1998 Pacific Online Box Break

Note: Why do a review of a box break for a product that is more than 10 years old? One of the things I wanted to do on this box was to post my own box breaks, but with a Twins angle. I'm still experimenting with a format. There are some formats I have seen on other blogs that I like and will work on incorporating it to my own. Of course, as a collector, I don't want to limit myself on opening only new cards. Sometimes, I like to go back and open old product as well. Some people may have already seen this break, others may not, and others may just want to feel nostalgic.

Product: 1998 Pacific Online - Hobby Box
Packs/Cards: 24 packs/9 cards a pack
Price: $15

Overview:
I stopped at one of the local card shops in the area looking for a card fix. In their bargain section was this box. Since there were still some Twins cards I still needed from the set, as well as possible gold foil variations and the cheap price, I jumped on it.

For me I thought Pacific cards generally look like they were designed by a high school art student. Pacific Online looks like that high school art student graduated and applied to vo-tech. At least the design was better than I used to seeing from Pacific, but I wouldn't see anything better than so-so.

At a time when card companies were making smaller sets, Pacific Online went the opposite direction with a larger set that included 750 players. Pacific Online also happened to be the largest base set they had made.

The Online part of the set are long URLs for each player and each team at the top of each card. Consider the gold foil variations of each card with a code on the pack and it encourages an interactive feel to the card. However, the URLs were always a distraction to a so-so design in 1998 and are now a huge eye sore over time with old inactive links.



Another facet about this set is that there are 20 players who have two versions of the same card.




All Twins cards will either go in my collection or be forwarded on to my Tier 2. All other cards will go to respective Team Collectors.

Set Builders Perspective:
The set consists of 800 cards total with 750 players (20 players have two versions) and 30 team checklists. This comes down to a 25-man roster for each team. Each pack also includes one gold foil web variation.

In this box, I ended up with 186 base cards, 24 gold cards and 6 doubles. With a large set, I would have hoped that I would have had absolutely no doubles, but, considering the number of doubles I've seen in other boxes from 1998, only 6 doubles is not too bad.

Part of my set building perspective is that I am a fan of big sets with many different players. From that point, building a Pacific Online set satisfies it. However, with a possible 192 different base cards, you would need to open a minimum of 5 boxes to complete a set. At this point, boxes of Pacific Online are difficult to find, but very inexpensive once you find them.

Twins Perspective:
The box included 7 Twins cards: Eddie Guardado, Mike Morgan, Alex Ochoa, David Ortiz, Terry Steinbach, Mike Trombley and Twins Checklist featuring Paul Molitor. No gold cards.









For a set like this, other players who did not normally have cards made, such as Mike Morgan, are included. Including the Pacific Online cards already in the collection, I am 11 cards short of the complete team set. I have not sought out the Twins cards actively from this set, so I am not sure how easily I can attain the remaining cards from the set.

Grade: Triple-A Rochester Red Wings