Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Upper Deck Pro Shots

One of the first things I collected as a child was baseball cards. I remember my parents used to buy me a pack every Friday when they would go grocery shopping. The cards would be intelligently placed by stores at the checkout line along with candy; making it impossible for parents to leave a store without buying something for their kids. My eyes would open up at the sight of the glimmering gold or silver packaging that the cards would come in. My favourite brand was Upper Deck, followed by Donruss, Topps, Fleer, and if I was broke O-Pee-Chee. While baseball cards were cool, I always felt the hobby could be taken to a whole other level. I wasn’t satisfied with just a picture of a player and his stats printed on a piece of card board paper.
Suddenly McFarlane Toys came along a few years later and decided to start a new hobby market by creating sports figure collector toys. These figures were great because the details were amazing, there was lots of variety (many players and sports), and they looked amazing placed on your desk. However the one figure I never saw from McFarlane Toys was a Michael Jordan. Luckily Upper Deck (probably owned the legal rights) decided to then produce sports figures as well, and I was finally able to get a Michael Jordan version. What made the Upper Deck Pro Shots version even better was that they released figures in different iconic Jordan basketball position. My favourite was the dunk that he made to win the 1988 All-Star slam dunk contest; this is the version that I bought from Pro Shots (more specially Series 2 figure 4).
The toy is up to the same quality as a McFarlane toy, and comes in a clam shell case which makes it perfect for people that like to collect mint in box toys (like me). My only complaint about the toy is that you do see paint smudges, and that the version that was released isn’t the same one it was supposed to represent. In the real dunk, Michael wore a red “away” jersey and white cement sneakers. Upper Deck did release a figure that was accurate to the real dunk, however it was limited. I would have definitely preferred that version to have been the general release version and not the one I have. The figure is still an amazing collectable and I would definitely recommend any Jordan fan to pick it up as well.
Upper Deck:
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdOx9JGc4_8

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