I love picking up unique cards from the junk wax era. This Griffey is from the 1990 Donruss Learning Series set. This was a 55-card set produced not for retail, but for use in elementary and middle school classrooms to teach kids about colors, numbers, sports, and baseball card collecting basics. Only 319 of these have been graded by PSA across all grades. Great image of “The Kid” and a sneaky scarce card in a voluminous sea of junk wax!

Published March 20, 2026 | By Martina F, Collectors MD Community Member

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 part of hobby lore. Hall of Famers like Cal Ripken Jr., who was misspelled as “Ripkin” on the Players of the Decade subset, and George Brett, whose card incorrectly stated on the back that he had “10 .390 hitting seasons”, gave the set a little extra personality. There were also some sneaky rookie-related gems tucked in there too, including a Major League Prospects card featuring Kevin Maas, who at the time felt like a huge rookie name. That was part of the fun back then. You never knew what kind of oddity, future star, or weirdly memorable card might be waiting in the next pack.

The 1990 Fleer set was also the first and only time Fleer produced a Canadian edition. It may have been printed in smaller numbers, but because there is still so much of this set around, collectors haven’t exactly treated the Canadian version like buried treasure. So no, I’m not sitting on my retirement plan. But that’s fine with me. The value in this set was never just about money anyway. For me, it was about the look, the feel, and the vibe. It felt like summer. The thicker card stock was a noticeable step up from the year prior, and the whole product just had a charm to it that always stuck with me.

Sometimes the sets that stay with us aren’t the most valuable ones. They’re the ones that felt alive when we first opened them. They remind us that collecting used to be, and still can be, about delight, memory, and the small details that make a product feel personal.

Fleer always seemed to understand how to make a set feel full. In 1990, that meant All-Stars, League Standouts, Soaring Stars, and a 12-card World Series subset that could only be found in the factory set format. On top of that, you had subsets like Players of the Decade, SuperStar Specials, and Major League Prospects. There was always something extra to chase, but it never felt overwhelming. It felt exciting. Every pack felt like it had layers to it.

And then there were the trivia cards with stickers on the front. The team stickers were such a perfect touch. I saved mine, and I still have absolutely no regrets about using one of those retro Blue Jays stickers on my work laptop. Honestly, I’d argue that should count for something in a job interview. Who else is walking around with a 1990 Fleer sticker on their computer? Not many. That kind of flex means something.

That’s why the Junk Wax Era still means so much to so many collectors. People love to reduce it to overproduction, low value, and mountains of cardboard. But that misses the point entirely. The magic was in the accessibility. You could buy a few packs and instantly be surrounded by stars, subsets, stickers, oddballs, and all kinds of little easter eggs. It wasn’t about maximizing ROI. It was about the joy of the experience.

For me, 1990 Fleer embodied what the hobby was always meant to be. It was colorful, fun, slightly ridiculous, and completely memorable. It reminded me that happiness in the hobby didn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes it was just opening a pack and allowing the experience to matter more than the outcome.

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The cards we cherish most aren’t always the rarest ones. Sometimes they’re the ones that made collecting feel pure and joyful in the first place.

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Published March 10, 2026 | By Martina F, Collectors MD Community Member

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? For starters, they were genuine works of art captured on baseball cards. Featuring official Cooperstown Hall of Fame artist, Dick Perez, these mini canvases stood out amongst the modern photographs of our favorite baseball players. What made them even more captivating was that Mr. Perez didn’t limit his artwork to baseball’s biggest stars. He also brought beloved team favorites to life – players who might otherwise have been overlooked by collectors. This was especially meaningful for fans of smaller market teams.

Diamond Kings were originally part of the standard Donruss base set from 1982–1991. From 1992–1996, they transitioned into an insert set with a shorter, but still attainable print run. For me, the golden era was when collectors could pull them right from the main base set. It made these miniature works of art accessible to every collector and exposed an entire generation to true baseball artistry.

The artwork says it all. Bold colors, painted brushstrokes, and that unmistakable design made Diamond Kings impossible to miss in any stack of cards.

I vividly remember exactly how I organized my sets; with the Diamond Kings at the front of my binder, followed by the Rated Rookies, and then the remainder of my collection sorted by team. As a child, these cards were some of the first true art pieces I encountered that didn’t require standing at a distance in a gallery or museum. Instead, I could study the artwork up close and learn more about the player by flipping the card over.

These weren’t just baseball cards – they were pieces of archived history from America’s Greatest Pastime. Consider the power of that, especially in communities where access to art galleries or art programs is limited or underfunded. These cards allowed an entire fanbase to experience the brilliant work of a renowned artist. As an educator, I can’t help but reflect on the positive impact of that type of exposure. It’s one of the reasons I often showcase Diamond Kings cards to my students when teaching about the 1980s.

As intentional collectors, we deeply value nostalgia – the moments, the memories, the connections that first drew us into the world of collecting. For me, few things capture that feeling quite like the regal Diamond Kings subset. They remind us that collecting is just as much about beauty and storytelling as it is about the players and stats – not just comps, hype, and the chase for the next big hit.

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Sometimes the most valuable cards aren’t the rarest ones – they’re the ones that first made us fall in love with collecting.

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Published February 16, 2026 | By Martina F, Collectors MD Community Member

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., Gary Sheffield, or Randy Johnson, among others. What a time to be alive!

The 1989 Donruss set consisted of 660 base cards, issued in one series, and included subsets like MVP, Diamond Kings, and the favorite Rated Rookies. Because of a variety of printing errors, there are some cards that have up to 4 different variations. I call those “unintentional rainbow parallels”, so that I come across as fancy and very knowledgeable to the young card dealers of today. (I’m kidding, but if you want to try it, let me know how it goes.)

All joking aside, the 1989 Donruss set suffered from many of the same printing debacles that 1980’s cards were known for: off-centered cards, miscut cards, errors with where a period or comma was placed, and misquoted stats. None of that mattered to me as a 10-year-old girl. I just wanted to collect the entire set – “the rainbow”!

My first Daily Reflection recounted how I chased after the Jose Canseco card all summer, and to this day, every time I see a package of 1989 Donruss, I am tempted to purchase it. We are used to so many shiny, sparkly, numbered/autographed/short printed cards these days, that when you open a box or pack of cards from the Junk Wax era, you can’t help but feel the magic in their simplicity.

The extent of the excitement or “chase cards” came from the Diamond Kings subset, and you felt like the Queen (or King) of the schoolyard if you managed to get all of them before the other kids did. Diamond Kings were so special. In fact, years later when they became more short-printed or inserts, I still really dug the design and Dick Perez’s iconic artwork that was featured on the cards.

Are there more valuable sets? Absolutely. Are you going to retire if you finally manage to get all the Diamond Kings in 1989 Donruss? Absolutely not. But are you going to have a great time assembling a colourful rainbow that won’t cost you a fortune in a set filled with Hall of Famers? Totally.

Do you have any favorite cards from the 1989 Donruss Set? Reach out and let me know!

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Not every collection needs to be valuable to be meaningful. Some just need to feel like home.

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