Tell me some of your favorite inserts sets that don't seem to get much hobby love.

corockies said:

There are quite a few insert sets I like collecting but they never seem to get much recognition from the hobby overall. Some of these include:

2003 UD 40-Man Rainbow:

A set filled with good photography and a large checklist. All cards serial #ed /40.

2005 UD Reflections Emerald:

I personally love the look of this set and the emeralds (serial #ed /25) are a nice parallel.

2005 Topps Rookie Cup Blue:

Aside from this being Troy Tulowitzkis only '05 autograph issue set, the base set was of every Topps Gold Rookie since the 70's. Set design was simple and the blue are serial #ed /50.

What are some sets you like?

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gracecollector said:

Just curious, but does much of the hobby distinguish between inserts and parallels anymore? To me, all three of these are not insert sets. They're parallel sets of the base set. Inserts to me were always a different design than the base set, with a different theme.

My favorite insert sets are 1997 Donruss Team Leaders (like the die cut to the player's face contour), Pacific die-cuts shaped like gloves, batting cages and foul poles (several sets), and 2005 Studio Portraits.

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Austin said:

The 1994 Fleer Pro Visions insert set was cool because it made a mural.

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smapdi said:

I started collecting the Reflections Emerald set back then. I was obsessed for a long time with completing #/25-or-so sets. I gave up before too long. They were actually kind of tough to find relative to other brands. And I actually thought the reds and purples were nicer looking at higher #/x. But I still have a few of them.

One of my all-time favorite inserts is the 2005 Origins Old Judge Gold set. 200 cards in the main set, and they added 86 cards in the UD Prospects 5-brand product whatever it was called. The regular Old Judges with the green borders and the red and blue parallels were not visually appearling, but the brown borders with the sepia photos are beautiful. Still looking for Chris Burke, I don't think I've mentioned yet this week.

Some of my other faves are:
1994 SP Holoview Red die-cut. Popular for the A-Rod, Griffey, and Jordan, but is a really sweet set of the era. Too bad they couldn't include Bonds and Thomas (which I think were the ones preventing it from being a round 40-card set).

1997 Leaf Pennant Craze. Die-cuts, felty surface, top-notch checklist.

1990-1994-ish Upper Deck Heroes from all sports

Great sets focusing on a different player in each set. Starting with Reggie Jackson in the 1990 set with the first autographed cards, they did 10-card sets Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, Ted Williams, Bench & Morgan, I think a couple others. The sets used the same design, and were numbered consecutively across the years, so Jackson was 1-9, Ryan was 10-18, Williams was 19-27, etc. They also did guys like Joe Montana, Joe Namath, Wayne Gretzky, and Wilt, obviously. Inserted usually 1:9 packs, they were fun and not too expensive to chase, with the header card usually being somewhat harder to find. Then in 1993 they messed it up by changing it to just another insert set with 10 different guys, then later they made them more of a chase with serial numbering. They resurrect the design every once in a while, like in 2010 with Joe DiMaggio, but the charm is gone. These just look great in binder pages, although the 10th header card is a pain aesthetically.

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Austin said:

Here's an awesome '95 Fleer Pro Visions insert for Predatorkj.

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Austin said:

Here's an awesome '95 Fleer Pro Visions insert for Predatorkj.

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Gwynn545 said:

I agree with the red holoview set, and also the 1994 UD Diamond Collection, thd ones where there was an East, Central and West version. The west were pink, and the ones we pulled most often, being in the west, but the Central was an awesome set, too, especially since they were blue and had Jordan!

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