One of the collections I bought last year contained a couple of binders filled with various insert sets. I enjoy theorizing about how the collection that I bought came to be. Today let’s look at 1994 Fleer Ultra insert sets. Did this person buy packs and boxes to put together these sets? Did they buy singles at shops and card shows to pice these sets together? Maybe they traded with other collectors to fill their needs. I supposed they could have bought the sets off eBay, but that doesn’t sound as fun as the other options.
1994 Ultra came in two series. The insert sets that were part of the collection I bought are all from Series I. Boxes contained 36 packs and each pack contained 1 insert.
First up is the Second Year Standouts. This is a 10 card set that was inserted at a rate of 1:11 packs. This means it would take 110 packs or 3 boxes to complete this insert set and that’s if you didn’t get any dups.
The biggest name in this set is Mike Piazza, followed by fellow 1993 Rookie of the Year award winner, Tim Salmon. I remember Aaron Sele and Jeff Connie being popular for a bit, but Piazza was and still is the biggest name in this set.
With this being a 10 card set, the previous owner chose to display it in one 9 card sheet with the 10th card on the back. How do you store 10 card sets when you put them in sheets? Do you double them up or start a new page? If you start a new page, do other cards get put in that second page?
Growing up I didn’t purchase enough boxes to put together many complete insert sets. I bought packs and boxes way more than I do these days, but even then I would rarely focus on completing full insert sets. I’d just buy the singles of players that I liked. So deciding how to store a 10 card insert set back in 1994 wasn’t something I had to deal with. These days when I come across a 10 card insert set, I Will give it two pages and don’t fill in the rest of the page, which bothers me, but it would bother me more to have other cards on that second page so I leave it vacant. How about you?
