1990 Score Superstar PSA graded 10

Year: 1990

Manufacturer: Score

Card Set: Score Superstars Box Set

Card Number: 92

Card Attributes: Graded

Grading Company: PSA

Grade: Gem Mint 10

Over the years I've never really gotten into graded cards.   I can count on one hand the number of graded cards I've actually purchased, but quite a few year's ago a fellow Yount collector, Matt,  sent me a ton graded Younts while trying to pare down his collection.  Matt has the highest ranking Yount collection on the PSA registry and about a decade ago he contacted me asking if I'd like some of his extras that didn't make the grade for his registry set.  Not to look a gift horse in the mouth I graciously accepted and 99% of the graded Yount cards in my collection have come from him.  The cards he sent were all in beautiful shape, but most did not make the grade to gem mint 10.  However mixed in the lots were a couple cards that did.  One of those cards was this 1990 Score Superstars.  

The 1990 Superstars set was a box set of 100 cards.  It's about the size of the old Topps Traded sets. And like all sets from this era it was grossly overproduced, however the nice thing about the box sets from the 80s and 90s is they are chocked full of superstars and now HOFers.     

1993 Score Select

Year: 1993

Manufacturer: Score

Set: Select

Card Number: 22

Card Type: Base

The first year of the Select brand would just so happen to be the last year Robin played in the league.  Robin would have plenty of cards in early set in 1994, but sadly he didn't get a card in the 94 Select series, which was a lot cooler looking than this base set, although there are some cool inserts in the set Robin isn't featured in any of them.  We do get a great photo of Robin at bat and there is a nice quote from coach Garner on the back, but it's slim picking on any stats back there.  There is I nice back photo as well, which must be what makes this Select.

1991 Score

Year: 1991

Manufacturer: Score

Set: Flagship Baseball

Card Number: 525

Man I opened a lot of 91 Score.  And when I mean a lot I mean I put together 2 or 3 sets and still have a 8000 count monster box full of dupes.  Yeah that's alot. Of course the big card in the set is Chipper Jones rookie card.  But when you want to talk about an overproduced this is a great set to bring to the table.  This would be Score's 4th year putting out a baseball set.  Overall the design is simple, but I do like cards with full career stats.  And of course you get a nice back photo as well.  91 Score was a monster set, beating Topps by over 100 cards!  And while the base cards are kind of meh.  There are couple sub-sets sprinkled in that are pretty cool like the K-Man, Rifleman, Master Blasters, No-Hit Club, the American Flag (Armed Forces Tribute) Card, the Bo Breaker, the Awards cards and my favorite the Dream Team cards.  There's also a nice Father/Son Griffey card in the set.  All of those sub-sets could easily have just been inserts if such an ideal had been widely accepted at the time.  

1990 Ace MVP Pin

Year: 1990

What: ACE Novelty MVP Pin

Full card w/ 1990 Score 

I ended up picking this up along with my copy of Baseball America about a month back.  This was another purchase from Yount megaseller wfbookman off of eBay. I had been looking for one of these and it seems like all of a sudden the market was flooded.  And not just the pins but full unopened retail packaging.  This looks fresh from the box as the punch out for the hanging display is still intact.  As a bonus the pin was packaged with  Robin's 1990 Score card. I know from other examples that there is nothing on the back of the pin card.  

There are a ton of these to collect and every team has at least 4 players to choose from.  Might have to chase those other 3 Brewers to complete the set.  Robin is also included in the 1991 and 1992 Ace pin sets.

1993 Score - 1992 Season Highlight

Year: 1993

Manufacturer: Score

Card Set: Baseball

Card Number 519

Card Type: Base (sub-set)

Subset: 1992 Season Highlight

Last post I featured Robin's newest card in the collecting world honoring one of his greatest playing achievements. So lets take a time warp about to 1993 and feature a card celebrating the same feat.  Score's early baseball sets were huge and the reason they were so huge was sub-sets like this one.  Insert sets were just starting to gain popularity, but not at Score.  And while most of Scores designs from the late 80's and early 90's were fairly boring, they did have some great sub-sets.

At the time Robin would become the 17th player to reach the 3000 hit milestone.  Since then 12 other players have joined the club.  Most recently Derek Jeter in 2011 and Alex Rodriguez this year. 

1990 Score Superstars

Year: 1990

Card Manufacturer: Score

Set: Superstars Box Set

Card Number: 92

Card Type: Base

This cards came as part of a 100 card box set.  Much like the update sets put out by Topps, Fleer, and Score.  There are some great stars in the checklist and since this was 1990 this set was majorly overproduced and is still relatively cheap to pick up and so are singles.  This is a pretty typical Score card design from the era.  

Apparently Score didn't hire fact checkers, or they just didn't care.  The back of the card features a nice large head shot of Robin and a small write up.  Too bad Robin was not the starting shortstop for Angels at 18. At least they have him on the right team for this set.

1990 Score McDonalds

Year: 1990

Card Manufacturer: Score

Card Set: McDonald's Baseball

Card Number: 25

Card Type: Food Issue Premium

I'm a sucker for food issue cards.  The are my favorite oddball.  If your a Yount collector this is probably one of the toughest food issues to find.  Not impossible, just a little tougher to track down and due to it's scarcity it can get a little pricey (but not too bad around $10).  According to the write up over at Baseballcardpedia.com these cards were available from 11 McDonald's stores in rural Oregon and Idaho and only given out for 3 weeks.  Cards came as a give away from buying fries and a drink and you got 4 cards per pack.  The full set has 25 cards and you can see the full checklist at the above link.

Overall the card itself if pretty handsome in hand.  I like the color fade effect on the front of the card and there is a nice action shot of Robin on the front.  There is also a nice large head shot on the back and full stats and Score still managed to squeeze in a great write up.

1988 Score

Year: 1988

Card Manufacturer: Score

Set: Baseball

Card Number: 160

Card Type: Base

I can remember buying a ton of this back in 1988.  Mainly because it was new and cheap. The set had different colors depending where in the set the card was numbered.  If you happen to have a set in a box it has an interesting rainbow effect.  Robin's in the blue section and the gold or yellow coloring of the stars and Score logo work well with the Brewers team colors.  Over all the design is pretty safe, but I think you can say the late 80's and early 90's card designs weren't groundbreaking.  I do really like the action batting shot and Score introduced the back photo as well.  Something that would be used by Upper Deck the next year and would become the norm around the industry  especially for the higher end sets.  I also like that there is no wasted space on the back of the card and there is even a really great write up down below the stats.  The only problem I had or have with this set is the card numbers are so small, that's something Score would improve upon the next year.

1992 Score Cooperstown Card

Card Manufacturer: Score

Card Set: Score Baseball

Year: 1992

Card Number: B11

Card Type:Bonus Factory Set Insert

Insert Set: Cooperstown Card

A great card and a card that would look great autographed. 

The early 90's mark a big shift in the trading card universe.  At the time autographed cards were starting to be inserted randomly in products and to say that they were highly sought after is an understatement.  But it also marks the time when the industry was really insert oriented.  With multiple insert sets being inserted alongside base cards and we also see the emergence of the parallel card.  

These Cooperstown Cards were a bonus in the factory set.  They were part of a larger set sandwiched in the 17 card checklist between the World Series highlights and Joe DiMaggio and Carl Yastrzemski commemorative cards.

There were 4 Cooperstown Cards, Robin's, and then ones for Ozzie Smith, Carlton Fisk, and Dave Winfield, all who were still active players at the time.

1994 Score Gold Rush

Card Manufacturer: Score

Card Set: Score Baseball

Year:  1994

Card Number: 13

Card Type: Base Parallel

Parallel Set: Gold Rush

I figured I'd throw another 1994 parallel card out here. These were all the rage too. As collector's we were craving anything different from the over produced base cards of the late 80's and 90's and the card companies delivered with their parallels.  Topps had it's gold foil, which turned into the monster that Topps parallels are to day, Donruss had it's Special Edition, Upper Deck had silver scripts, and Score had Gold Rush.  According to the Standard Catalog these were inserted one per pack. 

Score eventually became an imprint of Donruss and so did Pacific which all eventually became Panini, which keeps the foil board cards alive today.  These are pretty nice card and the scan doesn't do it justice.  

Robin retired at the end of the 1993 season, but was featured in all the major 1994 early releases, so while Robin missed the circus that the insert and parallel revolution would become we do get a few nice examples for the collection.