~~~~~What Insert or Parallel set do you wish you collected?~~~~~

Surfing COMC and ran across the 1996 Circa Rave set. It is a 200-card set that parallels the base. I started it several times but shipping cost alone always delayed my progress. 1997 gets even worse when the set doubles.

What about you? What should you have chased?

2005 Studio Portraits - would like to have attempted this 700 card monster when lots were still available.

2005 Zenith Z-Gold Parallel - 5-10 years from now, this is going to rank as one of the toughest parallels to find from this era.

1998 Topps Tek Diffractors - Always knew they were tough, but should have gobbled them up back when they were still cheap.

I wish I did all the patterns of base on a Yankees team set. I dismissed the whole 90 card consept back then until I truly engaged the player collection role a few years later.

Also wish I persued the 1999 Fleer Starting 9 of any of my Yankees.

I wish I was in the hobby when Leaf exhibits came out my pc's sake. The other thing I used to do is work on master sets of Fleer ultra. There are a few sets from after I quit I would like to have gone after.

I always liked 94 and 95 collectors choice silver sigs

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I wish I started earlier on the 2010 UD Exquisite baseball sets.

There are still a couple uncatalogued cards out there waiting to be identified.

1998 Pinnacle Performers Big Bang Seasonal Outburst parallels

2002 Upper Deck 40-Man Lumber Yard. There's a complete set up on eBay for $500 - been tempted to purchase it a few times. These cards are awesome!

gracecollector said:

2005 Studio Portraits - would like to have attempted this 700 card monster when lots were still available.

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I second this, but only for Yount. I actually just bit off a HUGE chunk of that run with a recent eBay purchase, I've just been lazy about scanning them. I still need to make a spread-sheet so I can track what I have and what I need.

A great looking set. I was finally able to pick up a Bonds at a discounted price this weekend on COMC.

I would agree with a couple of the posts above. 1998 Topps Tek Diffractors and 2004 Leaf Exhibits. Exhibits always confused the heck out of me with all the subtilities but I now have a checklist and am slowing making progress. As for Diffractors, I could probably live to 100 and still not find all 90 Bonds! haha

1997 Yankees Score Platinum/Premier Team Sets

The Yankees for some reason have been a lot tougher to find than the other teams. Great looking set which featured a lot of my favorite Yankees. Only 100 cases were produced for each team. These are highly undervalued compared to a lot of the other inserts from the era, by my calculation there are around 125 Premier cards for each player and 700 Platinum card per player. Also, only 15 cards in the set, making it obtainable.

I keep debating on trying a 1994 Pinnacle Museum Collection set. I love me some Dufex. A few months ago I could have put a huge dent in that set when someone was selling a huge lot. I hesitated and now kind of regretting it.

Any '96 Select Certified mirrors.

I was thinking just the other day about committing to collecting a 1993 Finest Refractor set. If I had started back then and added just one card a month, I would have finished with the set years ago. Even so, starting now and adding 2 cards a month I'd finish in under 8 years.

All the obvious ones, 1998 Donruss Crusades (I started the green set back in 1998 but the prices on top guys exceeded my budget), 1996 Mirrors, 1997 Finest Embossed Gold Refractors (baseball and basketball), 2001 Sweet Spots (the DiMaggio, a few others that are HTF and much more expensive now), a second set of 2003-04 Exquisite basketball base cards (I completed one set and sold it, wish I kept/doubled it). 2005 Sweet Spot jumbo patches (the green A's DiMaggio one especially haunts me). IIRC, a board member had/has a complete set and it's one of the sweeter card galleries I've ever seen. Naturally, most of these sets are pre-ebay/internet prominence, and they also were when I was making a much smaller salary, so even if I was to come across a good Mirror Gold I don't think I'd be able to afford the full Beckett price at the time.

I kind of wish I had gone after the Topps Black Diamond online redemption code card thingies. The ones #/60. Sets like that appeal to me with a limited yet obtainable print run, but they were also only available for a limited time, so in effect the print run is much lower.

Also, the Topps Gold Rush promo cards that got set to shops with the "Gold Rush" stamped in gold foil. Surely must be less than 10 copies per card, but some big lots sold on ebay that could lead to possibly completing the set. Still fairly cheap, likely due to the promo card stigma plus the fact that many people simply don't know about them. Wait, I see there is a complete 330-card set on ebay for $3000. Seems almost sort of like a bargain. If that set ever gets hot, the value could double. In the meantime, it's just a sweet rare set.

My only real regret with my current collection is not getting into 2011 Marquee Museums sooner. Prices were pretty high, but I love the cards, and with a print run of just 10, I should have known they'd never be lower than what they were on release.

Also, all the base T/D/F sets during my whole life.

Basically a whole bunch of stuff.

The tough thing about collecting the 2005 Sweet Spot Classic Patches are the SSPs (Schmidt numbered to 6, Nolan Ryan numbered to 3, Gibson numbered to 1, etc.) in addition to the Mantle numbered to 17.

Knowing that I would never have a complete set detered me from collecting it as closely.