1995-96 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey - The Best of the Rest

Way back in February I picked up a box of one of my favorite 1990's hockey sets, 1995-96 Upper Deck. Initially I thought I would post every pack, and I got off to a good start. In case you missed it here are some links:

Packs 1 and 2
Packs 3 and 4
Packs 5 and 6
Packs 7 and 8
Packs 9 and 10
Packs 11 and 12

After getting through the first third of the box in this fashion, it fell completely off the radar. Quite frankly it just took too much time to scan and type up each post keeping everything in order. Here we are at the end of July and it's time for some housekeeping here at Shoebox Legends. Here are some highlights from the rest of the cards I pulled in the remaining 24 packs. I'm only showing cards that were not featured in the first 12 packs. We'll start with the base set:

#1 - Cam Neely

#4 - Mike Vernon

#14 - Brian Rolston

#33 - Trevor Linden

#39 - Patrick Roy

One of the best looking cards in the entire Series 1 set. I was happy I pulled this one as it's probably one of the few that would still cost more than a quarter to track down.

#44 - Claude Lemieux

One thing I love about this set and neglected to mention previously is the number of photos from the 1994-95 Stanley Cup finals that are used on the Devils and Red Wings cards. I like this shot of Claude Lemieux celebrating with his Conn Smythe trophy after the Devils shocked the Wings in a 4 game sweep.

#46 - Ron Francis

#63 - Bill Lindsay

Emerging from the Panther's mouth...

#70 - Jon Casey

#85 - Nikolai Khabibulin

With the Jets making a return hopefully we'll see some fine cards like this one in the 2011-12 releases.

#99 - Wayne Gretzky

#112 - Craig Billington

This is a great card, Craig's eyes are priceless.

#126 - Esa Tikkanen

Nice goal celebration with Brett Hull in the background.

#140 - Zigmund Palffy

That is one fine mullet.

#154 - Vyacheslav Kozlov

Kozlov seems to have a couple of options here, maybe a drop pass to Fedorov or even a long pass back to Nick Lidstrom. Not if Dirk Graham has anything to say about it...

#156 - Benoit Brunet

#159 - Keith Primeau

Keith is sporting a 1994-95 Western Conference Champions T-shirt and hat.

#167 - David Oliver

Don't remember much about David Oliver but ouch!

#171 - Teemu Selanne

#174 - Chris Pronger

#183 - Bob Carpenter

Here's another shot from the 94-95 Cup finals.

#191 - Andy Moog

#193 - Marty McSorley

#198 - Garry Galley

I don't have too many hockey cards of players blowing bubbles.

#211 - Martin Brodeur

This card is absolutely fantastic. It's so good that I almost withheld it here so that I could feature it in its own post, but if I did that I'd probably never get around to it anyway. What a photo!

#214 - Pavel Bure - 5th Anniversary

These 5th Anniversary parallels are pretty useless if you collected the 90-91 set, which pretty much EVERY hockey card collector did.

#217 - Mark Messier - 5th Anniversary

#219 - Mats Sundin - 5th Anniversary

#231 - Lemieux's Scoring Streak - 5th Anniversary

#240 - Doug Gilmour

Love Gilmour's smile on this one, classic hockey player.

#245 - Paul Kariya

#264 - Jeff O'Neill - Star Rookie

That wraps it up for the base cards. I did pull a few more Electric Ice parallels that are worth showing:

#34 - Nicklas Lidstrom

#48 - Felix Potvin

#136 - Kirk McLean

I think this is my favorite overall photo from the set, so I was psyched to pull the Electric Ice parallel of this card. Which card do you think is nicer, this one or the Brodeur? It's a tough call...


Not a great player but another one of the best horizontal photos. Can't complain about this one.

#190 - Vladimir Konstantinov

#194 - Mikael Renberg

I've mentioned this before but I've always been somewhat of a Renberg collector. Very pleased with this pull.

#206 - Paul Kariya

Paul recently hung up the skates after an impressive career. Unfortunately he's another of the really bright players who was negatively impacted by head injuries.

#228 - Felix Potvin

Yup, two Felix Potvin Electric Ice cards in one box...

#253 - Teemu Selanne

There were a couple of inserts to be found as well:

#F3 - Eric Lindros - Freeze Frame

These fall one per box and I definitely could've done worse than Eric Lindros.

#R28 - Alexei Zhamnov - Predictor Retail

Snooze....and finally my one-per-box Electric Ice Gold parallel was:

#58 - Marik Malik

I was pretty sure his first name was spelled Marek, but whatever. Obviously not the greatest card but I was satisfied with getting a Hartford Whaler at least. This guy was a monster at 6'6", but never played that physically (or well for that matter).

That wraps it up. What a great box for less than the price of a blaster. Best of all, I'm only 13 cards short of a complete Series 1 set. Now, I wonder where I can find a Series 2 box?