1992-93 OPC Premier box break


Recently, I went to a card show and picked up a box of 1992-93 O-Pee-Chee Premier hockey cards for $8.

As much as I like old cards and opening packs, this set left me wishing I just bought a complete set online. The problem with that, though, is that many people want to charge you $8 to ship a 132-card set.

So, I thought that I’d buy this box and get a complete set.

I thought wrong. Even though a box would yield you 252 “regular” cards and 36 insert cards, I came surprisingly short of completing a set. Here’s the breakdown of what I got:

Regular cards
– 115 cards towards my set
– 94 doubles
– 42 triples
– 1 quadruple

Insert cards
– 32 “Star Performers” (22 plus 10 doubles)
– 5 “Top Rookies” (4 plus 1 double)

Overall, I now have 88% of a complete set, 100% of the 22-card “Star Performers insert set and 100% of the 4-card “Top Rookies” insert set. Even though it’s cool that I got all the inserts, I really didn’t need them, since I bought those a long time ago.

As you can see, I got a lot of doubles–and quite a few triples too. I even got a quadruple, of Tampa Bay Lightning player Joe Reekie.

Many of the packs had a “packaging flaw”, where you would get two cards of the same player in the same pack. One particular pack gave me three doubles in the same pack, as I pulled two cards of Glen Murray, two cards of Gordie Roberts and two cards of Guy Hebert.

But I ended up with one more insert card than I should have–37 instead of 36…so I guess it wasn’t all bad.

Another interesting tidbit: these cards seemed to “segregate” themselves. In every pack that I pulled a card of Reggie Savage, I also got a card of Darren Banks in the very same pack! I don’t know if the card-packing machines in London, Ontario really intended to put both black players in the same pack, though; it was probably coincidental.

If anyone has doubles and can help me out, I still need 17 cards to complete my set–see my Wantlist here.

I also have numerous doubles to trade of both the base and insert cards, as well as complete insert sets for trade. Reply here, or Contact Me if interested.

Look for a review of this set once I complete it.

mm

Author: Sal Barry

Sal Barry is the editor and webmaster of Puck Junk. He is a freelance hockey writer, college professor and terrible hockey player. Follow him on Twitter @puckjunk

2 thoughts on “1992-93 OPC Premier box break”

  1. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this, plus all your reviews/rankings of 1990s sets.

    I recall a similar experience with a box of 92-93 OPC Premier. Got all the insert cards (which felt a bit surreal), just missing ONE single card in the base set.

    Hopefully you’ve since completed the 132 card set… I’d gladly trade all 84 of my doubles for card #2 (Christian Ruutu).

    1. AC, thanks for reading. Yes, I have since completed my set.

      I looked, but don’t have a spare Christian Ruutu card. If I do find one, I’ll let you know.

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