Blast from the past hockey INSERT top 10 list from Sports Card Magazine July 1996

[Fatty McGee]

Man, I remember people cracked cases like crazy for those Artist proofs. It was nuts. And ya, $200 for a star Artist Proof wasn't unheard of. Keep in mind, it was one of the first times anything like that had been done and people wanted those cards bad because of the perceived scarcity. No ebay or internet to see that three were available and you got to pick the one with the lowest price.

You had to go to a show to find the card you wanted and if none of the dealers had it, you were out of luck. Then, if you got to find the card you wanted, you had to walk home in the snow uphill - both ways!

[pwaldo]

Man, I remember people cracked cases like crazy for those Artist proofs. It was nuts. And ya, $200 for a star Artist Proof wasn't unheard of. Keep in mind, it was one of the first times anything like that had been done and people wanted those cards bad because of the perceived scarcity. No ebay or internet to see that three were available and you got to pick the one with the lowest price.

You had to go to a show to find the card you wanted and if none of the dealers had it, you were out of luck. Then, if you got to find the card you wanted, you had to walk home in the snow uphill - both ways!

This is correct and gives context to people who weren't collecting at the time. In 1996 there wasn't many cards that were more limited than the Artist Proof parallels. Cards if they were limited to 1000 were super rare and hard to find. People paid top dollar because they were the top cards at the time. If you collected those guys these were the "it" cards. Then the companies saw the hoopla and they all began to make the print runs smaller and smaller. Now a card limited to 1000 was scarce because you had cards #D to 500 in everything. Then it was the 100 barrier. 50 soon followed then 25 and then 1/1 cards. It happened in a short period of time and these cards were hit with a tidal wave of price readjustment.

That's also not taking into account that happening at the same time was something called eBay which would forever change the landscape of all collecting not just cards. A very volatile time that resulted in a lot of change for the industry.

[Drewk86a]

The "average" print run for a serial numbered card in 1995-96 was 3,778.

This includes the 19 serial numbered card versions, but does not include the minor league / non-NHL cards (classic, signature rookies). Much of the damage comes from the Donruss / Leaf releases. Other companies did parallels and inserts, and some did "one of..." stated print runs. But these are the only ones (according to the inventory) that were serial #'d.

Serial #'d to 10,000
Donruss Elite Inserts
Leaf Fire on Ice

Serial #'d to 5,000
Donruss Dominators
Donruss Elite Rookies
Leaf Freeze Frame
Leaf Road to the Cup
Leaf Gold Stars
Leaf Limited Rookie Phenoms
Leaf Limited Stars of the Game

Serial #'d to 2,500
Donruss Cutting Edge
Donruss Painted Warriors
Leaf Limited Stick Side

Serial #'d to 1966
Parkhurst All Stars
Parkhurst Promos

Serial #'d to 1,500
Parkhurst International NNO #3 & #4

Serial #'d to 1,088
Donruss Elite Lindros Series

Serial #'d to 1,066
Donruss Elite Lemieux Series

And the winner for Lowest Serial Numbered Card of 1995 - 1996 is...
Serial #'d to 1,000
Donruss Elite World Juniors

[Gallinator]

Donruss Elite World Juniors was SN /1000