Tough Pulls: 1993 Topps Stadium Club First Day Production

Back in 1991 when Topps introduced Stadium Club, nothing was hotter. Those bad boys were pulling in $5 a pack easy. Great photography, nice card stock, glossy uv coating foil stamped madness. By 1993 things had changed. Bowman had become a premium set as of 1992 and Finest was in the pipeline. We hadn't quite headed to the land of insert in every pack hell, but we were getting there.

Enter the First Day Production. Arguably a precursor to the full blown serial numbering and paralleling of every card, the "First Day Production" was a parallel set that was meant to make a certain number of cards special by showing they were printed the first day. There was Topps Gold in 1992, but that's for another day. The cards were inserted 1 per box meaning that it would take 750 boxes to put together a set if you didn't pull any doubles. That would only cost roughly $30k to complete a set. These cards can be found for little of nothing these days, but I have never heard of one of these sets being put together. Interesting project none the less.

That is why these are a tough pull, there was no cheap way around getting one and with the volume it took to pull a particular card, it was damn near impossible to find the card you were looking for. Also, Stadium club was not a product that everyone opened. It was still $40+ a box and many people stuck with base Topps in those days. Most shops I knew got less than a case of it because the distributors made you jump through hoops to get the stuff. Thus in pre-ebay days, the card you were looking for was a long shot at best. These cards weren't featured in shops like Donruss Elite singles so that made it even tougher.

Behold!