Retro Scans: WCW "Purple Pack" 1991 by Impel

Continuing our month of celebrating Wrestlemania and professional wrestling overall, now is as good a time as any to finally crack open a pack of these WCW "purple packs" from 1991!  Truth be told, I'm just coming home from a little family trip celebrating my 40th birthday, so in the spirit of pretending I'm not getting older, let's head back to when I was young!

I previously opened a different pack of WCW trading cards from 1991, the hard-to-come-by and fairly expensive (today's secondary prices, anyway) packs made by Championship Marketing.  You can take a peek at those cards at this link.  In that Retro Scan article, I promised that someday I'd open up one of the extremely common "purple packs," and today is that day!   

According to the interwebs, these 1991 World Championship Wrestling trading cards by Impel are some of the most mass-produced cards of the era.  Because of this, they are some of the most common, easiest to find, and cheapest (in terms of price) wrestling trading cards on the market.  This series has 162 cards to collect, broken down into a few variations like a singles wrestler, tag teams, and staff.

The most valuable card, according to getcardbase.com, is the 1991 Impel WCW #3 Sting, with a PSA of 10.  When it relates to trading cards, PSA stands for Professional Sports Authenticator.  PSA is the gold standard for grading a trading card or other sports memorabilia on several factors, with ten being the highest score.  

The Sting #3 from this set frequently sells for between $75 and $90 USD.  In contrast, the #44 card, with Ric Flair, goes for about 80 cents ($0.80).  

A #45 Ric Flair with a PSA rating of 10 recently sold on eBay for $48.75.  Not the high water mark of the 2020-covid era boom in trading cards, but the low price for these cards also reflects the large quantities available on the market.  I (and this isn't boasting or bragging because these cards are DIRT CHEAP) have perhaps 10 complete, sealed boxes of these trading cards in addition to a slew of loose packs.  Every once in a while, I'll open up ten or fifteen packs just to get a rush of nostalgia and see some of the cards I loved to rip into when I was a kid.

If you watch eBay long enough, you'll find these sealed boxes for just a few bucks.  Seriously, they are that common.  Even if they are so common, they are my favorite trading cards of all time.  Not only was 1991 WCW an excellent time for my growing fandom but the color and style of these cards were always so appealing to me.  

These cards are packed with bright colors!  The Memphis-style design featuring "confetti" on bright yellows, reds, and greens makes the photos of the wrestling action pop.  Single wrestlers came with a yellow background, while tag teams were red.  The announcers and staff were green.

This pack I selected from my pile was PACKED with some great wrestlers!  There was plenty of Sting, Lex Luger, Ricky Morton, Arn Anderson, and more!  

As always, you can click on the image to make it bigger!  Let's rip it open!