checking out some art

i enjoy abstract expressionism as an art form. it's not all i like, but i have prints of works by klee, kandinsky, pollock, and rothko in the house. i don't care too much for artwork that is a literal representation of things, although i can appreciate a nice portrait or landscape.

you can probably guess that i wasn't a big fan of the art cards that upper deck included in their early sets on the team checklists (no offense, vernon wells!), and even the diamond king cards that i first saw in 1982 were not as interesting to me as cards with actual photos.

then, in 1994, i was pleasantly surprised by the bold and colorful checklists upper deck included in their collector's choice release. i was recently going through some old player collections and saw mike piazza's card for the first time in awhile.

i remember when i first saw this card and was hit pretty hard by the bold colors and the abrupt shading. it's not necessarily abstract or expressionist in the "traditional" sense, but i think it can be seen that way. even if it can't, i can still enjoy it. these cards were one of the reasons that i completed this set back in the mid-90's.

i found a few more of these checklist cards as i continued to rifle through the boxes, and i decided that i would binder up all the cards as a complete subset. of course, when i went to find a nolan ryan card, all i had was the silver signature parallel

it turned out i was missing a couple others, so i put in a sportlots order and now i have the complete subset all together in a binder with other subsets.

that's a pretty good representation of the majors in 1993, although greg maddux probably deserved to be included. can't go wrong with two griffeys though. or a john kruk art piece, for that matter. out of all of these, david justice's card might be my favorite. i am glad i was looking at those piazza dupes and was reminded of this 30 year old set! zoinks!