The 1990s Baseball Card Face-off - 1993 Pacific vs. 1997 Ultra

Check this post to see my methodology.

The last matchup was pretty good but I'm afraid today's is a bit of a mismatch.

Today we have:

1993 Pacific vs. 1997 Ultra

1993 Pacific #234 Mariano Duncan

1993 Pacific #238 John Kruk

 The only 1993 Pacific cards I own are all Phillies. But that will serve our purpose. This was a 660-card set mainly for the Hispanic market. Pacific will become more elaborate as the 1990s go on, but in 1993 it was a pretty plain card with a chunky design. The fronts feature too much border with the player name taking up a large vertical bar on the left. The player position takes up almost as much space across the bottom. The backs feature a large color player photo which is pretty good for 1993. The backs however are hard to read. Maybe other team colors were better. Based on the Phillies cards, the photography is pretty uninspired although I love the Kruk photo.

1997 Ultra #209 Darryl Kile

1997 Ultra was pretty much like 1996 and 1995 Ultra. And like most years of Ultra after 1997. A full-bleed photo and foil lettering in some elaborate font on the front; full-bleed printing on the back with 2 overlapping player photos, overprinted with player stats. Not an unattractive card by any means but I never bought much Ultra in these years because the cards looked the same from year to year. But the design beats 1993 Pacific by a mile.

The Result: 1997 Ultra.