The History Of The Skybox Star Rubies With Card Images
Sports cards in the mid to late 1990’s are known for their new technologies and flashy, innovative designs. This era of sports cards is also famous for rare, serial-numbered parallel cards like the Precious Metal Gems (PMG) and Essential Credentials. Right up there in popularity with those 2 are the Star Rubies parallel cards from Skybox.
Let’s take a look at some of the sets and designs that have made the “Rubies” parallel an iconic chase card for basketball, football and baseball collectors.
1996 Skybox Premium Basketball
It all began in 1996 with the Skybox Premium basketball set. Fleer/SkyBox introduced the “Rubies” parallel, adding modest hints of ruby red foil to the base cards and inserting one per box. These are not serial numbered and were apparently distributed loose as a box topper. Here’s a Kobe Bryant rookie card and of course Michael Jordan.
1997 Skybox Premium Basketball
The following year, Skybox dug deeper into the mine to revitalize the parallel with a touch of rarity and rebranded it as “Star Rubies”, a serial numbered to 50 set that helped catapult serial-numbered parallels into the mainstream. In nature, star ruby gemstones feature a unique internal star-shaped phenomenon called an asterism. A star ruby featuring prominent color, cut, clarity, and carat ranks among the scarcest gems on the planet, and considering these Skybox parallels stand among the toughest-to-find cards from the 1990s, the Star Rubies name fits perfectly.
This year Skybox also came out with a subset called “Team Skybox” that included Star Rubies /50, which gave us another Michael Jordan treasure!
1997 Skybox Premium Football
The “Rubies” parallel makes its way into football with the 1997 Skybox Premium set. Just like basketball these are serial numbered to 50, with the same design.
1998 Skybox Premium Basketball
In 1998, the /50 Star Rubies returned for a second year with another stunning design. Throughout the ’90s, Fleer/Skybox had an important rule regarding the design of its cards—they could be eccentric, but the player had to remain the focus. This tactic led to the creation of several iconic parallels where designers cut out action photos of players and plastered them on top of colorful backgrounds. The 1998 Star Rubies followed other sets that used this model, such as the 1995 Ultra Gold Medallions and 1997 Metal Universe Precious Metal Gems. Series 1 cards such as this Jordan below maintain the Star Rubies’ signature red foil and showcase a sparkling holographic pattern that shimmers vertically.
Series 2 cards (#226-265 serial numbered to just 25 were rookies such as this Dirk Nowitzki below) feature a horizontal pattern that emphasizes more of the rainbow holofoil. Because of the full bleed of the front foil and four dark-colored borders on the flip side, collectors do not often find high-grade examples of 1998 Star Rubies cards.
This is Michael Jordan’s final Star Rubies card as he retired after the 1998 season.
1998 Skybox Premium Football
In 1998 Skybox Premium Football cards #1-210 were serial numbered to 50 in the Star Rubies parallel and rookies (#211-250) like this Peyton Manning below were serial numbered to 35.
1999 Skybox Premium Basketball
There are 125 Star Rubies veterans numbered to 45 and 25 Star Rubies Rookies numbered to 45. In addition, the rookies also have an “Action Photo” variation Star Rubies numbered to 25.
1999 Skybox Premium Football
The 1999 Skybox Premium Football set featured “Shining Star Rubies” that were serial numbered to 30 for veterans. Rookies (#211-250) are serial numbered to 30 and there are also variations that are numbered to 15 that have blue foil stamping on the front.
1999 Skybox Premium Baseball
It was about time that baseball got into the Star Rubies mix! 1999 Skybox Premium was the debut of the baseball Star Rubies parallel. Each of the 300 base cards are available in a Star Rubies parallel which is serial-numbered to 50 copies. Rookies (#223-272) have an additional “Action” Star Rubies that is serial numbered to 15.
There was also a “Spring Fling” subset that contained Star Rubes parallels numbered to 50.
2000 Skybox Football
At this point Skybox has started to dilute and cannibalize the Star Rubies brand with many appearances throughout the sets. They had several insert sets in addition to the base set that featured the Star Rubies parallel. With respect to the base set there was an unnumbered Star Rubies inserted 1:12 packs and a Star Rubies Extreme that was serial numbered to 50 like below:
2000 Skybox Baseball
2000 Skybox Baseball resembled football with several inserts that featured the Star Rubies parallel, an unnumbered Star Rubies and a Star Rubies Extreme serial numbered to 50 like below.
Post 2000 Era
The Star Rubies parallel does continue on for the 3 sports in various sets all the way to 2004 under the Fleer brand (sometimes called “Star Ruby”). Many are serial numbered but the designs lack the innovation and magic that the run from 1996-2000 had. Here’s some examples to close it out.
