Everything We Love About 1990s Baseball Cards ❤️ 

Was born in 85 so love 90's cards. Have a bunch I need to go through at my dads house.

Born in 1983 so I was big in the 90's. My dad actually pulled a 1997 New Pinnacle Press Plate Chipper Jones Magenta at our local shop. Still have it in my collection. The 90's inserts were the best. Thanks guys!!

Everyone collects their own way of course, but for me, the joy of 90s cards is that there's so many of them, and everyone was trying to one-up the next company by making often ridiculous parallel sets that either look great, make me laugh, provide a huge nostalgia rush, and sometimes all three at once. AND they're almost all extremely affordable (which makes it more fun). There's no need to sweat the cost of the cards. I don't collect for investment at all. I'm all about getting great looking cards of my favourite players. Considering how expensive modern cards have become, it's such a treat to be able to collect 90s cards of my favourite player growing up, and knowing that even if I'm priced out of modern cards, I'll probably NEVER run out of fun cards of him to add to the collection. If dealers and resellers start pretending that 90s parallels are now investment cards after decades of saying that they're worthless, it could very well ruin the one affordable and truly care-free area of the hobby that I've found so far. Crossing my fingers that doesn't happen.

Chris and Jeff look like what I imagine my face is every time the Mrs. drags me shopping. Like "we're here, but we are NOT trying anything on!"

This was such a great episode! I would love to have a follow up with Fleer Brilliants 24K and other sets that people love. For the auto set from the 90’s: 99 SP Authentic Sig edition has always been a popular choice especially for baseball!

Ty’s overview of key 90s parallels and inserts was great. I’m a part 90s and part modern collector and appreciate both for what they are.

Great stuff! Love the certified mirror red, blue, gold cards; plus the beginnings of the PMGs. One thing I try to grab when I see them for a good price is the 1996 and 1997 Game Jersey cards from Upper Deck. These were the first time pieces of game-used jerseys being included in packs. They are super rare and if you can find them with multiple color swatches, they will command good $$$. Really groundbreaking at the time.

Great segment guys. I think NFL Legends by Upper Deck was an amazing set, black and white action photos of all the “legends”. Amazing autograph checklist too ! I also have an extremely rare 1997 Jerry Rice Playoff Shield insert, only 4 have been graded…mine is still in its natural state so there are at least 5 copies..so rare people don’t even know about it to chase it.

Nothing beats 90s innovation and inserts. I'm not just taking expensive Yacht owners PMG cards. Even the lower end inserts like Lords of the Diamond die cuts, Flair Hot Gloves etc were awesome. Now with a monopoly in place, you wont see innovation and competition to make great cards unfortunately much anymore. 90s rocked! Thank you for talking about them.

Wow, for someone who is just learning about 90s cards, Scott sure jumped headfirst into the deep end of the Larry Walker pool. Great collection!

Finance bros of the card world. Love it. keep it going gentlemen.

My grail card as a kid was 93 finest refractor mike mussina. I got one in an 8 and love it. I keep growing my mussina collection while keeping just to Orioles cards and I love it.

Great discussion gents. Like Chris said the cost is just so high it’s hard to get one you want and then again the fakes out there as well

Ty breaking the first rule of late 90s golden era collectors, we don't teach boomers/xoomers/zoomers about late 90's golden era cards! 😂 That Larry walker gem masters pickup by Scottie was freaking wild though, big congrats there!

Really like deep dives on 90’s more than anything. So many interesting facets.

Need more videos or cards in hand. Can’t be understated the difference in hand, especially when trying to convince someone

My favorite episode so far. Love the 90s stuff.

I liked the 90’s because (starting with 1993) they finally understood overproduction. Starting in 1993, you had high end sets to collect but not outrageous prices like today. I remember ripping packs of 1996-97 Topps Chrome Basketball, 1997 Bowman Chrome Baseball, 1995 SP Basketball, 1993 SP Football, etc. These base rookie cards still hold their value and the refractors (which was very rare) are worth alot these days. I will always say the hobby is in the ultimate catch 22. When it’s super popular now and late 80’s, the companies are forced to overprint to meet demand. Or they come up with perceived scarcity like today of endless parallels. The mid 90’s were great time to collect because you had a mass exodus of the hobby in 1991-92, so they weren’t forced to overproduce the sets after that. You can have a 1996 Topps Chrome Base Iverson PSA 8, 9, 10 now and the card held its value. Or his refractor which is super expensive. You can’t say that about cards today with some of the pop counts. I miss when the hobby wasn’t popular! Lol

Thank you for doing 90s!! GZ on those larry walker cards -- DREAM Cards - i would love to see the griffey 1 of 1 come for sale

Yes!!!!!!.....This is something that I think a lot of collectors will consider. Two I think of right off the bat, Magglio Ordonez and Victor Martinez. Two mid late 90's players who just all around solids players.

Full cast!!! We're in for a treat Here we go!! 90s basketball 🏀 cards were straight 🔥 and some baseball ⚾

I haven’t even watched 5 minutes, and I am already saying great video ❤

Think you guys will ever put an audio version of this show on podcast platforms like itunes? Also. 90's cards are great. So are early 2000's. Love that 2005-2010ish era.

First off, huge fan of the channel, guys! I tune in to every video you put out, but this one was the best for me so far because even though I do collect vintage all the way through present day cards, the 90s is hands down the era for me. So many awesome sets/subsets, more competition between the brands, not having to just focus on just RC for value, the era of "firsts" in the hobby, etc. I would love if you did more videos on the 90s as your research is always very good because your team is what I refer to as (and I truly mean this in a respectful way) some really cool nerds! Scotty, happy to see you getting excited about the 90s era, and hoping you dive into it more in the future. But, regardless if you all do or do not post more videos like this one in the future, I will still gladly tune in. Keep up great work!

I got out of cards in 1989 and just got back in earlier this year. I loved this video because it showed me some of the great cards I missed. May change my focus to tracking some 90s.

The one thing I always couldn't understand is why there was such little exposure to the decade of the 90s in this sports card community on RU-vid. Based off the age demographic of most of us collectors. This is the era we grew up watching and an era of baseball that we loved more than anything we've been a part of so I would think collectors would want to connect to this. We've become so wrapped up in the two worlds of baseball that one we weren't apart of(vintage) or two is all about investing and flipping. Granted, there's nothing wrong with that but it's just odd to me is all. On another note, these rare cards from the 90s have ballooned up so much in price over the last few years that it's put me outside of my comfort zone to purchase them. I personally think they have some of the best-looking cards and best made quality cards of any era but from an investing and collectors' perspective I think the prices are just a little too extreme now. Then again, all eras are sort of similar now to an extent.

I 90's cards 😎👍

I miss the 90s. Those were good times all around.

Gentlemen, great video!!! Keep this topic rolling…

I'd like to commend Jeff's hair for doing it's own thing during the entire discussion.

Dam Scott! You rattling off all those Larry Walker cards...I wanna buy you a beer next time we meet! Welcome to the 90s!!! :-)

FANTASTIC! This show just warmed my heart! I specialize in only the “high pop” wax era cards, mostly 90s inserts and refractors of Maddux. Well done with this episode showcasing the ultra high end 90s sets! While it’s fun to look at the eye popping stuff that most can’t afford, so much about the 90s “innovation era” was unique and special in contrast with some of the ultra modern cards that seem to use the same tired recycled designs, autos, and parallels. I would like to see more of the affordable, “attainable” inserts that were still crazy innovative and amazing during the 90s era. I find the idea of the “Topps bias” simply FASCINATING. It blew my mind a little bit when I realized that some ultramodern collectors view Donruss, Pinnacle, or Fleer/Skybox 90s cards in the same light that I currently view unlicensed ultra modern Panini baseball cards. I find that VERY interesting! When I was collecting back in the 90s, with the exception of Finest and Stadium Club, I always considered Topps to be vastly inferior when compared to the other competing brands like Pinnacle, Donruss, Fleer/Skybox, Select, and Upper Deck. Heck, Pacific was a weird company that innovated like crazy! Topps always had the history and nostalgia going for it, but other companies were innovating in amazing unique ways. As a kid, I always put Topps flagship just above Score, Fleer, and the super low-end products like Triple Play (diet Donruss) & Collector’s Choice (diet Upper Deck), but below just about everything else out there. Maybe this is part of why I find the concept of the Topps bias so intriguing.

I have many late 90’s cards and really enjoyed this discussion. I’d love to hear a discussion on autograph sets. Thanks for doing this!

Really enjoyed guys! 96 Leaf Signature Series is a great auto product.

Well done

Scott! You should do research on PSA's guarantee its not as great as you think. There is a whole list of things they say they won't guarantee.

Love all the info! It's no only overwhelming to get into these cards, but it's also hard to find good sources explaining these sets in depth. Definitely checking out precious metal gents as well! Thanks guys!

As someone who was born late 90s and just started collecting baseball cards March 2023 I love 90s Topps finest design but idk the players 😂 so a good set for me is Topps finest flashbacks and getting the current players on that design

Love this. I started doing this with arod bc Griffey was just too expensive. Star rubies, credentials, flair showcase row 0. Just lots of fun stuff

90s auto sets -- 1998 sp authentic chaligraphy (would be my go to), 1997 donruss millennium marks (larger checklist) - other small checklist sets are cool too. and the first jersey/bat auto cards. all in the 90s. But it was all born here

1995 Score Platinum Team Set Parallel's Are Great Cards - Available By Redemption Only

The biggest issue I have is lack of knowledge about certain years. I collected from around 87-96 then 04-08 and then 2020-now. It took me about 2 years to figure out the modern stuff and how to best spend my money. I have just started diving back into the early 2000's. The 90's are something I am interested in though, because it was the players I grew up with.

I appreciate the video but will admit I’m totally lost understanding the sets, names, etc… Ill need a much more basic intro to 90’s cards for sure 😂

Big 90's collector here - the 1/1 chase was never my game. I've always been more about serial #ed firsts, lasts, and jersey serial #s. My Helton collection (all of my Rockies player collections actually) was always focused on those 3 specific serial #s. That said, the Walker 1/1 Metal Scott owns is a true beaut. Most underappreciated parallel from the 90's in my opinion - 1998 Leaf Fractal Materials Z2-Axis /20. Especially the Wood Z2-Axis - they are amazing and rare.

I collect Kobe and Derek Jeter and I love that I can get awesome 90s inserts for my Jeter collection for a fraction of what the NBA cards would go for (Soul of the Game, Planet Metal, Platinum Portraits, Stardate 2000).

Check out the Essential Credentials podcast. 90’s gold mine of info

just got my mosaic choice black and gold fuscia prizm 1/1 rc auto of duran, sticker auto'd and un licensed still a sick card for the pc. pumped!!

If I could convince myself Walker played without regularly using PED's I would super collect him.

Those side cards of the 90s seems to crazy in price when they talk about how overproduce the 90s sports cards are.

"What's my entry point?" Chris' comment that sticks with me. I missed this entire generation of cards and came back to the hobby last fall, it is daunting. As a Pedro collector, seeing the Crusade Red ($6.2k) or the Fleer Brilliant 24k gold ($5.2K) sell for those amounts recently (and the Star Rubies Phil showed), it can be enough to make you want to walk away. But for every Crusade Red there's a Crusade Green, for every Select Mirror Gold, there are the still limited Blue and Red which look fantastic. I think Scottie is right, with time, there are places to hit in this space, this was just way too much to pack into 30-40 minutes and when you show Griffey's going for $15-20k, or Scottie hitting a 1 of 1 and stating how insane that is (congrats BTW) it does look like it's too late. I'd recommend the Essential Credentials podcast as they have several of their episodes on collecting 90s insets on a budget. There are a ton of fantastic looking cards of your favorite players for under $100. huge shout out to Ty for dropping the knowledge on the design team, that's the stuff I could listen to all day. Any time anyone wants to talk about Dufex, I'm all in!

In 1998 Fleer Ultra series 1 they issued 5 redemption cards for a full set of Platinum Medallions /100. The 100 of 100 set hit eBay soon after product release and I scooped up the entire 7 card series 1 Rockies team set. This was when the Blake Street Bombers (Walker, Galarraga, Bichette, Burks, Castilla) were a popular thing, and all of them are represented in this team set. Ultra series 2 had the same thing with 5 redemptions for a full set of Platinum Medallions /98 (for some reason they dropped the series 2 serial # to 98). I found the 98 of 98 complete Rockies team set about 2 years ago from a guy who had been sitting on the complete set for a long time. Bought the series 2 Rockies team set to complete the entire '98 Platinum Medallion team set all serial #ed lasts (13 cards total). I don't think I've ever seen any other team sets out there with all matching serial #s.

I also recently dipped into the 90s market. For me it was pulling the meaningless /150 parallels and finding little to no excitement with modern boxes. I find especially with big names likes of griffey and Jeter more collectors will eventually find the appeal.

Skybox Essential Credentials. Enough said. I'm collecting all the Tony Gwynn parallels and willing to pay thousands for them. 👀

Dig the 90s content 👌

Welcome to the 90s insert club.

Nice discussion. Given that PSA is focused on manual grading, they have a lot of variation and mistakes are made. How do we as consumers hold them accountable if there are grader's notes and slabs that are like fort Knox? Where is our recourse for resubmission, a la Jeff's example where they resubmitted their card?

The 2000 Essential Credentials set really burned me as a Rockies collector - Todd Helton is the /1 Credentials Future, and Ben Petrick is the /1 of the Credentials Now. It made ever going after any of these a real challenge for me personally.

90s over those lame photo variations all day :) but I dig the fact that people love different things. I only do 90s and 2018 topps. Cheers

See if you can find any 1999 Upper Deck Black Diamond Mystery Numbers Emerald. These are great, and super rare.

Good information

Another confusing parallel card is 1998 Stadium Club Triumvirate (1st year) with Luminous, Luminescent, and Illuminator. There’s no way I can tell them apart raw (it’s not labeled even on the back) and so my search is only with PSA graded and even then I’m spending a lot of time comparing to understand better.

Enjoyed this one... do an autographs version...I feel like "Autographics" would fall into the lower-upper echelon of 90's pack pulled auto cards, yet they always seem underpriced when you look at how many auto cards those players have vs. today's players. Thanks for the content!

all of these cards, you have to see in hand or on video, pics do NOT do justice

Word

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends had a 1/1 base parallel called MVP. My dad pulled the Vinny Castilla. Otherwise, I’m sure I wouldn’t know of the parallels existence. Any of you guys know the print run of 1997 Bowman’s Best Atomic Refractors? I didn’t realize the 1998 ones were numbered, usually the first year is more limited, but maybe that’s not the case.

Plz do a 90s autograph episode 🤝🏻

Born right in the wheelhouse for these cards. Collected with my day from 88-95 pretty big, then i discovered boobs. They became a singular focus for several years. I am just betting back into card last few years. These videos are helpful.

While these 90s inserts are cool, the biggest drawback is that card manufacturers absolutely flooded the market with this stuff. You couldnt put together a comprehensive list of all the 90s inserts without spending countless hours thoroughly doing due dilligence on the matter. After the 90s, it got ludicrous. Todays product, you cant even keep up with the number of a set of inserts in one single product, let alone all the other different products released. Its insane theres even any value to todays inserts, so with that being said: 90s inserts are the way to go compared to modern inserts. We are in the junk-parallel/insert era.

Question from the cheap seats: where can I get a 1990’s PMG, Flair Legacy or Atomic Refractor of Jarred Kelenic?? I’m looking everywhere on eBay and COMC but I can’t find any… 😤

All 5? What a show lineup, wonder what the show budget is to get a lineup like this...

Joey Peapod has a small channel but really breaks down 90's Griffey very well.

Fleer Brilliants 24kt gold, no mention?!?!? Also 1/1 Mirror Artist Proofs from 1998 Pinnacle Plus are freaking incredible. Best 1/1 outside of the 1999 Gem Master.

I have a bunch of 90's cards in boxes at home. I know most of it is probably worthless, but what would be the best way to go through the cards and figure out if any of them are worth something? Look up the sets? The players? Just look at the back of the cards and see if anything is numbered? Thanks.

I'm with Jeff, I got out early 90's and at that time the rookie card of a player was his most desired card. I couldn't tell you who the rookies in the 90's even were outside of Jeter and Ahole Rod, so for that reason it doesn't interest me to collect 90's cards.

IMO whenever I hear people trying to convince me that the 1990s inserts/parallels are so great it feels like an elitist sales pitch. Most of the desirable cards are going to be owned by high level collectors who have the access/connections to make these deals and/or the massive amount of funds to secure the cards in the first place. There is one late 1990s parallel set I am currently putting together but in all likelihood I will always be priced out of the Griffey, Jeter etc.

Do like discussion videos. Thanks

Way too much parallel talk, not enough actual inserts.

All this talk about Ohtani and Harper for NL MVP, with a sprinkle of Ozuna. Might be time to take a look at the WAR board and talk more about 22 year old Elly De La Cruz. Would love to see some more discussion on him. Just realized this is not on discussion for this video... just saying.

The 1993 Finest Refractor of Frank Thomas hasn’t “hulked”… all the All-Star cards in that set had a green background to begin with.

Best about a 5 man show I get to watch my favorite 2 guys too bad I have to watch the 1 I dislike 😈

no more 90's talk please lmao

Alot of those cards look like crappy insert sets that they produce today. No offense, just not a fan

Great video, guys 😁