Top 10 Insert Sets from the Junk Wax Era - 1990s Baseball Cards 

That's a great story, I can imagine it could be really confusing if you didn't understand the theme!

Ultra really did a put a lot more effort into their inserts game in the early to mid 90s that really separated them from the rest of the pack. The 90s are mostly remembered as the height of the junk wax era, but I agree that if you focus after 1992-3, the 90s really were a magical time. And I'm sure that you're not alone having no idea what the current companies are doing in terms of how many versions of each card are out there

My pleasure, two really great choices there and tough ones to collect!

Also bought the Elite Ripken auto many years ago

@@rightfieldcollectibles9021 nice, great one to have...wish I had it!

Thanks so much for watching and taking the time to leave a compliment! Really happy you enjoyed it!

That is not only a really great pull...but an even better trade! Way to go!

Thanks for sharing! I never collected Zenith, but I do remember those Z-Team cards were awesome. Gallery of Heroes was great too, but toward the end of my insert collecting days.

Thanks for watching and commenting, always happy to hear from other collectors that have the same great taste in cards!

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, that was always one of my favorite all time pro vision cards

Thank you so much! Appreciate the comment!

Thanks for checking out the video and commenting! I definitely remember the craze around the fleer sensations in 1992, especially the Big Hurt! I didn't include it simply because I didn't open a lot of those boxes that had that set, but it's a common belief that was the one that sparked the whole transition into chasing inserts.

Awesome, thanks for watching and commenting!

Great comment, I think I would agree if I were only picking a single insert from a single year. For this video I focused more on runs across multiple years, and I just didn't care as much for the Statistical Standouts before or after 1995, but in that one year it was perfect

BOOM! Glad you waited until the end for the big payoff!

That 91 Elite set was special, tough to find now. I think I'd say my favorite was 93 Elite, but that's just splitting hairs. I didn't really look for inserts after the late 90s, so I'll have to look up the 2002 one you mentioned!

Thank you!

I always love handing out homework! I'm sure there's lots of good Ryno cards in those sets. Thanks for watching and subscribing!

Totally agree, hard to differentiate at the top. Great years for design though like you pointed out. Which one would be your #1?

@@brutusonbaseball for the pure chase of them, elite would be number 1, followed by diamond kings and then pro visions. Those are the ones that made getting packs more worth it. Started about the same time as you

@@richardbianco9674 great choices

What a beautiful set that was! I've got another video in the works that is my top 10 parallel sets...sneak info that pinnacle museum will certainly be high on that list!

Thanks for watching and commenting!

Absolutely beautiful inserts! Only reason I didn't include them was because they came so late to the game and I already had quite a few ultra inserts I collected by then

Thanks for watching and commenting!

LOVE that parallel set myself, probably my favorite. I've got another video in the works of me favorite parallel sets from the 90s...that one just may be at the top!

Thanks for watching! That's a really great point that I totally forgot to highlight...and one of the biggest reasons those pro vision sets were so great on the 9-card binder pages! Thanks for pointing that out 😁

Great thoughts, I actually had the Denny's hologram grand slam set as part of this video in honorable mentions...but I took it out in editing because it technically wasn't an insert set. I made a video dedicated to that set though called "What Inspires You to Collect"... check it out!

That Iooss set was really pretty, tough to find though. Pinnacle going bankrupt was a sad day for me, I loved their sets

That's an interesting take about the late 90s being the golden age. Which inserts do you think were the best from that time period? For this list I tried to look at nostalgia and continuity between years, and to me the late 90s was a time of a lot of change and new insert designs. I guess it depends on your mindset, for me the golden age was the early to mid 90 when inserts were still new and evolving...by the late 90s the inserts were getting super fancy and expensive/rare, but I don't hear most collectors from that time referring to that period as the best. I think of that period as the time when I lost interest because there were just too many inserts everywhere, and the only ones worth anything were impossible to find.

@@brutusonbaseball the beginning of the 90’s was arguably still the junk wax era. 94-95 ish things transitioned. With so many products ya and manufacturers competition was real. So many technologies were introduced and peaked in the late 90’s. Innovation. Diecuts, holograms, wood cards, acetate, holo foil, refractors, low serial numbering, 1/1’s, laser and etching, dufex, parallels, and on card autos. No expense was spared. Right before the advent of expensive boxes, online, etc Was still all avail at shops and stores.

If you like “runs” I’d say the platinum medallion, essential credentials, PMG, mirror golds, diamond producers, legacies, are just some examples. In 01, things quickly transitioned to more expensive boxes, less cards. Internet took over. Cards became nothing but relics and sticker autos. And very little foil /good design. It’s THE era for basketball cards and I’d argue the same for baseball. Yes, it lacked key rookies, but the mac/sosa run, and the many HOF’ers made this era.

I’d like to think that it wasn’t the cards that made people lose interest….it was the strike and age. Many in know that got out did so as it was their HS and College years. We all know what took precedent there. There’s a HUGE 90’s group on Facebook and the golden age of inserts are from early 90’s to early 00’s. But primarily late 90’s

All really great points, thanks for sharing! I think you hit on some things about why the early to mid 90s for me were the "golden age". The early 90s were still the junk wax era, but 92-93 was really the beginning of insert mania and I have a lot of nostalgia for that time period. The 94-97 period for me was kind of the height of my collecting days, but at the same time it was a period where a lot of fans were lost because of the strike. For whatever reason, I wasn't one of those, but I do know I lot of people left the hobby during that time. I started university in 97, so those late 90s years were definitely when I stepped away because of time and also the money required to chase the more rare cards. I will also say that the term "insert" is also different for me because I wouldn't put platinum medallion, credentials, mirror golds, or anything like that in the insert category. To me those are parallel sets...and yes I am planning to release my top 10 parallel sets video in the next month or two that may just have a few of those cards you mentioned in there!

You're quite right, this is the time period where the manufacturers started targeting adults with disposable income rather than the younger generation