General Forum

As I begin the journey of being a hockey collector, I'm beginning to add cards to my collection. At a local source I picked up some old packs to open, and for the most part it was a great, fun experience. Except for 1993-94 Parkhurst. Whatever coating that UD used on these cards could have been sold as industrial adhesive, the cards became a brick, and although I was able to pry a couple off the brick, they are so badly damaged I've decided to not even count them as part of my collection.

I'm wondering, what other sets should I watch out for? I tend to favor the 1990s for cards so of course that's the time period that the sticky UV coating came into being. I had a little sticking of the 1991-92 Stadium Club pack I opened as well, but not anywhere near as bad as the Parkhurst pack. One one of the Stadium Club cards was damaged enough that I'll actively look for an upgrade for it at some point.

Thanks!

Avoid all the UD products of the 90s in unopened form. I had the same thing happen with Collector's Choice baseball boxes from the 90s. My son & I opened them and most of the cards are speckled now. Hopefully, someone has hand-collated sets or extras you can get that way. Now it makes me wonder if my 90-91 (or 91-92, can't remember off the top of my head) UD Update set - still sealed - is a brick as well. Glad all of our hockey sets are in pages.

Oh, UD Ice sets may be ok. They were the acetate cards, and they had a film on them (like Finest). We have the first set of those, they are sweet cards.

Thanks Dan. It's weird because I've opened UD's NBA and NASCAR sets from the time, and recently, without any issue. I did a hobby box of the 1995 SP NASCAR set and none of the cards stuck to each other...although the holograms did seem to be adversley affected by not being able to breath. Of course the UD colation was pretty bad..at one point I got three copies of the same card in the same pack!

It's hard to say not knowing how they've been stored over the years. They started coating almost every set in the 90's. One reason I like today's OPC sets is the old stock they use for the base - no gloss. One reason I try not to buy older Topps wax is the damage caused by the gum over the years. I stick to Cello or rack packs.

Thanks for the heads up! I just opened my first pack of the O-Pee-Chee brand cards and every one of them was damaged by the gum. I truly wish gum had never been paired with cards ever.

every card in the pack damaged by gum?  or just the card on top?

gum was great when we were the kid buying the pack back in the day though...

mark z

All of them. They all have red spots on the backs and one of them has some on the front. I showed the back of the worst damaged in my blog post, which I linked to above.

I opened some late 80s baseball recently and I had some packs were the gum had almost completely disolved and formed almost a paste on the cards. Also some where the gum had formed an indentation into 6 or 7 cards. I can only imagine it was due to extreme temperatures / humidity. Very frustrating for sure. I thought the gum was great as a kid. Not so much now. 

 Billy, that looks like some type of mold to me.   Does not look like from the wax of course, I could be very wrong.   Were the packs wax and not mylar/foil?  If wax moisture can seep in easily.    I had Topps wax cards that were sealed packs for over 15 years and the only damage was the usual from wax sealing not from gum.   The spotting sure looks like mold growth.   Do a search on "red mold spots" or "mildew" and you will seem the red pattern in  many example.       Mine were kept in a warm dry area with no dampness at all.   I know a lot of people store stuff where there is moisture then they realize what happened and they try to sell it off.

I've had gum go through the entire pack many times. It's like the gum "seeped" all the way through, and there was an indent in every single card. I think, actually, it was Bowman. Try the OPC brands from 06/07 til now, Billy. You'll notice the difference - not to mention the attainable SP's and larger set.