Topps Throwbacks: Unpacking 1990's Topps MLB Booster Packs
A collector's journey
Like many children of the 1990s my collecting impulses were influenced and financed by my father. While there is some regret in not leaving some Star Wars and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures in their blister packs, the baseball cards were opened without such regard. Because as we would learn later, the inherent value would continuously sink, especially as the market was flooded with new brands and fancy inserts.
My father collected every Topps set from 1985 to 2004, stopping when he became frustrated with the deluge of new cards and brands. He bought the sets at the end of every year, for around $40, and packs throughout the year just for kicks. I only acquired the packs. That is, until he passed late last year, when I acquired his entire collection. Due to the lack of storage space in my collecting closet, I sold them all. There weren't any individual cards worth anything, unless I wanted to pay to have them graded, but the collector at the flea market was enthused by my father's organization (everything was in binders, in order).
And while I did stop collecting baseball cards in the 90s (transitioning to Magic: The Gathering cards, Gundam models, LEGO sets, Funko Pops, and a slew of other random crap), I still hold that nostalgia, mostly because I still watch and love baseball (a game I also played until college). So when I found these unopened blister packs in a separate location when going through the rest of my father's belongings (including about 500 science fiction novels), I felt like that 13-year old kid again.
And since they really aren't worth anything — an unopened pack of 1994 Topps MLB cards is going for between $2 and $9 on eBay — I've decided to open them for us all to enjoy.
1991 Topps
According to Sportscardpro.com, the entire boxed set is worth about $10. I sold mine for $20. As for individual cards, there are a few error cards in the double digits, including a Nolan Ryan blank front error, and a Mark Whitten error card going for about $30 ungraded.
While I did pull the non-error version of this card, in the few packs I opened that was the only moment of pause. There were no rookie cards (Chipper Jones would have been a rookie in this set) and nothing else of substance. But it did feel nice to thumb through these classic cards, all in perfect condition, and now headed into a card box to be shoved under the bed until my kids throw them out.
1992 Topps
This was a very unremarkable year in baseball card collecting, as far as value. Nothing tops $2 as a single, ungraded card. There were a few rookies, but the only redeeming value of the 1992 set was collecting cards of your favorite players. For me, at that time, it was Mark Grace and pretty much any Atlanta Braves pitcher.
Unfortunately I didn't pull any Jim Thome cards from any of these packs, any year. This was my all-time favorite player and up until last year (when our house flooded) I had a binder full of roughly 400 Jim Thome cards. But I did pull a checklist (honestly, one of the best non-player cards ever) and a reminder that Deion Sanders played baseball.
1993 Topps
1993 is when things started to change with the structure of baseball cards. Not in massive ways, but the cards got smoother, no longer the paper-feel cardboard of years past. Instead, these were glossy and stuck together. We started to find alternate versions of cards embossed with reflective gold, a precursor to the foil cards that would eventually make their way into packs.
This is also the year that Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins entered the league, and there's an alternate set of cards with a little gold seal. Topps Gold suddenly became a thing, and a few of those cards are worth a few bucks.
But the most notable thing about the 1993 set was The Captain himself, Derek Jeter. This set contained his 1992 Draft Pick card, with a resell value of anywhere from about $6 for the standard card, to upwards of $150 for the Marlins Inaugural version. I did not pull any of these cards. Instead I pulled draft pick cards for a selection of who-dat players, none of which made nearly a fraction of the impact on the game that Jeter did.
1994 Topps
Aside from having to peel these cards apart from one another, and then making the Robin Ventura and Nolan Ryan cards fight, I didn't pull a Billy Wagner rookie card, which might have been worth about $30 at grade nine. Topps continued with the Topps Gold alternates in this set, which were a little easier to read than the year before. But other than that, a very uninspiring and drab set.
Other than the gum. There was gum in these packs. It was inedible and grey, but the 16 year-old tried it anyway. It was spat out just as quickly. 31 year-old gum. Gross.
Bonus: A single pack of 1988 Topps
This one is just pure nostalgia. Dale Murphy, Kirby Puckett, Wade Boggs, Bobby Witt, totally kitsch bright yellow All-Star cards highlighted a great year in collecting baseball cards for a Gen-X kid. You'll find a lot of graded cards from the 1980s, because this is the generation that loves storing and displaying its core memories whenever possible. As for this single pack? Nothing of value, cardboard with pictures and a piece of gum that was as brittle as a sand dollar.
There might be some discussion in the baseball card community as to whether these blister packs were worth more closed than open, but that just might be a dash of hopeful optimism. Baseball cards have always been worth more as a collectors item for baseball fans IMO. And I sure do miss paying less than $2 for a pack of cards.
And while there are plenty of investments to be found in baseball card collecting, it's not in this particular selection of Topps MLB booster packs. But stay tuned because I just found an unopened retail box of 1991 Fleer baseball cards.
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