nonsense stat lines and simple blurbs that pertained to the player’s performance as opposed to his favorite hobby or TV show (inevitably Cheers or In Living Color), it elevated, instead of patronized, its audience. This is remarkable, considering we’re talking about the early Nineties, when there was a general crisis in how to get kids excited about a hobby in which they could no longer afford to take part. It’s also remarkable when you remember that we’re discussing Upper Deck, a company that had not only positioned itself as technologically superior to the competition, but more irreverent, fun-loving and self-deprecating—all qualities that are noticeably muted in this Collector’s Choice set (they would creep back onto the cards in subsequent editions). It wasn’t Upper Deck growing up (that had happened the year before), but it was Upper Deck taking all of its audiences seriously, which was perhaps more refreshing.
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- Porch moths
- Baby Update
- Mantis Monday for 3-31-08
- cover nrc.next geldspecial
- Five Kakapos Hatched! We're up to 91, and 2 more ...
- Crane flies
- Aoraki Mount Cook
- Playlist - 29th March 2008
- The Baseball Card Blog Now on Facebook
- Leech Trekking in Periyar
- Bootcamp Physical Fitness Test
- Something different
- Splendid
- Seamour Sheep Radioactive Edition
- Goodbye, little prince
- Did you seen Him
- Netflix now wider, more personalized
- The Future of Music Looks Bleak
- A little Spring Training
- Mass murder
- A jungle of weeds
- Springtime in bugland
- AIR Hall of Challengers
- Mantis Monday for 3-24-08
- Airbrush Invitational Rodeo Results
- Catching Up
- Operation Boot Camp - Week 3
- I'm not dead yet!
- AIR FINAL
- Errors in My Heritage
- Playlist - 22nd March 2008
- Polaroid's By Cambridge Students
- Illustrations for a short story
- Tekapo
- airplane
- Card Back of the Day: 1973 OPC Dock Ellis
- 1990 - 1994 Countdown: 14. 1991 Fleer Ultra
- Finally!
- 1990 - 1994 Countdown: #15. 1994 Collector's Choice
- Ranger held over gorilla killings
- The insect-finder's eye
- Mantis Monday for 3-17-08
- 1990 - 1994 Countdown: #16. 1993 SP
- A walk on the wild side
- Bootcamp - End of Week 2
- Playlist - 15th March 2008
- Despotism
- First Stop: Kaikoura
- 1990 - 1994 Countdown: #18. 1993 Flair
- 1990 - 1994 Countdown: #21. 1991 Score
- And On The Sixteenth Day...
- John-Ford Griffin: What Price Glory
- Separated at Birth
- cancel
- INTERNET EXPLORER PROBLEMS
- More Komodo Dragon Babies!
- BootCamp - Week 2
- Yippee!!
- Balkenende blues
- Button
- People, computers, communication
- Mantis Monday for 3-10-08
- Card Critic Review: 2008 Topps Heritage
- Y Life
- Playlist - 8th March 2008 - Funkology
- Shark Alley - South Africa
- 500 Reward
- Sixth Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture - With Live H...
- More look-unders
- Ahoy! It's the Cap'n!
- Carpenter bee
- That Other Stuff
- The gift of a spider
- Dark no more
- Front porch moth
- Grasshopper eating a berry
- Tanzania to Cape Town Photo Highlights
- Bootcamp - Day 2
- PVV Fitna
- Burning of the Vanities
- Following in Darwin's footsteps
- 1990 - 1994 Countdown: #19. 1993 Score
- By the dawn's early light...
- Mauritius Island Life
- Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund - January and February
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- Playlist - 1st March 2008
- Dub Review - March 2008
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