Cards You’ve Never Seen: 1993 Pacific Rob Maurer 313A Photo Error (Jose Oliva)

A ‘final frontier’ type of junk wax variation, a copy finally turned up after decades of searching. Even photos were few since its discovery. 1993 Pacific #313A is one of those upper echelon variations that have only been mentioned among enthusiasts, on every E&V wantlist, yet hardly seen. Rob Maurer’s card was originally printed with a full body photo of Rangers prospect Jose Oliva.

In late 2021, I had the pleasure of chatting with Mike Cramer over email regarding some Pacific variations and oddities and when asked about the Maurer, this is what he had to say:

“Rod Maurer variations are shown. The wrong photo was in the first printing,the correct photo card was in the second printing. As were all of the variations listed. I first print run was very small when we discovered the Mauer card and made the changes. First printing and second printing variations were both in was packs (sic)”

Pretty exciting to finally see a sample.

Quick look: 1993 Topps Russ Swan #96

1993 Topps contains a handful of variations which I will outline in a later blog. But for now, take a look at one of the weirder ones: #96 featuring Mariners pitcher Russ Swan. The first version has the “Complete Major League Pitching Record” heading printed twice. The second corrected it and shifted it to the left as well. Though one can never be sure, I am almost certain that this is one of my own discoveries as it had previously not been mentioned as far as I know.