Your favorite collecting year?

Futureman

What was your favorite year for cards? Which year had your favorite sets or designs. We're talking all around here, not just one set, look at the whole hobby.

My choice would be 1997 (stretching into 1998). In 1997 Bowman Chrome came out for the first time (in baseball) and had a ton of good rookie cards. I didn't know that Chrome was going to come out, so I thought the regular Bowman was the main card. I was visiting my grandpa in Washington that summer when the regular Bowman cards had come out. I went with my family to a Mariners game and was convinced that Jose Cruz, Jr. was going to be the next Mariners' super star (with Junior Griffey and AROD). I wanted to get his Bowman rookie, but all the card shops in the area were sold out. My grandpa managed to find a shop that had one, so we went out there and I snapped it up for $20. What a deal! Still, because of the story behind it, it has good sentimental value. I did manage to pull an autograph out of all the Bowman packs I opened. It was of Kris Benson (the #1 pick that year). The 97 Bowman autographs have a really good design too. Mostly rookie prospects, and they were hard to come by (don't remember the odds, but they weren't very favorable). They reminded me of the design from the very early Bowman cards. Not a lot of flash, just the player, a nice design with the player's name, and then an autograph on the front. Though I didn't really collect it at first, the 1997 Upper Deck Legends set is really great, and holding up over the years.

More importantly, as a Cubs fan, was the rookie card of Kerry Wood coming out in the Bowman Chrome. Then the Wood rookie took off after his 20 K game in '98 and the Cubs made it to the playoffs for the first time since '89, when they tried and tried to blow it, but managed to make it in as the wild card anyway. The whole Big Mac-Sammy HR race of '98 was fun too.

I'm a Nebraska fan, and '97 was the last National Championship the Huskers won. I'm also a Bulls fan, so that was another championship. Overall it was just a good year for me in sports and cards. '97 probably isn't going to be a popular choice with some of the vintage folks, but looking back, I thought it was pretty good.

joelwalter

I agree, 1997 was the pinnacle of the modern day collecting year. Skybox Rubies, Precious Metal Gems, Bowman Chrome, SPX Grand Finales, Finest Embossed Refractors, Upper Deck Legends Autographs, Autographics..

Beautiful chase cards that didn't need hunks of jerseys and other crap to make them collectible

Golfcollector

Since you are a Nebraska fan, I am responding just so you can see my icon......

Go Big Red!

AlanAllen

1989. I was 15, had a paper route that paid me very well for a high school kid with no expenses, and everyone I knew collected cards. There were 4 full-time card shops in my town of 40,000, and a bunch more in the surrounding towns. The buzz of the Billy Ripken and Dale Murphy errors was unreal. Upper Deck consumed us all.

Then the football season started. Living in suburban Cleveland, baseball and baseball cards were always popular, but football was king. In 1989 we finally we had choices other than Topps. Of course our choice was Pro Set . We had to get the Refrigerator Perry and Brian Bosworth and the other errors, right? Topps was boring and didn't have any good rookies, and Score was cast aside because of the cold response their 1988 baseball set got. I must have bought 15 boxes of Pro Set that year, and about 15 packs of Score . Luckily I did pick up a factory set for about $12. That was also the year vintage football caught fire, and suddenly my boxes of football cards from 1980 up were goldmines (to a 15 yeard old kid).

Looking back, it's still my favorite year by far. The Score set is one of the 5 best football sets EVER for importance and player selection (along with 1935 National Chicle, 1948 Leaf, 1952 Bowman Large, and 1955 Topps All-American). 80's cards are also great to collect because they are easy to find, but still pretty tough and collectible in gem mint.

Second place: 1984. Mattingly, Fleer Update, Elway, Marino, USFL set... great year.

Joe

Spigrimace

I still like the look of '72 & '75 Topps Baseball best sandwiching 73 & 74 which may be the worst!

Dhjacks

1972.....the colorful year. I consider the 'year' to be 1972 baseball, 1972 football, and 1971 basketball.

goodriddance189

what a GREAT idea for a thread!

my fave has got to be 1994. i was 14 at the time. the summer of '94 was probably the greatest, most carefree time in my life. it was the first summer i helped out my dad at the office, so i had a ton of spending money. no school, no homework, and Soundgarden and Green Day had just come out with killer albums. when i wasn't working, i was at the card shop. i remember buying packs and packs of Flair Marvel, looking for those sweet foil PowerBlast inserts. every baseball product i remember was great. it was the "year of the parallel card." silver and gold signature cards, first day issues from Stadium Club, etc etc. Upper Deck also put out my favorite minor league set ever. i still have a set of those "Org. Player of the Year" cards lying around somewhere.

it was also my first and only National, held in Houston. my dad drove my friend and i up for a night, and we spent every cent we had on cards. totally overwhelming. i remember plunking down $50 for a 92 Fleer Team Leader Olajuwon (god those cards were through the roof back then). later in the summer, i got heavily in to football. i remember investing WAY too much money in Heath Shuler rookies (gulp). the Fleer football set, with an insert in each pack, is still awesome. i also discovered SportsLook that summer (hobby mag), which still remains my favorite hobby mag to this day.

a distant second would be 2001, when i got seriously back in to cards. a big reason i love '01 is cause i pulled a Classics Babe/Gehrig bat/jersey, which i sold for a cool $2000

MorrellMan

Great thread Futureman

1960 for me. The Dodgers came to town in '58 and I was allowed a handful of cards my brother gave me that he didn't want (some guy named Sandy Koufax, amongst others), '59 the Dodgers took it all, but I was finally given "permission" to collect freely in 1960 - spent the ENTIRE summer with my cards, at the corner drugstore buying nickle packs with my 50 cent a week allowance, going out back by the alley and opening 'em up, tossing the gum and wrappers (sadly), and I still remember the absolute surge of excitement when the packs turned out to be the new series! Whew! I'd buy sample packs first, and when they turned out to be the new series, I'd hustle back in and blow the entire wad - 9 packs for the remaining 45 cents. Then I'd start looking for empty bottles (3 cents a piece redemption). There were Fleer All Time Greats (which I loved, because I was obsessed with baseball history) and Leaf, which I didn't care much for (black and white, marbles - what's that?). At the end of summer, I had both Topps and Fleer football cards to buy and in between I was buying up Fleer Spins and Needles cards. I was in card heaven. And every once in a while, I'd get the card out of Bell Brand potato chip bags (sometimes my brother got it)! What a great year.

CandyFactory

I did this exact exercise when I first decided I was going to collect a set. After much thought, both on design and strangeness, was the
1938 Goudey set. Seems sort of odd to me that these cards weren't drawings of the players or black and white photos- they were a cartoon body with big real heads. ???

And why was there two of each player- some with graphics in the background (hi #'s) and some with plain backgrounds (low #'s).
And why did the numbers start in the 200's?

These are some of the strange things that attracted me to this set.

Ryan

goodriddance189

<< <i>And why did the numbers start in the 200's? >>



http://www.geocities.com/chrisstufflestreet/1938g.html

"Following a couple of lesser-quality sets and a year without producing a major baseball card set, Goudey came up with another classic in 1938. Because of its design, this issue is sometimes referred to by collectors as the "Heads Up" set. Possibly trying to re-establish some of its lost glory, Goudey even began numbering the cards in this set at #241, right where its 1933 set left off."

KallMaloneSay

I'd go with 1999. I was buying huge amounts of Bowman Chrome series 2 rookie lots before there were too many prospect collectors, so most rookies were selling about 40% of Beckett in the offseason (I made a ton of money on Josh Hamilton and Abraham Nunez). Modern grading was at its peak, I remember getting $150 and $180 for early BGS 9.5 Abraham Nunez and Wily Mo Pena Bowman Chrome RC's, even PSA 9's and BGS 9's brought in a solid little profit. The serial numbered RC was catching on after the 98 SP Authentic FB and BK, and 99 was a great year for football RC's with James, McNabb, Couch, Culpepper, etc. Jerseys were at the perfect mix of still being cool and were now becoming realistic to pull, still decent prices too. Vince Carter stuff was going crazy and the economy was rocking, so every middle aged white guy wanted to spend some of his abundance of wealth on cards. I was still in college and didn't have a ton of money, but what money I did have I had a great time with in the hobby.
Jason

helionaut

I'll say 2001. Rookie cards of Pujols and Prior, Blalock and others in a fine rookie class. Ichiro-mania. Topps's 50th anniversary year (though their base set design was underwhelming), they came out with Heritage, the nice painted Topps Gallery, an interesting experiment with "Fusion," and a frustrating Bowman Chrome where they switched to SP'd rookies. Stadium Club had its best design in years and Topps Traded came in packs. UD's basic set was a great design, they made autographs of Burleigh Grimes, Stan Coveleski, and Edd Roush available to the masses, and they began the $100 pack trend with "Ultimate Collection." Fleer had Platinum, which was very popular, and I love the Flair Avant-Cards. Donruss came back, though I wasn't too excited about it, although I still have a Class of 2001 Ichiro Bobblehead and I still covet Pujols and Prior Elite rookies. A huge number of sets (I still don't have Frank Thomases from all the base sets) but that just meant a tremendous variety of things to choose from. An excellent World Series weeks after 9/11. All my teams (the PHL teams) were either winning or at least coming out of the tunnel. At the end of the year I discovered the PSA set registry. Yep, that was a nice year to collect cards.

Second place is 1991, the year I got back into collecting after an 8-year hiatus from cards and largely baseball as a whole. Back from my junior year at college, I stopped into the comic store (never stopped comics) and on a whim I picked up a Beckett (Roger Clemens on the cover) just to check out the value of my stash back in the attic. Pretty amazing. Those cards are worth how much? They brought back the Leaf and Bowman names? What is "Stadium Club?" Who are all these new players? What is this Michael Jordan card in the Upper Deck baseball set? I found a card shop, bought 2 $5 Stadium Club packs, pulled the Frank Thomas, and was hooked.

EagleEyeKid

My favorite year was 1984 baseball and I was 15 years old at the time. I was mainly a comic book collector (minority among my friends...they all collected cards), and decided to venture into cards. Although I did buy cards in 1979 & 1980 ( I still have my Henderson RC ) from the ice cream truck that went thru my neighborhood everyday. I fell in love with the 84 Donruss cards because of the card design and Mattingly was hot hot hot. Was trying to pick up 83 Topps single at the comic shop (they sold cards too), and Tony Gwynn's RC was $1 - $2....they good ol days. Later that year in '84, these things called traded or rookie update sets came out and I bought 5 of the Topps Traded sets sitting next to the 20 Fleer Update sets that noboday touched...

Eagle

Allen

I am torn here- I loved 1996 I was in 7th grade and everyone bought there cards from me. I would mow grass all week to go to Sam's Club and buy boxes. I remember telling everyone "that Kobe kid is going places" and everyone laughed because I collected Steve Nash. I also loved those glory days of the High Dollar Jordan Inserts, my 95-96 Bordeless Mystery Finest Refractor Jordan was like the holy grail of the neighborhood. I remember watching Kobe win the dunk contest and the chills I got as I saw the 50 (49) Greatest Players standing on the court at once.

I also have to give 1998 Props I loved the home run race- I really didn't have to work that summer because Mark and Sammy rookies made me TONS of money. The home run race was amazing, people came from everywhere to give me $1 for my common mcGwires and Sosas which I had thousands of form a collection I had bought out the previous summer.

Man those were the days- joelwalter I agree with you on the 1997 comment. It is hard to pick one year I gotta say 96-97 Basketball all the way into the end of 1998 Baseball.

WinPitcher

I would have to say my favorite years are 65 and 66 Topps
Colorful and loaded with stars and HOF's plus I was only (nevermind) age.

ldferg

1979 topps. the design wasn't the best, but man the action shots of rose, bench, morgan, brett, etc...those were too cool.

murcerfan

1952-55 (the golden age)

1933

I also think a couple other eras were pretty important

1886-1889

1909-1914

bladefox

For me it's 1987, since I started collecting then. Also, my main source of cards came from a local Woolworth's, (before I found the nearest card shop) which I would buy after school (I was in high school). I got hooked on 87 Topps retro wood grain design (still my fave 80's Baseball design of all time). No Bonds, but I was happy getting the likes of Cory Snider, Rubin Sierra, Dwight Gooden from those packs.
In addition to Garbage Pail Kids, I also bought some 86-87 Fleer Basketball packs, which I kept that set in a rubber band before I found out how much the Michael Jordan RC was worth. I still remember putting a Magic Johnson sticker on my notebook!

ROCKDJRW

My favorite year was 1986. I was 10 years old and had just started collecting and all my neighbors were giving me old cards(mostly 70's). I had no idea of value but I was trying to collect all the Angels and White Sox cards. I can't tell you how many 35 cent(?) packs of 86 Topps I bought trying to get a Wally Joyner card. I had no idea he wasn't in the set and I didn't think to check a checklist. I also bought a ton of 1986 football cards to put together the Bears team. I didn't keep any of the other cards. I had several Gary Fencik cards but gave away all the non-bears. Oh well i'm sure none of those rookies became anything anyway I recieved a ton of the 1986 McDonalds football cards and I always scratched off the bottom. I wish I could tell you I bought a ton of 1986 Fleer basketball but I didn't buy a single pack. To top off this great year of collecting in for X-mas in 1986 I recieved a 1987 Topps factory set. I have been hooked ever since. The year started off great with the Bears winning the Super Bowl in January but I still can't erase the memory of the 86 Bears losing to the Redskins in the playoffs after going 14-2

royalbrett

For me, it was definitely 1984.
It was the first year I went nuts buying baseball cards. I put together the Topps, Fleer and Donruss sets totally from packs and boxes.
Too bad that I bought mostly Topps, and least of the Donruss. I still have plenty of all, though.
And not one single centered Joe Carter

Fabfrank

One thing I'm sure of. Some of you guys are a lot younger than I originally thought.

The 1989 Score set is one of the 5 best football sets EVER for importance and player selection

I totally agree with Joe here. This set is the one that resuscitated not only the football card market, but opened baseball collectors eyes to the other 2 major sports (hockey and basketball).

For baseball I would say 1984. I started collecting again in 1986, but 84 Donruss with the Mattingly RC was the set that really pumped life back into the hobby.

ldferg

i was also a big fan of the 1980 set...only because i liked the fully body pose of rickey henderson. i swamped all of those from my friends and i didn't have a clue who henderson was, i just liked the card. had a great action shot of ryan as well and the yaz.

sjeanblanc

I like the 1971 Topps, the cards look so cool in high grade with the black borders. I also like the 1956 Topps issue, but can't afford to collect those, at least in a grade that I would like to look at.

Scott Jeanblanc
jeanblanc@iconnect.net
Ebay UserId : sjeanblanc
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Collecting Nolan Ryan cards (68-94)

vikesfan40

Baseball

1960-1969 Topps
1984 Donruss
1989 Upper Deck

Football

1964 Philadelphia
1962 Topps
1969 Topps
1989 Score

RobE

<< <i>i was also a big fan of the 1980 set...only because i liked the fully body pose of rickey henderson. i swamped all of those from my friends and i didn't have a clue who henderson was, i just liked the card. had a great action shot of ryan as well and the yaz. >>



I was a big fan of this set.My collecting habit began in 1975/6 but really I went nuts in 79/80.

1980 I was awarded a partial vending case and a box of snickers. at the end of baseball season because I used to work the stands when my team was not playing.It was a time when collecting was out of control for everyone.