JT Snow Page Twenty Two 1998

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Ugh. This may be the worst page in the whole collection. The entire top row is aweful Pacific. The Aurora in the middle is ugly in design, ugly in execusion and features a photo of Snow taking an akward lunge of a swing. I hate you Pacific.

98 Pinnacle was nothing special and the insert beside it show a lack of imagination or maybe the will to live. I know i would think twice about my role in the world if i had designed these duds.

Bottom row is all Score. Another boring Score set from the late 90's. The Middle is a Press Proof. Whoopdie doo! At least the Update Score on the right has a nice photo. Lets move on and never think of this lame page again.

JT Snow Page Twenty One - 1998

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Top Left hand corner is 98 Finest refractor. Again this is ruined by the protective coating. And you know i love refractors.

The other two on the top row are 98 Flair Showcase. Ok cards if a little overcrowded. But the thing that continues to confound me about this set is the way it is numbered. For example the middle card is numbered Sec 2, Row 2, Seat 102. What??? I can barely do division and you expect me to coalate a set with those kinds of wacky numbers? Not a chance.

Middle of the Page is 98 Leaf and next to it is an insert from the set, Fractal Materials. Much better looking than the base card plus it has a wierd leathery surface. Card is #'d 0772/1000.

Bottom Left hand corner is 98 Leaf Rookies & Stars. Nicest looking card on the page in terms of design and picture (obviously a spring training pic). As I recall a ton of cards in this set were shortprinted and still carry a premium. JT is not one of them.

Bottom Middle is *echh* Metal Universe. Why did they keep making these cards? Why photoshop a picture of JT and place him on a snowy hill? There was no public demand.

Last on the page is 98 Pacific Collection. Ugly as usual.

JT Snow Page Twenty 1998

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So as you can see most of this page is 1998 Donruss Signature Series. I could not find a pack of these cards to save my life when they were released. I didnt frequent card shops at that time so it figures. I think all of these are Ebay purchases.

Upper Right hand corner is the nicest on, the blue Century Marks variant. I also like that its #'s 100/100.

Middle is the red unnumbered variant. I have no idea what the run on this one is. Does anyone out there know?

The rest are the green Millenium Marks. All #'d to 1,000. The cards pictured are 0388, 0646, 0754, 0870 & 0923. Always in the market for more of these so if you have any i have many nice cards to trade for them.

Middle bottom us Skybox Dugout access. On the back it has a little photo of former Angels Shortstop Gary DiSarcina saying nice things about JT.

Lower left is 98 Finest. Ok design, but we were still 2 years from Topps taking away the Protector Film on the cards. I hate the film.

J.T. Snow Page Nineteen 1998

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So continued from last time we have 98 Bowman in the upper right hand corner. Two parallels here, a refractor and then a parallel to a parallel, the refractor for the home town insert. I am a nerd for refractors so honestly i am not going to complain about anything shiny.

The rest of the page is confusing Donruss product. I wasnt too heavily into the hobby in 98 so i have no idea what the idea behind Donruss collections was. As far as i can tell it was a giant set made up of every other set they put out that year. Why? No one wanted this. They were lucky they didnt get their liscence pulled right there and then for intentionally confusing collectors. I mean the cards have 2 numbers on the back! Arghhh. WTF?

Ok lame page other than the Bowmans. Next page is a ton of Autos.

J.T. Snow Page Eighteen 1997 - 1998

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This page has the last of the JT cards in an Angels uniform (Technically. There is a Topps Rookie Cup card from 2005 that has him in an Angels Uni, but that is kinda an abberation).

Top left corner is 97 Score. Another boring design from 90's Score. Its not 94 bad, but its just boring. The cards next are the update series. Oooh look at that amazing parrallel version with the gold stamp. How was Topps the only ones to realize that refractors were the only parrallel that looked good. I could not care less about a gold stamp.

Smack in the middle is 97 Stadium Club. Really underated design. The only problem with these cards is that the blue name part was embossed which made them hard to stack. But a good card of JT, possibly a top 10 non insert.

Next to that is 97 Topps. Ignoring the design (which most people did anyway) this card starts an odd phenomenon between Topps and JT. As you can see it has him as "JT Snow Jr." Not sure why on his 5th Topps card they suddenly added the Jr. Don't get me wrong, i like the way it looks and i really like that only Topps products had it, but it just seems odd. Maybe it had something to do with the reconcilation with his dad, but i thought that came later. Anyway this quirk carried through to his last Topps issue in 06.

Below that is 97 Ultra, a series i love. Very simple and elegant. I love the way the name is foiled and in cursive. Like 89 Topps, but classier.

Bottom right is 98 Bowman an Ok set as Bowman goes, although it does look a little Windows 98 in its design. Next page has its parrallels which i will rave about.

Enough Laziness

Ok so i guess since i have a lot of new visitors i need to update the site. I have been lazy but i have a new baby so that is a pretty good excuse right? Plus if all these other bloggers can do it so can i. So Page 18 will be up tonight. We are almost through the 90's so thats when things get really good.

J.T. Snow Page Seventeen 1997

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Top Left hand corner is 1997 Leaf. Not a horrible design, but the bleed-in white sides look pretty bad. I remember when 1990 Upper Deck came out and i discovered that with a pencil eraser you could white out parts of a card. I vandalized many a card this way. But that is what 1997 leaf looks like to me, like a ten year old got a hold of the proofs and messed it all up.

The other two cards on the upper part are Leaf Limited "Counterparts" insert and refractor-like parellel. You know who is on the other side of the card as J.T.'s counterpart? Kevin Young. Whaaa? I don't think so. History has declared Snow the victor on this one. J.T. was the best defensive first baseman of his generation, had 4 seasons of over 95 RBI's and played in the playoffs many times. Kevin Young played his whole career with the Pirates. 'Nuff said.

Middle left is Metal Universe. Really stupid card that answers the question that no one has ever asked "I wonder what baseball would look like if people were shooting arrows at the players?"

Next to that are 2 cards from Pacific. I hate Pacific and as we go throught some of the upcoming years of cards on this site my hatred will grow.

Lower left is 1997 Pinnacle an underated design. Not a lot of clutter, a little bit of foil and some shine. A lot to like. Nice photo as well, with the Giants dark jersey.