We’ve talked about the appearance of “premium” and “super premium” sets in the mid-’90’s. Fleer with Ultra and Flair, Topps with Stadium Club… Quality increased and price increased. But it’s important not to forget the regular sets that allowed us young collectors on a budget to continue building sets, searching for our favorite players and finding the occasional high-value insert. This #166 Eddie Jones rookie card comes from the 1994-95 Upper Deck set. Yes, you could buy the ’94-95 SP Championship, but some guilt came along with buying six cards for $3.99. With these cards, it was 12 for $1.99, and for some of us, that added to the enjoyment. This also meant overprinting, so unless you have a gem mint, the value with most of these cards is limited. But I like these cards, and that just means more affordable good memories for me. There were two 180-card series in ’94-95 Upper Deck, so the set was manageable to complete too.
The design was nice. Photo to the right, and player and team names inside colored bars to the left. This was a placement you didn’t see too often. The players appeared randomly, not organized by team, but the popular Series I rookie cards were grouped together (156-166), making this Eddie Jones the final rookie card in Series I. In Series II, the rookies are scattered among the regular players. You knew you had a rookie when you saw that gold foil “R” on the top of the card. It was followed by the words “1994-95 Rookie Class” below that. And it was a nice group of rookies, with Grant Hill, Jason Kidd, Juwan Howard and Glenn Robinson.
A quick look at the reverse shows a nice design with college statistics included. The information is really basic, just that he was the 10th pick in the 1994 draft by the Lakers and that he was the ’93-94 Atlantic 10 Player of the Year. But I like looking at the college statistics for rookies, especially when you can see someone improving and gaining momentum before they break into the NBA. Here we see Eddie Jones improving in every statistic at Temple (with the exception of rebounds) and then finally breaking into the NBA, a moment this card captures. A nice card!
You must be logged in to post a comment.