We go back to the dark ages of the 90's Insert Wars for this week's Card of the Week. This is a truly bizarre item from Pacific that I found while hunting Cansecos in my pile of neglected '90's boxes. Can you tell what this is? I don't have time to do the full write up now (Mondays suck) but I wanted to share at least the image for now.
And before you-know-who asks, yes this is definitely in your trade pile.Fleerfan got it right, This is a 1997 Pacific Card-Supial card of Jose Canseco with a teeny little Mark McGwire stowing away in Jose's backside. Card-Supial... marsupial... it's like a little Kangaroo pouch, get it? Yeah, I think it's really stupid too. Here's the back of Jose's card unencumbered by mini-card parasites.
And here's the Mini-Me of Mark McGwire.
Notice how Pacific matched the legs on Jose and mark so the mini picture fits seamlessly in it's mother pouch. Now that's quality. In a time of increasingly absurd chase cards, Pacific was always on the cutting edge with their insert inanity but I have to admit this is one of the weirder ones. It is kind of nice to pull a card that's two cards in one even if one is tiny Cracker Jack prize sized. Only thing is that they didn't put the player's mini card in with the big size card, they were always two different players when you pulled them from a pack. The back of the card goes as far as to state:"Complete your Card-Supial™." Collect the little Jose Canseco card and place it in the Card-Supial pouch!This was easier said than done as there were 36 cards in the set, each with a big and mini version, all seeded at the typical one in 73 packs or whatever Pacific odds. If the chase card wasn't bad enough, now you had to chase another chase just to get a non-mixed up card. At least the pairing of the Bash Brothers was cool, even if Jose was in a Sox uniform at the time. The front is actually a really slick looking design, with a big swing swoosh for the name and foil rays radiating from the player as he presumably bashes a homer. I wouldn't send this into PSA though as both the big and mini cards have permanent creases where the mini was jammed in at the factory, which is found on all cards from this set. It's a nice card from the Golden Age of goofy-assed insert sets though, and I hope it will be enjoyed by our resident Canseco Completist, although I apologize in advance if you go nuts trying to find the mini card.
6 comments:
Strange....why is McGwire on the back? Oh, those wacky Spaniards!
By the way, I can't believe the stuff you pull out. I have absolutely no problem waiting if it means more weird cards like this. The more the merrier!
I have never been able to get into Pacific baseball cards. The ones I bought always came out of the bargain bins.
These are Card-Supials which were an insert that contained 2 cards - a regular sized card and a smaller card that fit into the larger card - kind of like a marsupial - a card with a "pouch" for a smaller card. Get it? Yes - pretty lame idea.
Here is an auction showing both cards:
http://cgi.ebay.com/1997-Pacific-CARD-SUPIAL-MINI-ROBERTO-ALOMAR-1-1A_W0QQitemZ200115149001QQihZ010QQcategoryZ55943QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQtrksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem
That explains why you've got a McGwire in the back of the Canseco card.
Wow, I've never heard of those cards before. Makes me wish like I hadn't.
I just discovered your blog. I like it so far. I got one of these Card-Supial pairs in a box of assorted cards I bought at Target. These boxes have between 100 and 250 cards in them Although most of them are pretty ordinary cards, I usually pull 4-5 unusual cards. I'd never heard of the Card-Supial before and was puzzled especially since the smaller card wasn't inserted in the larger card. But the set was listed in my latest big Sports Collector's Digest catalog.
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