1994 SP Holoviews

Set size: 38 cards

Front Design: A color player photo appears with a multicolored band along the right side containing the player's name, while an identically styled banner across the bottom half surrounds a hologram containing a portrait of the player and a cloudy sky.

Back Design: Another photo is placed over a large "Holoview FX" cloud logo containing the players name, team and position; a short highlights writeup is on the right side of the card.

Parallels and Similars: A die-cut version parallels this set.

Distribution: Cards were inserted one in five packs of 1994 SP.

Thoughts: Upper Deck's hologram sets usually look good, and this is no different. A larger hologram would put this set on my want list, but for this issue the hologram is secondary to the rest of the card. As far as SP inserts go, this shouldn't be too difficult to find. Many SP inserts were inserted one per box or tougher.

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1994 Classic Four Sport Printer's Proofs

Set size: 201 cards

Front Design: A full-bleed color photo with a beveled-edge effect encompasses the basic design. The Four Sport logo, the player's name, and a Printer's Proof "stamp" all appear in red foil over the photo.

Back Design: The back contains a second color photo; the card number is in the upper-right corner in a small black box. A beveled edge shaded box sits over the bottom half of the photo with the player's vitals, stats, and a short list of highlights.

Parallels and Similars: The Printer's Proof set is a parallel of the regular Four Sport set, distinguished by the red foil stamp on the front of the card. A gold parallel also exists.

Distribution: One thousand of each card was printed and randomly inserted into Classic Four Sport packs.

Thoughts: As the name implies, this is a multisport product. The Four Sport line started in the early '90s during the first-card phase of the hobby. Manufacturers rushed to be the first to release cards of the latest, hottest picks in each sport; Classic's releases were usually among the earliest. The set's design relies on quality action photos, which this card exhibits well; it is a simple yet effective layout for its time.

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1994-95 Excel All-Stars

Set size: 10 cards

Front Design: A full-bleed color photo received a "crayon" highlighting treatment around the player. His name appears in a large, broken, off-kilter wild font, and gold foil at the bottom left gives the name of the set; the Excel logo is in the upper right corner.

Back Design: A cropped version of the same photo is the background to a highlight biography. The player's name is repeated in the same crazy font beneath the biography, followed by his team name and position, the card number and copyright information.

Parallels and Similars: None.

Distribution: Cards were randomly inserted into packs of the minor league issue 1994-95 Excel.

Thoughts: Sure, it's a wild, loud design, but it's different from most of the uninspired inserts we see these days. The set featured what Excel considered 10 of the best minor leaguers of the 1994 season. Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon are the two real success stories from the set, though many of them made the majors. A design like this would be good in a kid/family/value-oriented product, such as Opening Day.

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1994 SP Previews

Set size: 15 cards

Front Design: The design is identical to the 1994 SP set, with a color photo on foil cardstock. The player's name, position, and team appear in a black banner, set sideways along the right side, with a gold band of SP logos taking up the far-right border. The region of distribution (see below) appears in the bottom right corner of the photo where the team name is located on the regular issue.

Back Design: Again, the design is the same as the 1994 SP set. A color photo uses most of the card back, with a black border on the left side containing the player's name and a career highlight; the card number is in the upper-left corner with an ER, WR, or CR prefix. The bottom of the card contains vitals and best and recent season and career stats.

Parallels and Similars: The set is identical to the regular SP set except for the region on the front and card number on the back. There is no die-cut parallel for these previews, though there was for the base set.

Distribution: Cards were inserted into Upper Deck Series 2 at a rate of one in 35 packs. The fifteen card set was divided into regions; west, central and east regions contained five cards each of regional stars. In order to complete the set, one would need to buy from or trade with people in other parts of the country.

Thoughts: I remember when these first came out. At the time, I was living in Atlanta and purchasing boxes from a store in San Jose, so I was one of the few with western region previews on the east coast. I don't remember what I did with the cards - they're probably still sitting in my collection in George. I tend to dislike foil cards like this because it detracts from the quality of the image, though the SP logo on the right side looks nice.

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1994 Score Rookie/Traded

Set size: 165 standard-sized cards

Front Design: A color photo appears inside a red "cracked" border, with a green accent in an upper corner with the Score '94 logo, and yellow tab in a lower corner containing the team logo. The player's name appears in a multi-colored shadow design at the bottom of the card. Rookie cards have two photos on the front.

Back Design: The dark blue/purple backs have two more player photos, in addition to position, team, vital stats, a short biography, and recent and career statistics. The card number appears at the bottom with an RT prefix. Rookie cards are horizontal with only one photo.

Parallels and Similars: This design is different from the regular Score set that year, but it was paralleled in a "Gold Rush" series, which have gold foil fronts and the Gold Rush logo in an upper corner. The parallels were inserted one per pack.

Distribution: Cards were released in hobby and retail packs with one Gold Rush card per pack. Two insert sets, Changing Places and Super Rookies, were randomly inserted; a redemption card was included 1:240 packs. The redemption card could be mailed in for a "September Call-Up" Alex Rodriguez card.

Thoughts: With the brighter primary colors in a stand-out design, this set screams 1990s, which means it's a love-hate kind of design. It's probably four years too late, as bright colors seemed to die around 1991 when the banana-colored Fleer set went rotten. I find it fun and fairly unique, showing some design initiative beyond the solid bordered straight-line designs many sets featured. While I know a lot of people won't like this set, it was a big step releasing a set like this amongst the other offerings of the year.

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