Sets of Yesteryear - 91-92 Score Hot Cards

Here is another installment of "Sets of Yesteryear", and since we went all the way back to 1991-92 last time we might as well pick up another grossly overproduced set from that year. Some liked the Euro-stars, some hated them. Lets see what you all think of the 91-92 Score Hot Cards.

A little background, these cards came as a special insert for anyone wanting to by a blister pack of 91-92 Score Hockey. The blister packs came with 99 base cards and one insert card (if memory serves me right). The bad thing is I believe that the 91-92 Score Hockey (thanks to Collectors Corner for a cool review) was one of the ugliest set of all-time, the good thing is the Hot Cards look nothing like them! Here is the set in its entirety.

Card #1 Eric Lindros

I think Score made nearly a dozen cards of Lindros before he even played an NHL game. In some respects I think they felt that he was their ticket to printing money and in some ways that was true. I remember I bought two of these Blister packs at my local Sears store and I ended up with a Gretzky and a Jagr. The BV of the Lindros back in 1995 was 10 bucks and it has since dropped to a paltry $2.00. I really like this card as it features Lindros in his Team Canada World Junior jersey.

Card # 2 Wayne Gretzky

Love this card too, the action shot of Wayne streaking down the ice and a goalie who is out of the photo likely wetting himself in fear of the Great One all in black. The design is pretty simple with a full red border and a yellow accent in the trim. 

The backside is a paragraph of stats and information. I like that there is a photo on the back and the photo does differ from the photo on the front. The back design again is pretty decent and 20 years later doesn't look as terrible as other releases from the time period.

Card #3 Brett Hull

 During the early 90's every set and insert set NEEDED Brett Hull. The best goal-scorer from the early 90's period and the last player to an official 50 in 50 and last to score more than 80 goals in a season. I think the hooking Scott Stevens is doing in the background might get called in today's game.


Card #4 Sergei Fedorov

Another staple of any early 90's set was the hot upcoming prospects like Sergei Fedorov. With only one full season under his belt when this came out, he had much to prove and accomplish still, but if you look back at his career now, he is a shoo-in for the HOF.

Card #5 Mario Lemieux

 At the time this card came out, Lemieux had already begun his battle with back injuries and was limited to just a little over a quarter of a season. Still managed 19 goals and 45 points and may have been the best player in the set at the time.


 Card #6 Adam Oates

 Glad to see Oatesy get some respect by his inclusion in the set. At the time he was the other half of the Hull and Oates combo and some say Hull made him a super-star. Fact is, Oates made himself and proved it when he scored 45 goals and 142 points with the Bruins in 1992-93. If you were wondering who were his wingers at the time...it was likely a combination of Steve Leach, Dmitri Kvartalnov, and Vladimir Ruzicka. Definitely no Brett Hull!

Card #7 Theo Fleury

A cool goal celebration card featuring a star who lit the lamp often early in his career. That is a great looking Woody in his hand, btw.


Card #8 Jaromir Jagr

Either this is a practice or a warm-up photo because there are lots of empty seats over there and at the time everyone wanted to see Mario Jr.

Card #9 Ed Belfour

This is my favourite card in the set. I wanted nothing more in life than to be Ed Belfour when it came to street hockey. I even had the Hawks jersey to go along with the dream. The only goalie in the set, Score picked a fine player with Belfour being the reigning Vezina, Calder, and First-Team All-Star goalie.


Card #10 Jeremy Roenick

 Even though NHL '93 was a year or two away, Score made him the last card in the set. At the time Roenick had his first 40 goal season and the best was still yet to come. I personally love seeing the old Easton Aluminum sticks.

In all, I think the set is still reasonably attractive and has aged rather well when compared to the 91-92 Score base cards. It offers much more star power than the Euro-Stars set did but at the same time, it is a smaller set and not as nice looking to me personally. The book value of the set these days is 15 bucks with the most expensive card being Gretzky which books for 8 dollars. I managed to pick up a complete set at my LCS for the change in my pocket at the time which I think was like 3 bucks.

So what are your thoughts on the set? A must have or a must avoid? I personally think it would be a fun addition to someone's collection and gives you a reason to avoid 91-92 Score! I give this set a 4/5. Decent design, nice player selection and a couple cool photos you can really appreciate!

Recent TTMs

Even though I have been buying more autos than writing letters in the last couple of months (will share more later on those), I have been lucky to have some TTMs return home over the last month or so. Two that I got back earlier this month are Eric Lindros and Jeremy Roenick. Both are players I loved and worshiped as a kid and to have both sign rookies for me is truly awesome. Roenick loves signing for fans and was willing to sign three cards for me (2 Rookies and an All-Star Card) and he included a small form letter with his return. The return time was about 6 months on the Roenick cards.

Eric was a faster signer than Jeremy, but since I didn't know if he would sign for sure, I just sent along the one card. I received this card about two months after mailing out the letter.

Here is more of the Lindros Post.

Here is more of the Roenick Post.

Hockey Repacks - Does anyone ever get good cards?

We have all seem them...Repacks... Generally they are sold with a catch, "Over $50 in NHL packs inside" or 1 Game-Used Mem card or 2 Jersey cards per box or my favourite "Find the Parkhurst Gordie Howe Rookie".

Some people cave in and buy one or two or several...

I have bought my share, I usually buy them when they are on clearance and I know worst case scenario is me breaking even in my books. The last ones I bought were 5 bucks a pop which came with a jersey card and 3 packs. Not bad huh? The jersey cards weren't the worst, I pulled a Belfour, Mogilny, and a Sullivan. The packs yielded the occasional decent card or semi-star rookie but nothing blog worthy to report.

Fast forward a year and I am at Walmart and I notice the clearance sticker on this pack.

The pictures on the front are always better than what you find inside...at least that was my experience. So seeing Wayne, Gino and Stevie taunting me to take a chance I decide WHAT THE HECK, it is only $5.97 right?

So I bring it home and open it up. Based on the front I am expecting a loose jersey card and a random pack (probably Ultra, MVP or something cheap).

What I actually find are two packs and a white envelope.

Leaving the envelope for the end I open the two packs. First pack is the Beehive....nothing...no rookies or anything cool.

Next is the Artifacts and bang, we have a hit. I pulled a game-used Curtis Joseph card. Not bad, #/299 and the swatch is boring white. He is pictured with the Coyotes. Nice, but not even worth showing here...

Then I open the envelope. What I see stuns me for a second and it is a moment before I even realize what I have...

This is an autographed Jeremy Roenick insert card from 92-93 Fleer Ultra. There is a neat "crimped" stamp of authenticity below his autograph compliments of Fleer this proving it is all the real deal.

Based on the two packs I considered myself ahead of the game. With this card, I am talking home run here. The card's BV is an astounding $60-150 which means for a card from the early 90's to list this high must mean it is relatively rare. I went on eBay and only found two others and it looks like each of the 10 might have autographed versions out there.

In all, I can finally say I was lucky enough to have success on those repack boxes and to be honest. I think I like this card better than the ones on the box!

So I am sure some of you are wondering. Are there any more of these boxes at Walmart. Well I did go back because there was ONE MORE LEFT. I picked it up and I will post the video this weekend. If you see one in your area, I do recommend it as a deal at 5.97. I don't know if I would pay full price however.

BTW, for all Cujo fans, if you really want to see the card let me know and I will take the time to post it and if you just WANT the card, I am willing to put it up for trade too.

Odd Ball Cards - 1991-92 Pro Set Puck

Been a while since I did a card related post so I thought I would share a little surprise I had the other day. Going through some old cards I found two 91-92 Pro Set Puck cards (see picture below).

Here is Jeremy Roenick who is card 6 from the set of 30 cards. No player was more fun to use in NHL '93 on the Sega Genesis!

Wayne is card 11 in the set.

Here is what the back of the cards look like. Nice to see the Great One is a fan of the Tigers too!

I thought I would see if they were worth anything according to the Beckett. I went to look them up online because I was sure Gretzky had to have a BV of around 5 bucks and to my surprise, I was wrong. Turns out it was valued at about $40 which means I probably had the most valuable Wayne Gretzky Pro Set card ever produced!

For those of you who don’t know, Pro Set produced “Puck Candy” during the 91-92 season which was their attempt at tying food and collectibles together. Basically it was a Jos Louis cake with a card inside. I have no idea if they mass produced these like they did other products, but I can imagine that many of the cards did get damaged because I don’t remember the cards being very well protected other than being wrapped in cellophane. The puck inside was pretty tasty much like Jos Louis’ are!

Anyway, it is nice to find little surprises like this from time to time. The nicer surprise was both cards are in pretty decent shape; crease free, showing very little wear after all these years and 4 sharp corners.

Has anyone else discovered little gems like this from the past that were once considered junk?

If you are interested in building the set, here is a link to jump start that. 20 cards different cards are available for bid on ebay.