1993-94 Ultra #54 Reggie Williams

With these posts, I’m building and enjoying my collection one card at a time, no matter how common. And this is the definition of a common card. As sets became smaller as the year 2000 approached, this tier of player would not even be included. But there was something nice about the early ’90’s sets that tried to cover a lot more of the sport. There’s history everywhere. Reggie Williams is a huge name in the DC/Maryland area…part of Georgetown’s 1984 Championship team, 4th pick in t he draft.

This #54 Reggie Williams comes from 1993-94 Ultra, their second set of basketball cards ever. The set was organized alphabetically by team and last name making Reggie Williams the last of five Nuggets in Series I.

We’re going to compare the first two Ultra sets. If you’re going to confuse two sets glancing quickly, it’s ’92-93 and ’93-94 Ultra. They’re nearly identical down to the UV-coating that they advertised. But I really respect that. It shows pride in the product when the company is so satisfied, that they only need to make subtle changes. In ’93-94, they made the photo ever so slightly larger, evidence that the full-bleed photo with minimal design that we associate with Ultra was already on their minds. They added gold foil on the player’s name, team name and position. And they added fire to the basketball in the brand logo. On the back, they changed the background to a to a real basketball court this year. They were proud of this change, calling it a “3-D Look” court in their marketing material. It’s the same photograph on all the cards though if you never noticed. Still just stats from the previous season, like their first ’92-93 set.

Two years in a row…hardly any changes… Ultra was showing that it was clear with what it wanted its base set to be. Quality cards, priority on the photograph, classic minimal design.