Presented By All Touch Case There’s always a “next big thing” in the hobby. A name everyone is talking about, a card everyone feels like they need to have, and a window that feels like it’s closing faster by the day. The pressure builds quietly but consistently—buy now or miss out, act now or regret it later. What gets lost in that urgency is the reality underneath it. For every player who becomes a cornerstone
There are certain sets that don’t just bring back memories. They bring back a feeling. For me, 1990 Fleer is one of those sets. It captures everything I loved about collecting during that era – the bright colors, the weird little quirks, the endless subsets, the stickers, the stars, the rookies, and the simple excitement of opening a pack with no agenda other than seeing what was inside. Some of the more famous error cards in this set have become
As a child, I remember the anticipation that came with opening packs of baseball cards. Every pack carried the possibility of pulling my favorite player. Completing the set for the year felt like the ultimate achievement. The goal wasn’t profit. It wasn’t status. It was completion. Collecting was simple back then. The excitement came from the chase, but the meaning came from finishing something you started. A binder page filling up card by card. A
Donruss is and always will be one of my favorite baseball card brands because of the iconic subsets it introduced to the hobby. There was no need to chase an insanely rare parallel, autograph, or hobby-exclusive variation to land yourself a stunning Diamond Kings. And yet, if you pulled one of these beauties from a pack of Donruss, you instantly felt like the king or queen of the schoolyard. What made Diamond Kings so special?
If you are of a certain age, you will likely agree that collecting “the rainbow” once meant collecting 1989 Donruss baseball cards. Every package you opened was a colourful tribute to a magical time in baseball. You’d flip through a pack and find names like Dave Stieb, Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Don Mattingly, Cal Ripken Jr., Andrew Dawson, Ozzie Smith, Mark McGwire, Fred McGriff, and maybe even a couple of rookies named Ken Griffey Jr.,
I have had several favorite teams throughout my lifetime. The New England Patriots (before they won any Super Bowls), the Edmonton Oilers, the Los Angeles Kings, the Toronto Maple Leafs (we’re on a break), and even the old school New York Yankees players that I never got to witness on a field, like DiMaggio and Gherig. But there has been one team that has been in my heart quite literally since the day I was
There comes a time in one’s life when we must admit the truth that our moms did not want to admit: We all have our favorites. In the context of card collecting, we all have our favorite players. I remember my first favorite player: Wayne Gretzky. It was kind of hard for Wayne Gretzky to NOT be your favorite player if you were a Canadian kid watching hockey in the early 1980’s. The Stanley Cups
The picture below includes all of the things that 10-year-old me wanted in 1989, save a bag of Hostess potato chips (classic BBQ flavor please) and a Dr. Pepper: two Jose Canseco rookie cards, a Jose Canseco autograph, a Jose Canseco 1989 Donruss, and for Jose Canseco to play for my beloved Toronto Blue Jays. That’s how I know I am a collector and not a successful card flipper/dealer: it’s about feelings. You see, according
2025 was a year I jumped right back into collecting after an on and off relationship with the hobby for the past three decades. But this year was different. Gone are the days of buying a $50 wax box and ripping it open, experiencing the joy of pulling all of the current year’s rookies and stars. $50 these days gets you a blaster pack with a handful of inserts/parallels that many toss aside, the misguided
