Donruss Elite insert cards from the 90's
 

Let's use this thread to post pictures of those ELUSIVE Donruss Elite inserts from the 90's.

After 30+ years of trying to pull a 1991 Donruss Elite insert from a pack, I FINALLY GAVE UP and bought one.

I've been fascinated by these cards ever since they were first listed in the Beckett price guide in 1991...while all the other cards in the 1991 Donruss set were valued between $0.10 and $4.00, those Elite's were listed at $200+. I was starstruck. I never pulled one. None of my friends ever pulled one. Anytime I've come across cheaply available 1991 Donruss wax boxes over the last 30 years, I've always purchased them with the goal of pulling an Elite.

I'm not sure I've ever actually seen one in person until I opened my mail today.

At 10,000 copies each they aren't particularly rare...there are always many available on eBay at any given time. But due to print runs, I know the odds are that to pull one you would have to open several CASES of cards (I've opened lots of boxes, but not THAT many).

It was kind of anti-climactic to get one on ebay. It sort of felt like cheating. I held out as long as I could. And I'll probably still buy boxes if I come across them cheaply.

But the kid in me is thrilled to finally OWN A DONRUSS ELITE CARD!

As a lifelong Royals fan, it was obvious which one I was going to buy. Here it is in all it's shiny glory. I think I might crack it out. (let's see yours!)

Attachment 530185

Just saw this nice writeup from Beckett. It walks through the evolution of the Elite insert sets in the 90's. Informative.

Interesting that one estimate for the 1991 inserts was that they landed one every 75 boxes! No wonder I never pulled one.

https://www.beckett.com/news/insert-...-of-the-1990s/

What a great insert set.

I built the '91 and '92 Donruss sets from packs back in, well, '91 and '92 and never sniffed an Elite.

30 years go by, parts of the collection get sold off, but I decide to turn my attention to junk wax to take it easy on my wallet and just have some fun.

I set about building these sets again from wax boxes. I order 2 1992 Donruss boxes (forget the series - maybe one of each) about a year ago. EACH ONE contained an Elite - One was Gooden, forget what the other one was. That has to be some sort of record for buying multiple boxes and each containing one!

So many of those inserts of the era were super-hot then yet readily acquired for a pittance now. Amazing deflation.

Not to change the subject of the thread, but a perfect example of the hot/not inserts would be the 1992 Fleer Rookie Sensations - that Thomas was HOT in 1992!

That is amazing luck! Did you order any more boxes from that same seller? I wonder if he had a "hot case" or something, where every box had an Elite?

Also, I like the idea of building junk wax sets for a cheap alternative to a vintage set build. I've been trying to decide on a similar project. I recently completed my 1952 Bowman set...which was a lot of fun to put together, but not exactly cheap. So I'm considered a junk wax project. Maybe a complete run of the Donruss Diamond Kings subsets?

Yeah, there were all sorts of interesting hot inserts back in the day. But the Elites have really held some value...high grade copies of most cards will still run over $100 (and mid-grade copies like my 7.5 Brett still go for around $40). Those are pretty strong prices for cards from the junk wax era with a 10,000 print run.

I was also a fan of the Fleer Pro-Vision inserts. I'm actually slowly opening a box of 1991 Fleer right now, and it's still fun to pull a Pro-Vision. They aren't really valuable, but pulling one of those hand drawn cards with black borders really stands out amongst all those solid yellow borders. I'm almost through the box and I've pulled three so far...which feels about right. Definitely more attainable than the Elites!

I love the chase of the Elites, however never found them as visually stunning as the reputation. Their eventual more beautiful replacement as "The" Donruss chase was Crusade and those prices are still completely insane.

Nope - never returned to the same seller.

Yeah - maybe 6 years ago or so I took a long break from vintage and focused on getting back some of the cards I had way back in the day - I built sets of all Donruss, Fleer, Score and UD from 81-92 - it really was fun and, for the most part, cheap.

That said I've returned to vintage and in the last 12 months have put together complete sets of 68 and 67 Topps, so the wallet is getting sore again.