1991 Baseball Cards A-Z (Part 3)

Continuing my review of 1991 baseball card issues to celebrate my completing my 1991 collection. Today I'm only going to cover Score since they had 7 issues. I'll throw in a couple of subsets from their base set. This will be the last Score base set that I will buy in any any significant quantity. In my opinion, their design and quality declined after 1991 until they were eventually acquired by Pinnacle in the consolidations and card business upheavals in the later 1990s.

1991 Score

I've been highlighting what I believe is the transitional nature of the 1991 releases. The Score set is another good example. This is the 4th year for Score. The basic design hasn't changed much since 1988. The fronts continue to feature colored borders, although this year and 1990 tended to be brighter colors than the previous years. The colors, in general, do not relate to team colors. But although the design hasn't changed much, it is the way cards will look for many years, with bright colors, full color photos on the back and lots of subsets. Still no gloss, foil or many inserts though.

This was a huge set, with 893 cards. There were a lot of subsets. Here are a couple.

Chipper is the key card in most sets from 1991.

As World Series commemorative cards go, this is a good one.

Do you remember the year the World Series was interrupted by an earthquake? Correction: The earthquake was in 1989 so this is actually a card from the 1990 score set. Sorry about that.

Score Cooperstown

The only way you could get this insert set was to buy the base set factory set, which is what I had done. Score put Griffey, in only his third season in some pretty lofty company in this set. Other players in the 7-card set included Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs, Barry Larken and Will Clark. Of this group only Clark and Griffey are not in the Hall. Clark didn't receive enough votes in 2006 to stay in the running and Griffey isn't yet eligible. This is a nice looking little set and is readily available on eBay. In fact, you can get the whole Score set, all 900 cards, on eBay for $5.

Score Hot Rookies

These cards were inserted, 1 per pack, in 100-card blister packs. I bought the entire 10-card set on eBay in 2004. Of the 10 players included, only Kevin Maas (hyped as the next Don Mattingly) was a total bust, so it's a nice little set.

Score Mantle

As I mentioned a few days ago, this was one of the two last 1991 cards I needed. This was a 7-card set inserted into Series 2 Score. Since I didn't actually buy any packs of Score in 1991, this is the first card from this set I've ever seen.

Score 100 Rising Star

This was a 100-card set available only as a factory set which Score started issuing in 1989. I only have 4 of these, all of which I got in various repacks over the years.

Score 1991 Rookie

This was a 40-card set, again only available as a factory set. Unlike all the other cards Score issued in 1991, these cards have a glossy finish on the front (but not on the back). I have 5 of these (4 of those are Phillies) but I have no idea where I got them.

Score Rookie/Traded

Everybody was producing update sets in 1991 which were usually only available as complete sets. The Score set had 110 cards. I have only 3, probably acquired in repacks.

I'd forgotten that Carter played one year for the Dodgers. He just passed away on February 16, of brain cancer. He was only 57 years old.