Favorite Inexpensive (Junk Era) Inserts

[WizardofOz1982]

That is the joy of the stuff being all over. Back when you had to reply on your local card shops and friends, getting the inserts you wanted was costly. Now everyone and their 6 brothers are dumping them for cheap.

I went back maybe 10 years ago and filled in a lot of inserts across all the sports. Every so often I will find an old wantlist and try to pick away at a few sets, but for the most part I got most of what I wanted. Thankfully, I finished some tougher basketball sets before they took off though.

Luckily I still had a lot of the tougher basketball sets like Beam Teams, Ultra Scoring Kings, and Power in the Paint from back in the day. I don't collect basketball anymore though so they all got moved about 6 months too early.

 

[Shaggy]

I've collected and crap load of 90s junk and have never seen most of these.

 

[Dilferules]

1993 Select Stars IS THE FRIGGIN BOMB.

I don't collect 1990's insert sets, but if I did, this one would be near the top. Along with 1993 Donruss Elite. I love this sh!t.

Oh yeah 1993 Elites are great, I didn't include them here since they are still a little pricey despite being /10,000.

1993 Select Aces. Great design and dufex.

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1993 Select inserts were amazing, they didn't whiff on any of them. The Chase Rookies =might look even better than the Stars because it was the same design but red instead of green...nobody I collect is in that set so I don't happen to have any. The All-Star Rookies out of the Select Traded/Rookies set were pretty good, too:

Same goes for the 1994 CC Gold cards. Those were like finding a gold mine. Thomas was a $150 at one point, maybe higher! It was near the height of his popularity and multiple MVP seasons. 1 per pack parallels are still popular and the chance of getting the exact player you want from a pack is steep, but people will sell them for pennies now.

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I'm still missing some of those for my team set. I had a friend who pulled a Bonds, I believe he sold or traded it to a shop. There was a kid who lived down the street whose dad had one of the factory sets with 10 Golds in it. I was hanging out with him and he sneaks in to see what the Golds were, and one of them was the Frank Thomas team checklist card. I happened to collect Thomas in the '90s, and I'm sure that the statute of limitations for aiding and abetting paternal card burglary are up by now, so I'll admit that I traded him some cards for it. I had a rare Thomas for my collection, and he had some other cards that his dad would have no idea might be related to the fact that he now only had 9 Golds in his factory set. Oh the things we do as teenagers.

 

[zyceoa]

Actually, I consider the junk era to be more like 1988-92. 1993 was when you had some pricy brands like Finest, Flair, and SP and production numbers overall have plummeted from a few years ago. So I have all the Fleer inserts from 1986-91, my fav designs being the 1988 All-Star Team and 1991 Pro-visions. And you can't go wrong with 1992 Donruss Diamond Kings. 1992 Team Pinnacle also.

 

[Dazed]

While watching some NFL games yesterday I went through a few boxes. Mainly Fleer & Upper Deck.

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I found a couple of my Denny's Grand Slam cards. Both Sandberg. The holograms don't scan very well.

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[sjm76]

1992 Fleer Ultra had some nice-looking inserts. I remember busting a bunch of those packs when I was a kid and finding the glossy award-winner etc cards.

 

[K34PuckettAddict]

I thought this was really cool when I originally found it at a card show in Columbus Ohio back in the early 90’s. The 1990 base Donruss was of course all over the place and in massive quantities, but I had never seen this Learning Series set before finding this card at that show. It’s up there for me because of that initial excitement I had back when I found it.

That show was always a blast, it had over 100 tables and my pops used to take me every month. He’s gone now, so this card makes me think of him as well.




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[K34PuckettAddict]

Here’s another one from me for some of the same reasons as above. My pops and I found this card at a different card show in Columbus around the same time.

I didn’t always have much luck finding Puckett cards in Columbus at that time, so it was pretty exciting when I did.

My dad always gave me money to buy Puckett’s and drove me all around town to all the shows and shops. We had a blast and likely saw a movie on the same day. This monthly show was at a mall with a dollar theater and we used to watch lots of movies there.

They played Home Alone at that theater for at least a solid 2 years.


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[smapdi]

1994 Fleer has something like 14 insert sets and they're almost all good to great. If you could find jumbo packs there were about 6 different inserts in each pack, so fun to open those. I remember buying a box of football jumbos and it was just about the best box ever, hitting many of the biggest names on the rarest inserts. A Rookie Sensations Drew Bledsoe paid for the box, though I really wanted to keep it.

I think my favorites are still the Upper Deck Heroes series. 10 cards, about 4 per box, devoted to a single subject, or sometimes a pair (Morgan and Bench), with 2500 autographed cards sprinkled in. I loved the continuity in the designs, and I still have the sets from all 4 sports in a binder. They changed it up around 1994 when they went to "Future Heroes" as a way to wedge more Griffey, Thomas, and Ripken cards in there, and went away from the design. Oh well. But chasing those sets are just a fun memory. If a new UD set came out I'd go around to all the tables at the local monthly show and try to complete the set, as almost all dealers would have broken a box or three for singles. And the SP cards, too. Starting with the Michael Jordan SP1 card in 1991, there was one "Super Premium" or "Short Print" card in most baseball series for a couple years, and that was just a capstone on having a truly complete set.

Score Dufex inserts of all types are also pretty sweet. I keep thinking I should start chasing them but always let them slide. Sooner or later they'll be tough to find.

But thanks for reminding me I need a Frank Thomas Rock N Jock card. I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild, but I used to see ads in Tuff Stuff and such for the full set for $20 or so. So tempting but that was a significant amount of money back then and I had a back track record ordering through the mail. But I just ordered a 3-card set for $10, guess it pays to wait.

 

[magicpapa]

How about the good old Hot Packs??

 

[Dazed]

Sticking with holograms from my Denny's post. 1992 Upper Deck Minors - Top Prospect Holograms. Cards TP1 thru TP9. If I look I probably have all 9 of them.

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[Greg Cleveland]

Always loved anything Dufex. This is one of my favorite cards, but I don't remember who else was in the set.

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[WizardofOz1982]

Always loved anything Dufex. This is one of my favorite cards, but I don't remember who else was in the set.
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Just missing the Jose Canseco that's still in en route in the mail somewhere between Florida, Colorado, and here (Oklahoma). It's on its third round trip between Ybor City, FL and Denver, CO. Hopefully USPS will figure out that Oklahoma is between FL and CO soon.

 

[zlpeterson]

Willing to move that Griffey or have dup? That set is sweeetttt

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Just missing the Jose Canseco that's still in en route in the mail somewhere between Florida, Colorado, and here (Oklahoma). It's on its third round trip between Ybor City, FL and Denver, CO. Hopefully USPS will figure out that Oklahoma is between FL and CO soon.

 

[WizardofOz1982]

Willing to move that Griffey or have dup? That set is sweeetttt

I don't think I have a dupe of the Griffey Gold Team but I'll look. I did have 4 or 5 dupes of the Mirror Gold but not sure I have any left after some trades. I built the Master set for 1995 Select Certified. It's one of my favorite of early Super Premium sets.

They're just beautiful cards all around with fairly short print runs, especially for the era.
Base = 56,186
Mirror Golds = 1,873
Gold Team = 2,570
Checklists = 180,600

 

[EtherealSOC]

Here are some of my favorites:

1994 Pinnacle The Naturals
1994 Church's Show Stoppers
1995 Score Hitters Inc. Platinum
1996 Bowman's Best Atomic Refractor
1996 Pacific October Moments
1994 Leaf Gold Stars

 

[Dazed]

Found a few Dufex.

 

[WizardofOz1982]

Those Team Tomorrows are so awesome. Another set I'm going to have to get around to building.

 

[magicpapa]

While watching some NFL games yesterday I went through a few boxes. Mainly Fleer & Upper Deck.

I found a couple of my Denny's Grand Slam cards. Both Sandberg. The holograms don't scan very well.

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help out several player collectors years ago with the Grand Slam AP's from this set

 

[zlpeterson]

Picked up my Gold Team off the bay today! Someone in this group must've been following and tossed it up

Whoever Santa Claus is, if you want to put the Mirror Gold up on Ebay as well.... you've got a buyer....

I don't think I have a dupe of the Griffey Gold Team but I'll look. I did have 4 or 5 dupes of the Mirror Gold but not sure I have any left after some trades. I built the Master set for 1995 Select Certified. It's one of my favorite of early Super Premium sets.

They're just beautiful cards all around with fairly short print runs, especially for the era.
Base = 56,186
Mirror Golds = 1,873
Gold Team = 2,570
Checklists = 180,600

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