90's Insert Sets...The Good Ol' Days...

[Gwynn545]

I was digging around for some stuff to trade, and I found a box that had some of my old sets I collected. Those were the good ol days of collecting! I used to love the one-per-box inserts the best. The excitement to pull them, getting doubles and trading them. Looking for deals at card shows. I will post a couple of them here:

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado Magic Numbers, 1-per-2 or 3 boxes I think. They really have a wood feel and look to them. I had to pull these out of "Double" Screw screwdowns! *Gasp!*

 

[Gwynn545]

Here's another:

1995 Flair Today's Spotlight, 1 per almost every box, like 1-in-25 packs

 

[Gwynn545]

Ok, one more for tonight...

1994 Leaf Slideshow, These were like 1-in-50 packs, but only five in series one, five in series 2

 

[Therion]

I always loved the Slideshow set.

 

[chuckbartowski]

Very nice...you probably know this, but just in case you don't there is a whole thread on 90s inserts. It's over 200 pages long, and has a ton of great cards in it.

 

[Card Magnet]

Thanks for sharing. Always nice to see some inserts from the 90s...brings back childhood memories when I used to get a pack here and there if I was good at the grocery store. Used to get a pack at the airport shop when I went with my grandma.

 

[predatorkj]

The oddest thing in the world to me (and it still ranks pretty high up there to this day) was being able to go to K-Mart back when I was still in High School in the late 90's and buy packs of cards and actually be able to at the least, quadruple your money.I only purchased about 40 packs total(I went on a mini binge)over a month or so of all sorts of brands and I was pulling stuff left and right that booked for crazy amounts.At that time I had spent about $60-$75.This was when packs were still pretty cheap and even base cards were still selling well.I still collected Magic The Gathering (yeah I used to play it) at the time so I took all my cards in(which wasn't a whole lot) and was able to get about $250-$300 worth of magic cards(the worth depends on whether you went by Scrye or Inquest).All for less than $100.

Whats even weirder is the Magic cards were and still are worth way more than anything I had and I was actually able to recoup just about every baseball card I had that was valuable at the time for way cheaper over the last few years.I guess things have changed though because packs aren't $1.59 anymore and even the ones that are cheap yeild pretty much nothing in return.But if you go to a store and spend less than $2 and open up the pack to find a $60 card staring back at your face...its incredible.I miss Pacific.

 

[uniquebaseballcards]

The quadrupling your money thing was definitely true and it helped to fuel the GU, grading, auto and (especially) prospecting crazes that followed it. Looking at 1997-1998 price guides is a real eye-opener and almost all of these prices have gone down about 90% since then.

The oddest thing in the world to me (and it still ranks pretty high up there to this day) was being able to go to K-Mart back when I was still in High School in the late 90's and buy packs of cards and actually be able to at the least, quadruple your money.I only purchased about 40 packs total(I went on a mini binge)over a month or so of all sorts of brands and I was pulling stuff left and right that booked for crazy amounts.At that time I had spent about $60-$75.This was when packs were still pretty cheap and even base cards were still selling well.I still collected Magic The Gathering (yeah I used to play it) at the time so I took all my cards in(which wasn't a whole lot) and was able to get about $250-$300 worth of magic cards(the worth depends on whether you went by Scrye or Inquest).All for less than $100.

Whats even weirder is the Magic cards were and still are worth way more than anything I had and I was actually able to recoup just about every baseball card I had that was valuable at the time for way cheaper over the last few years.I guess things have changed though because packs aren't $1.59 anymore and even the ones that are cheap yeild pretty much nothing in return.But if you go to a store and spend less than $2 and open up the pack to find a $60 card staring back at your face...its incredible.I miss Pacific.

 

[Gwynn545]

Another great thing about it was to be a Gwynn collector. Many of those 1-per-box or harder inserts were $20-$50 dollar cards for Franks and Griffeys. Piazzas and Ripkens were up there, too. I got a large chunk of my collection through trading back in the days!
Here's another (all in one scan):

1994 Select Crown Contenders, 1:24 packs

 

[Gwynn545]

The quadrupling your money thing was definitely true and it helped to fuel the GU, grading, auto and (especially) prospecting crazes that followed it. Looking at 1997-1998 price guides is a real eye-opener and almost all of these prices have gone down about 90% since then.

I don't know about quadrupling, I guess in a sense...there were definitely some good products... I remember buying say 7-10 packs for $20. I would pull some insert of Griffey and trade it in for 10 more packs (something else)....hit something and trade that in...I would walk out of there with a few minor inserts and about $80 dollars worth of "packs" which in reality, after trading away the good cards, were a bunch of commons. Yes I quadrupled my pack purchase $80 for $20, but I usually had less than $20 of cards to show for it.

 

[bodisurfa]

Hey Gwynn, remember these? 10 wrappers :lol: You got a set already, LMK if you need one

 

[predatorkj]

The quadrupling your money thing was definitely true and it helped to fuel the GU, grading, auto and (especially) prospecting crazes that followed it. Looking at 1997-1998 price guides is a real eye-opener and almost all of these prices have gone down about 90% since then.

I don't know about quadrupling, I guess in a sense...there were definitely some good products... I remember buying say 7-10 packs for $20. I would pull some insert of Griffey and trade it in for 10 more packs (something else)....hit something and trade that in...I would walk out of there with a few minor inserts and about $80 dollars worth of "packs" which in reality, after trading away the good cards, were a bunch of commons. Yes I quadrupled my pack purchase $80 for $20, but I usually had less than $20 of cards to show for it.

If you got some of the pacific stuff then you could usually make out like a bandit.