The same trip that netted a 94% complete ’86 Donruss book found a 1992 Sky Box “Pre-Rookie” Double-A minor league box that was still in it’s shrink wrap. This box was $10 and features an awesome, clean and bright white & black design as well as a $8 Mike Piazza pre-rookie card. I got the box explicitly because I wanted to open packs of baseball cards, and for $10, this was exactly what I needed. When I started to sort the cards, I realized that I had the whole 310 card set. It’s a full pull box.
This is the younger brother set to a Triple-A series released by SkyBox with the same design. Looking at the template now, it has elements recognizable as signature Topp and early Upper Deck styles. The top of the card feels inspired by ’85 and ’86 Topps, with the SkyBox “lower-third” style logo overlay reminding me of a ’93 Upper Deck (which yes, I realize comes after ’92). The photos are all posed. Which makes sense. Sourcing in-game action photos from the minors for a low-end set from a start-up label would be difficult and not worth the task.
However, compared to other sets, both broad & team released, the photos are very high quality. The images are crisp, photos are well shot with players’ faces all being very readable on the card, and there is a great variety of poses. The reverse is fantastically simple. With limited professional experience, the cards devote space to laying out each player’s bio. The bottom also has a short highlight blurb. This short set is bulked out with 5 stadium cards, seemingly selected at random, and a few league leader cards which feature a “league leader” logo in place of the team logo.
The checklist is sorted alphabetically by team, which makes for a very satisfying pattern when sorted and sleeved into 9-pockets and poured into a book. The box I grabbed was $10 at a second hand toy & card store. The full set tops out at $100 on TCDB, with the Mike Piazza card tickling the $8 mark. Three other players break the $1 line, with Trevor Hoffman, Jim Edmonds and Brian Giles all being with at least a whole ass dollar bill.
There are boxes of ’92 SkyBox Pre-Rookie on the ‘Bay around the $10. Now, the big-brother AAA set is larger, so the chances of hitting a full pull out of a single box is much slimmer if you go with the Triple-A series. But at ~$13, still a great value for the fun of cracking wax.
