2012 Topps: "Rookie Patches" Insert Set
2002 Upper Deck Sweet Spot: "Rookie Gallery Jerseys" Insert Set
1997 Proline: "Emerald Autographs" Insert Set
2012 Topps: "Rookie Patches" Insert Set
Jay's Football Cards
My Least Favorite Sets
My Top 10 List (Updated April 14th, 2021)
My Least Favorite Sets list is a compilation of card sets or insert sets that the card manufacturers tried to sell as cards. In reality they were nothing more than sad, pathetic attempts to trick the collector. Needless to say, This is the list you don't want to be on
Sometimes I wonder how the heck these card manufactures allow this crap out the door? I mean really, look at the 1991 Fleer set. Its horrible. Fleer took a couple years off from the football card business to come back with this whopper and its predecessor the 1990 set. The 1990 set wasn't worth the effort, but it was light-years ahead of the 1991 set. What was Fleer thinking? More importantly, how did Fleer continue making cards after those two sets?
It seemed the only edge that Collector's Edge was giving to the collector were hints to shop elsewhere. Unlike Fleer, Collector's Edge started off very well, (See my Collector’s Edge page), but everything went downhill in a hurry. The 1996 Collector's Edge Advantage was a huge disappointment. The front of the card wastes more space than the 1991 Pinnacle set. With their use of colors, and swirls, and glitter on the card fronts, it made me think they were football cards right out of the 60s. Another problem Collector's Edge had was that they never could figure out how to properly use the cards backside. Topps was the master at this space utilization and Collector's Edge never could figure it out. Check out some of their cards and you'll see what I mean. The info is unorganized, inadequate and in my opinion incomplete. Collector's Edge went bankrupt in 2000 and I think we know why.
Even the King of the Football community, Topps, had a winner in 1990. They must have moved their whole budget into the Stadium Club project because nothing was left over for their flagship title. The 1990 set was nasty. But Topps stuck with their guns and produced cardboard stock cards for another year. Well, I guess for every 1997 Topps Gallery and 1996 Upper Deck SP you have to have a couple 1990 Topps and 1991 Fleer sets.
One thing is for sure, after looking at the list you'll notice that if card manufacturers totally reject or ignore the backside, they have a good chance of ending up on this list. And one more tidbit before we got on with the list, Collector’s Edge owns the top 4 spots on this list and 5 of the top 10. Not Good. While, Upper Deck, Playoff, Leaf and Donruss aren't here. So, away we go with the worst the hobby has to offer....... In my opinion.
The sets listed below are my Bottom Ten sets; (This list includes base and insert sets):
1) 1995 Collector’s Edge Excalibur “EdgeTech” Insert - Move over 1991 Fleer, I missed one. The 1995 Collector’s Edge Excalibur EdgeTech inserts have just moved to the top spot. So bad in fact, that they don’t even scan well. Just another day at the office for the design team at Collector’s Edge. And what # is that Bam Morris card, anyway? Unknown. All cards in this miserable set are unmarked. Why number them? Who's going to collect this crap anyway.
1995 Collector’s Edge Excalibur: “Bam Morris” EdgeTech #12
2) 1995 Collector's Edge Instant Replay "Edge Tech Die Cut" Insert - Collector’s Edge needed to throw out these cards along with its CEO!! After looking at this card, can you imagine the card designs that were rejected!
1995 Collector’s Edge Instant Replay: “Steve Young” Edgetech Die Cut #12
3) 1996 Collector's Edge Advantage "Crystal Cuts" Insert - Here's a question for you, What do you think Collector's Edge put on the back? The answer, the front....just reversed. That's about 5 minutes of design time, right there. Bad, just bad.
1996 Collector’s Edge Advantage: “Marcus Allen” Crystal Cuts #CC10
4) 1996 Collector's Edge Advantage - Thank God this release included the Game Ball cards because everything else from this set was a waste of time.
1996 Collector’s Edge Advantage: “Rodney Peete”#26
5) 1991 Fleer - I originally had this set at #1, now its at #5. Maybe it's growing on me over the years. Regardless, a player cut-out and pasted on a background of team colors, it must have taken the Fleer team a whole 6 minutes to come up with that design!!
1991 Fleer: “Kevin Mack” #38
6) 1990 Topps - I might be picking on Topps a little bit, but the Topps Brass just loved cardboard!! (Side Note: this same year, Pro-Set had a borderless card; The hobby's first.) What did Topps do? Topps went the other way; they expanded theirs.
1990 Topps: “Ben Smith” #84
7) 1995 Collector’s Edge Excalibur "TekTech" Insert: - Is this from the 60s? Pacific did this stuff with players pasted onto horrible backgrounds, (maybe I should have them on this list). This is just a hideous looking card. And again the card back is totally underutilized!
1995 Collector’s Edge: “Marshall Faulk” Tektech #5
8) 1996 Pinnacle "Double Disguise" Insert - Another card with a player pasted onto a silly background. What's on the back? The same silly background, but with a different player. The same player in some cases. Double Disguise? Double Awful is more like it.
1996 Pinnacle: ”Steve Young” Double Disguise #17
9) 1995 Pinnacle Club Collection - Seriously, who selects these players? A 261 card set doesn't sound bad until you consider that each player had 9 cards each. (Editor's Note: Now back in 1992 Proline did this very same thing with its Proline Profiles set, but Proline did it with style!) So, 261 cards, that’s 29 players selected with 9-cards each. Three teams had 2 QBs with 9-card sets; Miami, Philly, and Buffalo. One defensive player made the list; although his team's QB didn't. This set was just poorly thought out.
1995 Pinnacle Club Collection: “Emmitt Smith” #226
10) 1991 Pinnacle - Originally, I had this set down at #7, but a collector who visited the site convinced me that this set wasn't all bad. So, after some consideration, I moved it down a few notches.
I still think this set was bad. It didn't use the card to its fullest. The card has two huge unused areas on the front that are useless and you couldn't have it signed because the areas were black. I have to admit that the small inset picture usually gave us a very nice close up of the player, but the unused portions were too much to overcome in my opinion.
1991 Pinnacle: “Steve Broussard” #31
