Card companies collaboration in 1995

One of the fun things in cardblogging is trying to find certain cards on Trading Card Database, specifically Pacific cards that don't seem to exist. However, despite the Pacific crown logo and the words Pacific on the back, this card wasn't a Pacific card. It was a National Packtime card, and is an artefact of a very troubled time in both baseball and the baseball card hobby.

Card Number 633: National Packtime (Pacific), 1995; #15

The player's strike that curtailed the 1994 baseball season and meant there was no World Series had caused a lot of anger among fans of the sport. The proliferation of baseball cards and the saturation of the market had led to a collapse in baseball card values. One solution to this was for all six licensed companies collaborating to produce promotional packs of baseball cards to encourage people to keep collecting.

National Packtime was a set of 18 cards, with each company contributing 3 cards to the pack. According to BaseballCardPedia, the promotional packs were available in exchange for 28 baseball card wrappers from any of the manufacturers. 

As can be expected, some retailers cut corners and just used cards from their main ranges with the National Packtime logo added. Pacific actually created new cards, so this Tony Gwynn card was exclusive to the National Packtime sets. Having said that, it's not a hugely exciting picture on the card.

The back is a bit jazzy and is bilingual - a common feature on Pacific cards in the mid-90s. Pacific's target market was the Spanish speaking community.

That second-placed finish in 1993 with a .358 batting average would have won Tony a National League batting title in six of the other seasons he was playing.

Whatever happens in the current card-collecting bubble (and, personally, I think we are likely to see a crunch fairly soon), it's very unlikely that such a collaboration would take place again. Unlike in 1995, there is only one company with a license from Major League Baseball to print baseball cards - Topps, who are the sole survivor from the six companies who participated in the National Packtime collaboration.

Total: 633 cards