[wilsonsportscards]

Today I received a trade in the mail. One of the cards I received was a 1991 Upper Deck Joe Montana card number 54. Here is a picture of the front and back of the card. (This is a very common card and I am sure most football collectors have stumbled across it in their journey.)



I was trying to add this to OPG and Beckett lists three variations of the card. Here is a screen shot of the three cards that OPG lists.


A few questions.
1.) Can someone explain the difference between the upper deck holograms on the back of the card? How is the 1990 hologram different than and 1991 or 1992 hologram? (I don't have any cards of the others years or I would look.)
2.) Seems odd that a 1991 card would have a 1990 or a 1992 hologram. Maybe early production runs they didn't have the 1991 ready or they ran low in later production runs and used holograms from 1990 and 1992?
3.) The card I received in the trade does not appear to be listed in OPG. My card has the birth location as New Eagle PA. However, the only cards listed in OPG have Monongagela. Why would Beckett only have the one birth location and not the other?

Thanks!

[dogger99]

Not sure with the hologram. Can barely make it out in the scan. If you look at all 3 versions, it says UER before the born info. That means it was an uncorrected error. There were a crap load of UER cards in the early 90's, especially with 1991 Pro Set.

[wilsonsportscards]

dogger99....thank you. I have not collected 90's cards since the 90's. Over the last two weeks I have started to pick up certain players. I had forgotten what UER stood for. I needed that reminder. Thank you. I will keep an eye out for different holograms and will report back. Thanks again.

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For those that are interested here is a slightly better picture of the hologram on the card that I have.

[mbostick]

1.) Can someone explain the difference between the upper deck holograms on the back of the card? How is the 1990 hologram different than and 1991 or 1992 hologram? (I don't have any cards of the others years or I would look.)

Upper Deck appears to have kept the press going on 1991 Upper Deck through the release of 1992 products. Each year, and most sports, had a different hologram, which included the year. The series 1 cards have three different holograms found, and the series 2 cards have two.

It is possible other hologram versions exist.

The holograms can be hard to photograph.....can barely even see yours has a hologram with your image.

The most common is the 1991 hologram, and the rarest is the 1992.


Here are images of the 1991 Upper Deck #101 Steve Young card holograms. Year dates shown in holos. Note, in many of the 1991, the year doesn't lineup in the holo. Just depends on how it was on the sheet.





1990


1991


1992

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In the better image of your hologram, I can see it is the 1991..the most common.

[wilsonsportscards]

mbostic, thank you for the great explanation and taking the time to get samples. Very helpful. You are correct mine does say 91 on it. I will need to start paying more attention to these. It is also helpful to know that 92 is the rarest. You are very knowledgeable. Thank you for sharing.

[Marinocollector]

mbostic, thank you for the great explanation and taking the time to get samples. Very helpful. You are correct mine does say 91 on it. I will need to start paying more attention to these. It is also helpful to know that 92 is the rarest. You are very knowledgeable. Thank you for sharing.

1990 is by far the rarest. The 1992 could be found in high series boxes... the 1990... no one knows. I've looked through thousands of Marinos to find my 1990 Marino.

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Here's a better image of the 1990... the one youre lookiing for...

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Here's something else for you... the 3 versions of 1993 Bowman foils...
Green, gold, purple

[wilsonsportscards]

Marinocollector, great explanation. I really appreciate the pictures. Are there other years where this has happened? I also assume inserts like the Hero's cards could have different variations of the stickers? I do find it extremely ironic that Upper Deck added the hologram to help authenticate their cards. Yet the year on the hologram doesn't match the year of the card.

It is funny that you mentioned the Bowman. In the last month I just recently started picking up Montana, Rice and Young cards. Montana I collected back in the late 80's and 90's. Then I got busy with high school, college, ended up selling all of my old collection. Started to collect again back in the 2005 time frame and have been since. (Off and on.) About a month ago I decided to start to collect the guys I collected as a kid. Anyway, last month I was at a show and found two of the Bowman variations for Montana. It was a flashback to being a kid! When I got home and added them to my organize for my Montana collection I was sad to see that Beckett didn't list the variations of the Bowman. At least not that i could find.

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I just went and pulled the Montana's. What would you call these from left to right?

Green, Purple and Two Gold?

[Marinocollector]

http://www.beckett.com/forums/thread-155...1996+ultra

[wilsonsportscards]

That is very interesting. Thanks for the thread. I will need to look at the Topps closely. For whatever reason the purple and green Bowmen jump out at me. The gold I have a hard time identifying. I should take the Montana's out of the case and see if it jumps out at me at all. (Possibly I am missing that one so that is why it is is not as apparent to me.) Thanks again for the info. I really appreciate it.

[raidernation75]

I am trying to figure out which variations I have. Looks like the '92 (left) is obvious with the Upper Deck logos. But I can't figure out if the other is a "90 or '91. I can't see the 90 or 91 "pop" like they do in the previous scans.