Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Electric Diamonds = Tuesday Twins

These are some cards that are very similar to cards that have been on the blog before. They are parallels from Upper Deck in the early 90s. The cards are interesting, although the 'parallel' bits aren't particularly.

Card Number 727: Upper Deck Electric Diamond, 1994; #279

The regular version of this card was the 87th card I blogged about, back when I did 'Monday Mixers' of unrelated cards. 



This card wasn't an insert. It was in the Upper Deck base set, with every team receiving a card numbered between #267 and #294. Tony Gwynn's minor league room-mate and lifelong friend, John Kruk, features on the card for the Philadelphia Phillies (#276).

The parallel bit is the silver foil 'Electric Diamond' written up the side of the card. There was one of these parallels in every pack. I already have the Electric Diamond parallel for Tony's regular card in the set. 

The back is more interesting than the front. I am certain this is the only Tony Gwynn card to mention skunks on the back. 


It's one of my great regrets that I didn't get to visit Jack Murphy Stadium. My wife Cathy and I were planning on a baseball pilgrimage to California in 2020. Jack Murphy Stadium was on the list of holy sites to visit. But then we had the global pandemic and we weren't able to go, and while the world was locked down, Jack Murphy Stadium got knocked down. 

Card Number 728: Upper Deck Electric Diamond, 1995; #135

The regular version was the 263rd card on this blog. 

The Electric Diamond logo replaces the bronze Upper deck logo on the regular card. This is the silver foil version, which was included at the rate of one per pack again. A gold foil version was released too, but it was much rarer - collectors would only find a gold one in every 35 packs. 

This base card photo is from the same game as the image used on cards released by Leaf and Fleer in 1995 - see them all here. I wonder if the card companies ever compared notes and realised they had basically all bought the same photo. Not a bad day's work for the snapper. 

The back is just a classic Upper Deck cardback. They liked to give their photos space and truncated the stats box.


These parallels have given me the task of reorganising my Upper Deck binder, which I have to admit has been badly arranged from the get go. I want to make space to put the parallel cards next to the regular versions of the cards. That's a fun job I think I will leave for a wet weather day!

Total: 728 cards

3 comments:

  1. Binder reorganization is a funny thing. One day... I'm really into it and it's truly enjoyable. The next day... I'm like this blows and it seems so tedious.

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  2. Back in the 90s when I was a young sprat I used binders for my Gwynn collection and then I didn't. All the reorganizing started dinging corners and I just abandoned them. Now I have my collection in top loaders stored in 2 row shoebox's. I hate when I run out of space in one and then have to get another box, transfer ever card behind that last card to the new box's....
    Ok ok ok... Apparently there is no real easy way to resort your collection, either in binder or box.

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  3. I have to be in the right mood for sorting. So far I have only had one big sort - when I moved from one binder of cards (with about 400 in) to several smaller binders divided by make. But now I'm finding it difficult to fit cards in roughly the right order so a rejig is necessary.

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