Set Build(?) 1991-92 Score Canadian Bilingual Hockey Series 1

Last month I shared my first couple of experiences buying cards on Facebook Marketplace. Things went well, and now I'm three junk wax boxes richer. 

 

What I didn't mention in that post was that the Marketplace member who sold me two of those boxes actually had a free surprise item for me.

 

 

 

A box of 1991-92 Score Canadian Bilingual hockey cards! (Series 1)

 

For free? You ask.

 

Yes, for free. But there's a little asterisk to include.

 

You see, the seller had already opened all the packs. He was looking for one of the Bobby Orr insert cards—preferably a rare autographed version. (Numbered to 2,500.)

 

But alas, he did not find a Bobby Orr card of any kind. And he told me he wasn't really a hockey card collector. So he asked me if I'd just take the box of opened packs off his hands.

 

I could have said no. I mean, 1991-92 Score is absolute peak junk wax material. The company released three variations of their hockey set that year: American, Canadian English, and Canadian Bilingual. You can distinguish the sets by the color of the card borders, and by the language on the card backs.

 

And I really didn't need a box filled with junk wax hockey cards.

 

But when he brought out the box and asked if I'd take it for free, did I hesitate?

 

No. I did not.

Did I feel regret?

 

No. I did not. (Okay, maybe for a moment, after I got home and looked at the box taking up space in my office.)

 

But then I started flipping through the cards, and it wasn't long before I found some very good-looking cardboard. Check out these three, for example:

 

 

 

That helped me rationalize the decision. And to help even further, I decided I would hand-collate the cards to see how close I could get to a full set. I figured I might come close. Here's how I crunched the numbers:

15 cards per pack x 36 packs = 540 total cards

 

Series 1 = 330 total cards 

As long as the number of duplicates could stay under 210, and as long as I found at least one copy of each card in the set, I'd get there.

 

Well, here's the final result of sorting, in stacks of 100, 100, 100, and 30:

Looks like a sizeable amount of cards in each stack, right? So what are the results? And how many duplicates did I get? 

 

Well, if you're familiar with the collation of Score products of the late-'80s and early '90s, you probably have an idea.

 

Card Range	Number of Unique Cards Obtained	Number of Duplicates
1–100	84/100	76
101–200	84/100	71
201–300	91/100	86
301–330	28/30	20
TOTAL	287/330	253

 

That's a lot of duplicates. In fact, I wound up with almost as many duplicates (253) as cards obtained for the set (287). Pretty much fits the bill for Score sets of the era.

 

But still, I only need 43 more cards for completion. I might as well go for it. Hopefully some folks on TCDB have some of their duplicates listed, and I can make a few trades.

 

I'll share more information about this set once I complete it, but for now, here are a few more cards for your viewing pleasure:

 

 

Not bad, right? (Fuji, I have a duplicate of that San Jose Sharks card, if you'd like it for your collection.)

So stay tuned. Hopefully I'll have this set done and dusted before long.

Until then, here are a couple of questions for you readers and collectors:

Have you ever acquired a good portion of a set of cards you weren't very interested in, and decided to complete it anyway? Were you successful?

 

Share your experiences in the comment section, and thanks for reading!