In May of 1997, Upper Deck released its 1996-97 SP, and it was similar in many ways to the first two SP sets (or three if you count ’93-94 Upper Deck Special Edition). Still a slightly higher price for the time, at $3.99 for eight cards. Still a compact set, with only 146 cards, meaning a higher percentage of stars. Cards were still organized alphabetically by team with about five players per team. And after the base cards, like the previous year, there were twenty rookies grouped into their own subset called Premier Prospects. Lots remaining the same. A small difference was that the SP logo became even simpler with just the main components outlined in foil. But the main difference in 1996-97 was the removal of the SP Championship set. The previous two years had two sets, SP and SP Championship. SP was hobby-only and SP Championship, meant to focus on the playoffs, was retail-only. In 1995-96, SPx, a smaller die-cut set was introduced. Upper Deck must’ve felt that this was enough of a supplement, so in ’96-97, they chose to cut SP Championship, leaving only regular SP and the die-cut SPx.
Overall, the cards are very busy in design. The design of the first 126 veterans featured a rainbow foil with the SP logo running across the background. It was stronger in the lower-left corner and became more subtle towards the right. It caused the team name to sparkle a bit as well. You barely know it’s there under certain angles of light. Other angles show a large variety of colors. There are two more photos on the back, an action shot and a headshot. Stats and standard biographical info on the bottom, written text on the top. And just a touch of textured silver foil where the player’s name is seen, both on the back and the front.
A bit more about the Premier Prospects cards… They are interesting in that the action photo is actually on the back of the card. The front of the card is a studio shot of the player (except Allen Iverson, but even his is a casual non-action photo). Another interesting fact is that there is a postcard-sized version of these cards. It was a separate boxed set of just the Premier Prospects cards from ’96-97 SP.
Individual Cards:
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