Amazing 90s/2000s insert topic - football time!

[EACMonster]

Wow, fun thread. I love some of the 90s inserts I remember be so excited when I pulled them out of packs. Here are a few of my favorite!!!

Refractor

 

[flagshipchromecollector]

A few Broncos for you:

 

[flagshipchromecollector]

 

[JakeTheSnake16]

A few more Jake Plummer from '97.

 

[flagshipchromecollector]

 

[jbrown]

Picked up a nice collection recently. Here are just a few of the sets included:

 

[Dilferules]

I can share a few from my collection.

Let's start from the beginning, Draft Pick set inserts!

1994 Classic Draft Day Autographs. This card is uncatalogued by Beckett at the moment. My vague memories from back when I was fully concentrating on football say this may have been an issue that was sold on QVC or something on draft day in 1994 - notice there's no NFL team designation on the card, whereas all cards from the normal 1994 Classic Draft sets have team logo helmets. Oh plus the backs say "YOU HAVE RECEIVED 1 OF 10,000 TRENT DILFER 1994 CLASSIC NFL DRAFT DAY AUTOGRAPHED TRADING CARDS". Sales must not have been as high as anticipated because there is no way in hell there are 10,000 of these out there. I can't recall seeing a serial number above the 1,000's honestly. The unnumbered one on the right was likely reject stock that was backdoored - notice the smudged I and L on the signature.

The Rookie of the Year card was one of the slew of these types of sets that came out in the 90's like Predictors and Super Teams. You could supposedly redeem the 1994 ROY winner's card for an autographed football of that player. Trent certainly couldn't match up to fellow WAC alum Marshall Faulk in 1994 (or any other year) so this card was a big fat loser. The Four Sport High Voltage set is one of the coolest looking sets of all time, in my opinion. They do tend to have edge issues, and I really should upgrade my copy.

Remember PHONE CARDS? I wish I didn't, since the 1996 Proline Intense $3 Test Phone Card is one of only 6 Beckett-catalogued cards I need from his first three seasons. I think this set was the nicest of the various phone card issues he had over the years - look at the actual effort they went through to get 5 different pictures instead of just slapping a different dollar amount in the corner and calling it a day. They don't make them like that anymore. All of the denominations above $1 are serial numbered. The $4 and $5 cards are numbered to 1305 and 422, respectively. I would beg to differ, it took a few years to track down the $4 card and over ten years to locate a $5 one.

Richard

 

[flagshipchromecollector]

 

[Dilferules]

So we know there are at least 947 of them.
Richard

 

[flagshipchromecollector]

I'll have to reinstate my college on-card auto collection. Really like those Dilfers.

Speaking of phone cards, there is no possible way there are 4,000 of these. I have only seen this one. Not on the Beckett list.

 

[SouthSideSluggers]

Picked up a nice collection recently. Here are just a few of the sets included:

God those sets take me back...I still remember pulling some of these hard to find cards and thinking that they were worth a Mint back then...good memories and thanks for sharing.

 

[Dilferules]

I'll have to reinstate my college on-card auto collection. Really like those Dilfers.

Speaking of phone cards, there is no possible way there are 4,000 of these. I have only seen this one. Not on the Beckett list.

Weird, considering it's not in the Beckett list and that's the only one you've found, I wonder if it was a test print for a planned issue that they never put in packs?

A few more draft pick Dilfers:

The 1994 Four Sport autograph is not as nice as his other autographs from 1994. The pen they used just makes it look like a TTM or in person signature. The two on the bottom row are from the 1994 Draft Day Prototype set...there are also versions with the same teams that mimick the 1994 Proline Live design. Of course obviously neither team is correct, which makes the cards cooler in my opinion. But just imagine if Dilfer had been drafted by the Colts...1997 was his breakout season, he made the Pro Bowl and looked like he might be on the way to becoming a star. If the Colts still had the #1 pick in the 1998 draft, perhaps they trade down a little to take somebody who plays a different position, rather than taking Peyton Manning. But hey it would have been a better pick than Trev Alberts, who was picked by the Colts one selection ahead of Dilfer.

Here are a couple of tough ones, with the 1994 Collector's Choice Gold on the left. The card on the right looks unremarkable, until you check out the back. It's still hard to see in the blown up scan, but that one is a Collector's Choice Spanish card. The only spanish on the card is in the white text box for some reason, pretty lazy. Very difficult one to find.

1994 Pinnacle Trophy Collection, Draft Pinnacle, and Draft Pinnacle Dufex. The Draft Dufex cards were only available as redemptions but they don't seen especially tough. On the bottom row there's Playoff Contenders Back-to-Back and Rookie Contenders. The Back-to-Backs were the hottest insert set around in the mid-90's. The Rookie Contenders cards are a bit tough and really great-looking. I picked all of these up around 97/98 so they weren't too difficult to find, I don't know how hard they are nowadays.

Richard

 

[yanxchick]

I have a question from a reader ... thought I would ask here since I can't find the info.

Essentially, they want to now if these two sets of cards really exist.
- 1993 Pacific Picks the Pros - Silver (I've seen the gold out there, but does silver exist, especially for the Cowboys)
- 1993 Stadium Club Conference Winners cards. The reader is looking for standard size cards, not the master photos.

Any help would be appreciated.

-Sooz

 

[gt2590]

At my advanced age, I don't trust my Memory, but pretty sure the '93 SC winners were made and sent out. If I'm right, they were also all horizontal.

Eddie (tonsofcommons) should be able to help with the Pacific. I'll send him over via FB...

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[tonsofcommons]

Hey guys. I didn't deal alot with the older Pacific. So unfortunately I'm not much help. I don't ever RECALL seeing the silvers, but again, wasn't really looking too hard.

 

[Greg Cleveland]

Haven't checked back here for a long time. What a great bunch of cards! I need to get back into scanning again! Someone mentioned Phone cards a page or so back. Here's one I've always had. It was a Winner Redemption from Classic for the ROY. Who knows how many are really out there, but it used to be around $50 (probably for the phone value) but now, who knows? Now that Martin is in the HOF, maybe there's a market for it again?

 

[gt2590]

*Homer drools sound*

Love those '87-97 Decade sets! I didn't even remember them until you posted them. Hated the basketball, but LOVED the baseball design w/ the football guys...

 

[Dilferules]

One of my least favorite hobby trends during the late 90's was, "Hey this card is numbered to 5,000 but the first 50 of those are the ultra rare variation! It'll just say 0044/5000 though so it doesn't really seem all that special and you'll have to explain it to everybody!"

Here's a couple of examples from my Charlie Jones collection, because I don't have the rarer versions in my Dilfer collection.

1998 Leaf Rookies & Stars Longevity. These cards were numbered /50 but 01/50 was a 1/1 Holofoil. This was my first 1/1 but it didn't really feel like one since it said 01/50 on the back.

Possibly the most remembered instance of the phenomenon I'm talking about...1997 Precious Metal Gems! These were numbered /150, with 1-15 being green and 16-150 being red. They look like beautiful radioactive Jello.

Richard

 

[Dilferules]

The rest of my favorite 1994 Dilfers:

1994 Score Gold Zone & Rookie Redemption - The redemption card is of course tougher, but I'm partial to the college uniform on the regular card.
1994 Skybox Premium Prime Time Rookies - Always a popular and favorite insert set of mine.
1994 Skybox Quarterback Autographs - This was part of a three-card set available via a redemption card. The set was Dilfer, Ken Stabler, and Jim Kelly in a lucite display with a base that was serial numbered/500 (this is what it looks like). A few people cracked out the cards (or got them backdoored, who knows) and that's how I got my Dilfer in the late 90's. I would add the whole display piece to my collection if I found it for an amazing deal but I already have the Dilfer card so it's not something I need.

Richard

 

[flagshipchromecollector]

Finally got the scanner back up and running.