Your Turn: What are your best memories of collecting in the 1990s? (with polls)
By Chris Olds | Beckett Sports Card Monthly Editor
Last year in the pages of Beckett Sports Card Monthly, we took a look back at the decade when the hobby as we know it today was born, the 1980s.
This year, we’re taking a look at the decade where the hobby grew up and got complicated … the 1990s.
As part of the upcoming issue, we want to know what you think of the decade — from the 1980s-style overproduced trainwreck sets of the first few years, to the post-strike re-organizing and hobby-revitalizing inclusions such as game-used and certified ink in the later years.
We want to know what your favorites are from that time — any sport, any player, any team. We want to know what you miss. We want to know what you loathe.
We want to know … which players define the 1990s in your mind? We want to know all of that … and more. Tell us what you think and take our polls about the 1990s after the jump.
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Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Sports Card Monthly magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
1994 SR Tetrad!! Still looking for a couple of the auto’d flips, but have every card otherwise. Loved cracking boxes and the customer service was amazing!
Wasnt mine but at a card show i saw a kid pull collectors choice gold Michael Jordan
The 90’s marks the beginning of my collecting days and I collected cards from exactly 1990 to 1999 and then stopped until 2010. I collected the stars of baseball and basketball and mostly of Grant Hill. I had two albums, one for each sport and numerous cards in those dreaded screw down cases that easily ruined the cards. I had seemed to have a knack for hitting Shaquille O’neal inserts and little did I know, so did everyone else.
To me the inserts of the 90’s were everything. I loved these and I loved the feeling of finding one in a pack and not to mention hot packs. It was thrilling to find a whacky, tripped out , cool insert and it was like Whoomp! There it is! I loved that there was overproduction and the seemingly endless brands. For a kid who loved cards in those days, this was heaven. We had no idea about the shady, slippery underbelly side of the sports card industry. I miss trading with friends and if you had a Beckett you really had the upper hand, because you knew what your cards were worth. It seemed almost like they were worth millions in those days, but to me as a kid collecting them they were priceless. I got a Joe Smith Anticipation card one time in a pack of either Fleer or Flair and I think at the time that I pulled it, was worth about a hundred dollars. At about ten years old, 100 dollars is a million.
The reason I picked up collecting cards again was because of my wonderful experience with cards of the 90’s. Fleer, Fleer Ultra, Flair were my most collected then Skybox and Upper Deck. I wasn’t big on Topps in those days like I am now.
The players that defined the 90’s for me were in baseball: Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez,Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Mike Piazza, Roger Clemens, Frank Thomas, Hideo Nomo, Jeff Bagwell, Wade Boggs, Cal Ripken Jr., Randy Johnson, Sammy Sosa, Matt Williams, Tony Gwynn, Roberto Alomar, David Cone, Don Mattingly, Albert Belle, Kirby Puckett, Ozzie Smith, Cecil Fielder, Kenny Lofton, Fred McGriff, Ken Griffey Jr.,Greg Maddux, Jay Buhner, Mo Vaughn.
For Basketball: Grant Hill, Michael Jordan, Anfernee Hardaway, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley,Karl Malone, John Stockton, Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen, Jerry Stackhouse, Juwan Howard, Shawn Kemp, Patrick Ewing, Damon Stoudamire, Glenn Robinson, Nick Van Exel, Latrell Sprewell, Isiah Thomas, Gary Payton, Eddie Jones, Jason Kidd, Reggie Miller, Vin Baker, Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning, Isaiah Rider, Jamal Mashburn, Mitch Ritchmond, David Robinson, Chris Webber, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson.
Thank you 90’s cards! We will always love you : )
Back in 1991, my grandmother bought me a box of 1991 donruss. I had already had a bunch of donruss cards, and knew pulling anything worth noting was hard to come by. So i sat on that box for over a year thinking that maybe the unopened box might be worth something. After a year and a half i finally busted the box because i had to know what was in it. 3rd pack in i pulled out a George Brett elite card. I almost passed out. Shortly there after i was calling grandma and telling her what happened, needless to say she was geeked too.
There were a lot of card companies competing for our business 20 years ago.
Back in 1990 Jose Canseco was a sure lock for the hall. Leaf was untouchable with Frank Thomas leading the way. Getting a autographed card was sort of a rare thing compared to now. My first auto was a 1997 Fleer Eddie George card. Looking back now I wish I just purchased vintage instead of wasting my money on wax from the 90’s.
I miss how cheap packs used to be. When the chase in the box was a pack of all inserts
the 1990’s saw the release of my personal favorite set in my 44 years in this hobby
1997 NFL Legends by Upper Deck
Outstanding photography, limited inserts, great checklist and on card autos!!
I remember the first pack of the product I opened. I pulled a Ray Nitschke auto and just about flipped cause he had just passed away! My second pack.. A Jack Youngblood auto and then I was buying the boxes.
Completed the base set, and the dual foil legend inserts. Havent quite finished the more limited Big Game Hunters.
Auto wise I think I got 40 some, no big names like Payton or Unitas but still enough that someday I may finish the auto set.
To date, no set has ever enthralled me the way it did. I even got excited over the look alike insert autos in Ultimate Collection for 2 or 3 years they were issued.
oh the 90’s. i remember them like they were yesterday. i remember reading different sports card mags, beckett being one, to see who the hot new rookie in baseball would be in 1990. at the time, there was a shortstop everyone loved. he played for the dodgers. that prospect was jose offerman. i went to my first card show ever at the senior citizen building of my home town. i had roughly 20 bucks saved up for this day and i was gonna spend it on some offerman rc’s. when i got there and looked around i couldnt believe how much these cards were goin for, 6 to 10 bucks a piece at the time. so i changed my mind on offerman cards and decided to go with someone else.
i came to this one table that was selling 1990 leaf cards and saw that there was a slugger by the name of frank thomas. i read all about how thomas was a great hitter but had some flaws at first base. the price at the time was a reasonable 3 bucks. before i left the show i had purchased every other thomas brand that i could find. the rest is history. i have been a big thomas fan since then and cant wait for the day the hall calls my favorite player.
since that first thomas card i now have 6 binders of thomas cards and continue today looking for thomas cards i need to complete my master set.
What do I miss about the 90s? Card products that were 1) Affordable, 2) Collectible, and 3) Fun — three qualities that, sadly, missing from most products today.
I miss getting a pack at the store in the 90’s and how cheap they were I think these 60 dollars for a pack of 5 cards is insane
I LOVE this topic/poll! I was prime collecting age in the 90s! Every time my Mom & I were at CVS or any store that had cards, I got a pack or 2. My Dad would buy me a pack every Sunday morning when he went to the local newsstand. I couldn’t get enough of the inserts & pulling my favorite stars was like winning the lottery.
Collecting during the 90s was much easier, if you ask me. mainly because it was before the Internet, so shows were more prevalent. There were more card shops around. In my case had a 3 year period where I had 2 shops within 3 blocks of me. one on one side of town, one on the other. It was so much fun back then!
I have so many memories of pulls that made my day. Pulling a Shaq and Alonzo rookie out of the same pack of Hoops! A hot pack of 1994 Donruss with the whole “Bombs Squad” set! I will also never forget my first and only Elite Series card out of a pack of 1994 Donruss at my LCS. It was Barry Bonds. I ran around like a crazy person!
I was born in the late 90’s so I don’t have nay memories from that time, but my greatest memory I have had so far was pulling 2 booklets out of 1 box of 2009 Topps Triple Threads.
My fondest memory of the the 1990s hobby begins and ends with 1994 Upper Deck Baseball. I bought a ridiculous amount of “Central” boxes for the Diamond Collection Michael Jordan card. I still have a few of them and many of his base RCs. I liked the design and thought the distribution was unique.
Using all my college loans to purchase 95-96 BAP Hockey, in hopes of getting that darn Gretzky Auto to finish my Auto set… 25+ boxes later, and still no Gretzky Auto :( Damn you 90’s!
I had tons of fun collecting cards in the mid and late-80s, but I think I had the most fun collecting in the early 90s, when sports cards went mainstream and “premium” sets were introduced. As a young boy, there was nothing quite as exhilarating as opening up a Beckett magazine to see all up arrows for a set you’d collected. Stadium Club 91, Bowman 92, and O-Pee-Chee Premier hockey remain my all-time favorite sets.
Serious collecting ended for me in the mid-to-late 90s when all the companies went crazy. Too many sets, too many inserts, too many confusing gimmicks to try to increase the value of cards or entice buyers. When I open a pack and have to spend 20 minutes trying to figure out what I even got, something has gone wrong with the hobby.
The year was 1997, I had really slowed down my collection because of the price of packs. When I started working in Sporting Goods at K-Mart we had started to get unopened boxes of late 80’s early 90’s stuff, which as a collector, I couldn’t resist. That next winter we got about 10 blasters of 1997 Donruss Signature Series in. I broke the rules and hid them in the stockroom, and after my shift I put them on layaway. Not a bad move as I pulled quite a few nice auto’s (boggs, alomar, galarraga, banks, but the cream of the crop was the Notable Nicknames Stan “The Man” Musial #to 200! To this day it was the best pull I’ve ever had.
I’m counting it: 1989 Upper Deck Junior RC. Best card ever.
I loved collecting cards in the 1990’s. A lot of my favorite cards come from the decade, probably because I was a kid at the time. My favorite was Fleer Ultra. Platinum Medallions I need for my Indians collection are always a priority to this day. I also recently purchased a 1996 Ultra Diamond Dust Cal Ripken Jr. I remember I tried to get enough packs to get the redemption back in 1996, but I just didn’t make it… Seems a lot easier to buy it as an adult on ebay, haha.
Also, who doesn’t love Flair Showcase Legacy cards, Donruss Crusades, Leaf/Donruss Signature Autographs and the 90’s Bowman sets?
My first box of cards was 1990 Pro Set series II. The cards in that yellow box were awesome, especially the Emmitt Smith RC!
I still think that the 1997 SPx Football set is one of the coolest base sets ever produced! Sure, they were only one to a pack, but every single die-cut, holographic card was awesome, whether it was Favre or Hostetler. It even had that long-shot chance to pull a big-time auto (Marino, Montana, Barry Sanders…)!
I love the 1990’s. I started collecting in that decade and it is always fun to remember the memories from back then. Cards now are more limited. Now, the parallel craze is the new thing. Autographed cards will never die in popularity. The memorabilia card craze is continually evolving. Ultimately, I’d love the cardboard trading cards to stay as is and not to transform in electronic trading cards.
Chipper Jones Rookie Cards!!!!!
I pulled an autographed Ted Williams card (hard signed) out of 1991 Upper Deck. I believe it was out of 2000. One of my best pulls ever. I loved trading star cards and inserts with the local hobby shop in Sate College, PA in the early 90s and at the numerous mall card shows back in the early-late 90s in suburban Philadelphia!
The 90’s were plainly wrapped up into two words…the best. The era had the most effort put into the hobby. The best innovations for inserts and base cards. And not so much overproduction on the autograph and jersey card era of the 2000’s. Base cards were worth putting sets together of. Inserts were hard to chase and didn’t come every pack so you actually got excited to see one. Rookie cards, especially of the top picks, were not so easy to come by and even they were sometimes short printed. Subsets were used more and sometimes hard to come across. Autographs and jersey cards were so rare you feel like you won the mega millions when you pulled one. Tons of selection for different sports on which brands you wanted. I grew up and started collecting during this era. It was the best one to start in. It was simple. Costs were down. Selection was great. I wished the hobby would sometimes go back in time to the 90’s. I think if a company would go back to the 90’s and take the blue print of it, they would turn into the top company. A lot of people, and not just myself, want to collect what that era was all about. Cards seemed to be more valuable then as well. Overproduction of everything in the 2000’s has not only hurt the hobby, but has hurt the values.
The 90’s had good and bad.
There were some amazing cards produced.
Donruss Signature, Upper Deck Legends, Find the “player name” from upper deck.
There were new innovations, low serial #’d cards, and finally one of ones.
The problem is, they produced so much that it finally killed the hobby.
Or, in the case of Upper deck, the restarted the printing presses for Upper Deck
French Hockey. It used to sell for $20 pack high numbered with the French Federov
fetching $200+, now its priced the same as regular hockey.
I know people that paid tons to get all those Shaq rookies. He had a great career
and will go to the hall, yet his cards books for a fraction of what they were selling
for when they came out. People were once impressed that a card had a production
of “only” 100,000, now if its higher than 99 people tend to yawn.
Autographs were still all hard signed, though you did get the occasional player who
had his girl friend help sign them. *sigh*
I remember people thinking it was somewhat outrageous that they were charging
$4 pack for Stadium Club.
The worst was the invention of the redemption card, with companies like signature
rookies going belly up and leaving people holding the bag. A process that repeated
itself later on with Fleer. Oh, you had a Pujols auto redemption, well here is a random
piece of crap auto you are getting instead. And remarkably, the company that did the
distribution somehow happens to now have some pretty nice cards for sale.
The 90’s also brought the creation of back-dooring cards, mainly from upper deck, but
also from Pinnacle. Gee, that 1/case non serial #’d black diamond came out a week
ago. How many sets do you want? 93 Finest Refractors? Might have a set somewhere.
For 96 Pinnacle Select Certified the company went so far as to show them destroying
all the replacement stock after a year went by to keep them out of the hands of the
unscrupulous, sadly later years were not as well protected. I saw a dealer with sets
of each of the mirrors, especially from the racing sets.
The 90’s brought the internet as a tool to buy/sell/trade and to quickly inform you if a
product looks like junk.
The 90’s had some great things like the Diamond Ink points which you could send in to
get autographed mini balls of Kobe, Garnet, Tmac, and the like. Not to mention baseballs
signed by Roger Clemens, Tony Gwynn,and Arod. I’m still looking to see one of the Greg
Maddux balls for sale. Gallery ink points were fun, collect them and use them in the
auction. Only problem is you did not get to reuse the points if your lost.
Lots of good, lots of bad, and if only I knew then what I knew now I’d have saved enough
money to buy a Mantle RC
simply put ….. it was a decade of “creativity” ….. manufacturers constantly tried to out-due the other, whether it was design, style, totally amazing die-cuts or whatever ….. very few “bland” products were produced during the 90’s :)
The first certified autos and relic cards that were like one per case.
I only collect football cards, so my answer is geared mainly toward that sport. What I miss most about the 90s is that the products, and the hobby in general, were driven by VETERAN STARS. Favre, Elway, and Marino were routinely the best pulls in any product, followed by a couple HOF RBs (Emmitt & Barry) and some guys named Rice and Aikman. I started collecting Favre when he got traded to the Packers and I still collect him today. Today, all “the hobby” seems to care about is rookies, and the companies overproduce them like crazy. Cam Newton has over 1500 cards, 634 of which are autographed. Guys like Brady, Manning (either one), Rodgers, and Brees should be driving the hobby, but they almost afterthoughts except for their autographs. (Brees is basically an unlisted star, which is absurd to me).
Jersey cards meant something because they were actually game worn and not worn for 10 minutes at one event by someone wearing 25 jerseys at the same time with random numbers on them. And they were HARD TO GET. Make it actually worth the chase. Boggles my mind that a game-worn jersey card by any player would be worth only $4, but that’s what happens when you are guaranteed 4 hits a box! Not to mention autographs, which were like winning the lottery!
The 90’s should almost be broken up into two half-decades. The early half was really an extension of the 80’s, with ridiculous over-production and cards that are near-worthless today. But the latter half was the explosion of hundreds of products, premium cards, autos, game-used, etc. and when companies realized that some cards should be tough to get. My favorite part of collecting in the 90’s was that 80’s cards were actually worth something. Remember the Griffey RC craze? Those 89 Fleer Griffeys going for 25 bucks apiece…now you can get them for a buck. The home run race, collectors going nuts over 85 Topps. Now you can get that prestigious McGwire RC for 5 bucks. The late 90’s was the best age for cardboard in the last 50 years. Lots of different companies, many different products, and many new innovations. Now we have a couple card companies (one in baseball), only a handful of products (many of which are essentially the same) and those once-incredible innovations have been over-done many times around. Card collecting can never return to those days. Today’s collectors are more interested in prospecting, parallels, and money than simply collecting great cards of great players.
I got back into collecting big time in the 90’s, and though many companies sprouted up and over-produced (Pro Set), there were still some amazing cards to spring forth. UD always had nice products and Black Diamond was always a fave-though untouchable at the time. Pacific had some awesome subsets and inserts and still rank as my favorite all-time cards
Like others have said, I believe the internet changed the landscape of collecting. I remember when I was about 15 and saving money from my bagging job at a local grocery store in order to buy a few boxes of 1993 Donruss baseball. I saved up for months and months until I was finally able to buy 10 boxes of the stuff. All I wanted was to pull one, just ONE, Elite card! Out of 10 boxes I did not get one. My local shop had a Juan Gonzalez for sale for some ridiculous price around $400. That was the only Elite I had seen up to that point and I desperately wanted to join the cool club of those who own one. The cards looked amazing (still do) and they were numbered to “only” 10,000! I worked that out to it being an average of only 200 cards of each player being available per state. My thinking was that it’s like a needle-in-the-haystack type odds of getting one! Fast-forward to today, I can get that same card for less than $10 off eBay.
Yes, the mass production of cards in the 90s didn’t help the industry, but I think it was the internet that really delivered a fatal blow. Though cards were mass produced, the fact remained that the common collector was generally limited to whatever cards were available locally. Looking at collecting today, those “rare” cards are no longer rare with the entire world selling at your fingertips. Even searching for 1/1 cards shouldn’t be looked at as an impossible task. Difficult? Sure, but with eBay, Beckett marketplace, forums, photo bucket, online card shops and a multitude of other collectors willing to help us search for our “white whales,” seemingly impossible to find cards are no longer just part of our dreams.
It was shortly after the 1993 Donruss purchase when I decided to stop collecting; which is what I remember most of the 90s. It wasn’t until almost 15 years later when I began collecting again.
The 90’s were awesome. As a kid growing up in the early to mid 90’s, nothing was better than going to the mall and going to the card shows. Baseball was my main hobby and I loved when each new set came out each year. I especially loved Fleer, Fleer Ultra, Donruss, Leaf, Studio and Upper Deck products. The insert craze is what did it for me. Just think how far the industry had come just in a few years. I think 1992 Bowman is what jump started the RC craze and then 1993 SP and Flair jump started the innovative craze and by then every set had inserts. And of course Griffey and The Big Hurt were the main guys that everyone wanted. But, as I entered high school and then college in the late 90’s and into the early part of the 21st century, it was clear where the card industry was going: autos and game used.
Because of that, I stopped collecting as it wasn’t as much fun. But as I started to make more money, I wanted to buy all the 90’s Michael Jordan cards that I thought were amazing as a kid and all the RC’s of players that were great when I was growing up. And boy am I glad I did. It has been a great investment. But, rarely do I buy anything new and I never buy a box of cards that sell for hundreds of dollars. I figure that could go to an MJ card that i need. But, I always think back to how much I miss the 90s.
Best memory by far is going to the card shops in Liberty, Mo. with my grandpa. There was one on the square in downtown we went to the most, next to the Hardware Cafe. We would go in, he would slip me a 5 and whisper ‘Don’t tell your Grandma where you got this.. you found it ok.’ with a wink and I’d pick out a few packs then go back to their house and open and inventory them on paper using my Beckett. I still open each pack the way I did when I was 10. Last time I was in Liberty the card shop was a photo store and The Hardware was a Mexican Restaurant. Man do I miss those days with Hermie…
There was nothing better than Pacific Hockey
I would save my lunch money to go buy packs of cards. I collected from 1990-1995, then stopped completely in 1996. Had to spend money on clothes, entertainment, & girls during my high school years. I collected briefly in 2000-2001, then got addicted to collecting cardboard again in 2007. Since then I been going back down memory lane to complete the sets I once started or obtain the cards I’ve always wanted as a kid.
I loved Skybox, Fleer Ultra, & Hoops. Back in the 90’s I tried to collect every set, in each sport. I found out fast, as a kid, you can not do that. Especially in today’s market. It just costs too much!!
I fell in love with the hobby during Shaq’s RC year. Before him, I collected mostly MJ, Magic, Bird, Barkley, Malone, Ewing, & Pippen. I still collect those players.
I loved the inserts of the 90’s. “Nicknames”, “All Defensive Players”… Magic’s All Rookies, Supreme Court, Skybox’s USA inserts… too bad there are no “buyback autos” of those. That would be awesome!! I love the SE Die-Cut All Star cards… I am slowly trying to complete that set today.
I wish today’s hobby had more inserts, instead of parallels. I hate when a product has tons of parallels, including different print runs (serial numbers), jersey’s, & patches.. Keep it simple. I’d rather see more inserts.. i.e. auto inserts… not just auto parallels… like what Panini did with Hoops 2011-12.. I loved the Hoops of the 90’s… why did Panini make the revamp so plain?? I bought one box & stopped buying hoops.
Since there are no RC’s in 2011-12… I been going back & trying to buy old 90’s boxes & complete old insert sets I once started or thought about collecting back int he day.
I am 32 years old now. I love the hobby. I wish more people were interested in collecting. I have yet to find a young person that collects cards in San Diego, ca. I’ve only found a hand full of collectors.. a few in their late 20’s/early 30’s.. the rest are in their late 40’s or older.. they all collect baseball & limited amount of basketball…
I can only afford to collect one sport, so I go with my passion. Basketball!
I was visiting my local coin shop in 1990 and for some reason he had a box of 1990 Score baseball cards on the counter. He told me about the B/W Bo Jackson card that booked for $15 (.50 now) so I bought a couple of packs and wouldn’t you know it I got one. My first big pull. This really got me hooked and I’ve had some big pulls since then, a couple of Brett Favre autos,my first memorabillia card-a Marcus Camby Press Pass redemption card and many others.Now I have over 10,000 auto and memorabillia cards and am still collecting.
What I really miss about the 90’s is that the the Jackson card started me on set building. The excitement of busting boxes to get that complete set has really gone away with the inclusion of all the numbered base cards and the price of boxes/packs. The hobby took a lot of fun away from collecting when it went so commercial.
Now I no longer buy boxes and I pick up my memorabillia/auto cards from a flea market or my local card shop for a couple of bucks even from high end products that cost 100’s of dollars a box. Just yesterday I purchased 36 2011 Bowman Sterling USA Baseball and major league rookie jersey cards plus 9 other random Auto/jersey cards for $1.30 a card ($58.00 total).
I remember when Upper Deck packs were the premium brand a $1.00 a pack. Times were oh so much simpler then and kids could still collect. The future of the hobby is the young and the card companies need to do more for them if they hope to keep doing business for the next 25 years.
I started in 1990. My dad bought me a box of 1990 Topps baseball. He told me he remembers me pulling that Thomas NNOF. I can’t find it today. Overproduced definitely states what collecting in the nineties was like. Then again, 50¢ per pack was great. $500 per pack is horrible. I would love to see these lower prices again (of course I won’t see 50¢, but 99¢ or $1.49 or $1.99 is just the right price).
1990/91 Upper Deck French Hockey high numbers was the first “super premium” set I remember. $20 a pack and the Federov French was selling for up to $500 bucks from what I remember. Then Upper Deck realized how popular they were and started running the presses on them again and ruined their value