The 1992 Score Select baseball card set was highly anticipated upon its release due to its unique concept of including only star players and prospects from the previous season. Score Select cards from the early 1990s are still highly collectible today among baseball card enthusiasts due to the select group of players featured and the short print runs issued compared to the flagship Score set.
1992 was the second year Score issued their “Select” set after the inaugural 1991 version. Like the prior year, Score Select focused only on superstar major leaguers and top minor league prospects chosen by the Score editorial team. The set size was just 132 cards, a minuscule fraction of the main Score collection which that year contained over 700 players. With such a limited checklist of elite talent, many collectors saw Score Select as a “brag book” set to show off the best athletes.
Some of the huge names included in the 1992 Score Select checklist were Barry Bonds, Kirby Puckett, Cal Ripken Jr., Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Ken Griffey Jr. and Wade Boggs. Rookies like Jeff Bagwell, Derek Jeter, and Trevor Hoffman also gained early collector attention by making their flagship card debuts in Score Select before the main Score issue. Minor league prospects like Ken Griffey Jr.’s son Ken Griffey III and future stars like Mike Piazza received prospect cards acknowledging their promise.
Unlike other sets of the era which contained numerous parallel or serial numbered subsets, Score Select cards were uniformly designed from pack to pack with no special parallels. They featured bold black borders framing close-up action photos of the players on a white background. Statistics from the previous season rounded out the simple yet classy design admired by collectors even today. The front also bore the “Score Select” logo in addition to the year.
As an ultra-premium product targeting top-dollar collectors even at the time of release, the 1992 Score Select cards came in very limited quantities. Hobby shops and card shows received only a few factory-sealed wax boxes containing 24 packs each. Individual packs held just 5 cards and retailed for around $3, substantially higher than the 50-cent packs of the flagship Score or other brands. This scarcity amplified collector demand for Score Select cards which remain tougher to acquire in high grade to this day.
While no cards were strictly serial numbered in the base 1992 Score Select set, supply constraints made virtually every included card a short print compared to cards of the same players available elsewhere. Superstar rookies like Bagwell and Jeter numbering among the toughest pull. Obtaining a complete 132-card base set in mint condition proves an immense challenge for most collectors even three decades later. Many covet the perfect 10 graded gems which surface on the resale market infrequently.
score . Some parallels and inserts upped the rarity factor even higher. Among these were Glossy parallels stamped on a shiny coated stock found one per case. Golden Anniversary parallels marked the 50th anniversary of Score comics with golden borders. Rare insert sets within featured retired legends or traded players from 1991. All further cemented Score Select’s status as the year’s most exclusive, investment-quality issue.
While other contemporaneous baseball card sets from the early 1990s lost value over the ensuing decades, 1992 Score Select has maintained strong collector demand. With few complete sets in existence and scarcity of the rookies and stars all but ensuring limited additional population growth through new finds, prices have risen steadily. Even heavily played common players command respectable sums. Single high-grade rookie cards like Bagwell or Jeter routinely fetch hundreds or even thousands of dollars to this day when they surface.
The 1992 Score Select set carved out a unique niche at the time through its star-powered checklist and extremely constrained print runs. That scarcity has driven prices higher than most other yearly issues from the junk wax era. While not quite reaching the icon status of the venerable 1951 Bowman and 1952 Topps sets, 1992 Score Select endures as one of the most coveted and investment-worthy baseball card releases of the early 1990s worth extensive collection by both vintage enthusiasts and savvy investors.
