Baseball Card Evolution - 1994

See my post Capewood's Theory of Baseball Card Evolution here.

Bowman - Stage 6

 Bowman's only year a full Stage 6. It's got the back photo, the foil, the gloss and the full bleed printing.

Donruss - Stage 6

Donruss was also at Stage 6, but not as nice a card as Bowman. The name on the front is hard to read and there are not enough stats on the back.

Fleer - Stage 5

Fleer is another year from Stage 6, but this is a nice design with an uncluttered front.

Score - Stage 4

The fronts featured good photographs and the backs are nice but that horrid dark blue border on the front ruined this set.

Topps Stage 4

The front is a bit more cluttered than the Score but it's much more colorful and bright. I always liked the backs of this set as well.

Upper Deck - Stage 6

Pretty good except for that goofy elongated insert photo on the front.

Since I seem to have most of the mainstream 1994 Eckersley cards, I'll show the rest that I have. There were a lot of card issues in 1994. The Eckersley cards I'm missing are Bowman's Best (7), Finest (7), Upper Deck Fun Pack (4), Leaf (6), Pacific (6), Select (6), SP (6), and Studio (6).

Collector’s Choice - Stage 4

This is the first year for Collector’s Choice. It looks very much like 1993 Upper Deck.

Flair - Stage 7

Fleer's attempt at a super premium card like Topps Finest. Printed on thicker card stock, with full bleed printing, gold foil and super high gloss, all on the front and the back.

Pinnacle - Stage 6

Pinnacle, in their 3rd year, jumped right from Stage 3 to Stage 6 with this pretty good effort. This is their best Stage 6 card as future years would be heavily lathered with gold foil.

Stadium Club - Stadium Club

Stadium Club started in 1991 already at Stage 6. There were some design changes for 1994, most notably going from gold foil to red foil but it remained the great brand it had been.

Triple Play - Stage 6-

This Donruss product started in 1992 mainly trying to appeal to kids. It moved to full bleed printing in this, it's final year of it's original run, but didn't incorporate foil. So it's not quite Stage 6.

Ultra - Stage 6

Ultra, Fleer's first attempt at a premium card, started in 1991 as a Stage 3 card, but jumped to Stage 6 in 1992. In these early days of Ultra, they always had 3 photos on the back. For some reason, the foil logo on this Eckersley card is sideways, as though this was a horizontal card rather than vertical.