Saturday, January 16, 2010

Basement Treasures: 1994 Upper Deck World Cup Edition

While doing a little cleaning and reorganizing over the holidays, I came across a small box of cards labelled "Other Sports." It's not a slight on the sports that reside within, but rather odds and ends of cards I'd accumulated outside of baseball, basketball, hockey, football, golf and tennis (I loved 2003 NetPro Tennis and my doubles had a box of their own). Three-quarters of the "Other Sports" box was comprised of 1994 Upper Deck World Cup Soccer (or is it football?). I started thumbing through them and remembered what a great-looking set this was.

Honestly, I recognized very few names but there was some great action shots...

...dramatic portraits...

...celebrations

...crazy hair...


...hippies...


...and some head butt and blinking dual awesomeness.


And if all else fails, the set even flashes a little boob.


As I reached the end of the stack, I came across this card and thought, "Hey, I've heard of her."


It turns out Mia Hamm has a rookie card in this set and folks are actually willing to pay for it. I checked some old completed auctions and saw one had sold for $6. Sure, it's not much, but for a soccer card that was otherwise sitting in a box marked "Other Sports," it's not too shabby.

There's currently a few complete 330-card sets listed on eBay for under $20.




2 comments:

mfw13 said...

This was back when UD was in it's prime in terms of both photography and design. No World Cup set produced since has come close in terms of quality.

steve4mod said...

Ryan,

I bought tons of that stuff and I sold Mia Hamm RCs for up to $20 a pop for years after the set release. I love your blog, it brings back great memories. I still have my three foot tall Striker (the 1994 World Cup dog mascot) stuffed animal and Striker drinking glasses. Thanks, man. Steve over at 5FINITY