Everyone knows that nothing means more to me than a well-done card design. It doesn’t matter if it’s a “junk wax” product from 1989 or a brand new $200 per pack release. I stick by my opinion that cards were just much better looking during the days before the memorabilia movement.
Below is a 1998 Fleer Ultra Diamond Immortals insert. These die-cut, holographic foil cards were found at a rate of 1:288 packs. In eBay’s completed auctions you can find just one of these (Jeter), which sold for almost $25 dollars. That’s five dollars more than a 3-piece relic from Upper Deck Premier #’d to just ten copies.
Would you feel ripped off if a rare insert like this was one of your box “hits”?
To tell you the truth, I’m enjoying well designed inserts such as this one a heck of a lot more than the run of the mill white jersey swatches and nobody autographs that are in most products these days. Topps has done some really fun things with their inserts over the past couple of years. I’d much rather pull a Turkey Red insert or a Trading Card History insert than another Cameron Maybin bat card.
Back in the day, the one or two per case insert sets that Fleer did were ridiculously popular. If eBay were around back then, those cards would have sold for hundreds of dollars over and over again to player collectors. I still prefer a lot of Fleer and Fleer Ultra inserts sets from back then to what is being produced these days.
That card is cool looking
I love that card!!!
Very nice card ! That was the era of inserts. I miss those days immensely.
I’d love to see the card companies go back to making nicely designed and manufactured inserts as opposed to flooding products with more and more crappy memorabilia cards. I’d much rather bust open products from before the game-used craze. Cards on quality stock, with good designs and photography, and cool inserts like the one in this post — that would be perfect!
I would much rather get that card then a plain old white swatch of someones jersey. I know A&G is all the rave right now but Id take that Fleer card over A&G inserts anyday!
Very nice looking card…although it seems to me that the Ultra logo is a little out of place. Regardless, its a very well designed card and more interesting than a plain white/grey swatch of an average player.
It is a nice looking card. I’d love to see a production price breakdown of producing a card, especially a multi foiled/refractor verses a single jersey swatch card.
the 88 topps clothtest is up for sale on eBay, why dont i have $350!?! thought ud like to know
I’d rather buy 15 low level Canseco autographs than spend that money on one card.
Thanks for the info, though.
Gorgeous card!! This makes me wanna bust some old Ultra…
It’s the signs of change, something like this Jeter was prime at that time, but as the hobby evolved, so did taste. Any insert from the 90’s is a collection piece for a player collector, today this would be listed as a common insert reguardless of pack ratio.
I actually think that card looks pretty awful. Talk about gaudy and overstated. I wanted a baseball card not a bedazzled door knocker from 1829.
“Any insert from the 90’s is a collection piece for a player collector, today this would be listed as a common insert reguardless of pack ratio.”
MANY inserts from the 90’s pull down 100’s if not 1000’s of dollars to this day. 93 Finest refractors, 97 Totally Certified Gold, and 98 Donruss Crusades, just to name a few.
Now this is what i call a sick hit. Nothing beats a kick ass design. I sure hope there will be a shift in focus to concentrate more on design than how to squeeze more useless autogamers into a box so that it can sell for 3 digits.
tp be honest when i first saw that pic i thought you were ganna say how ugly it looked. i dont really like it.
I bought maybe 5 packs of 1998 Ultra but managed to pull the Alex Rodriguez Diamond Immortal card. It’s one of my best pulls ever.
sigh … no.