The 1990 Score baseball card set was released at the start of the 1990 MLB season and contained cards for players, managers, and teams from both the American and National Leagues. The brand newScore trading card company was creating cards for the first time after having been in the hobby industry for over a decade producing non-sports memorabilia items. The 1990 Score set contained 704 total cards split into two series. Like most modern baseball card sets of the time, the cards came packaged in wax packs with 11 cards per pack and 22 packs per box.
Inside each 1990 Score wax box collectors would find individually wrapped wax packs containing a mix of commons and prospective star rookie cards from the new season. Some notable rookie cards that could be pulled from 1990 Score wax packs included future Hall of Famers Ken Griffey Jr and Edgar Martinez as well as other stars like Cecil Fielder, Mickey Morandini, and Armando Reynoso. While rookie cards held the greatest allure, veteran stars of the day like Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs, Ozzie Smith, and Nolan Ryan also had standard issue base cards readily available in every box.
In addition to packs of standard baseball cards featuring active players, each 1990 Score box also contained three mini team packs. These small cellophane wrapped packs showcased a single team and included player and manager cards as well as team checklist cards usually numbering around a dozen total cards per mini pack. Team packs for the Montreal Expos, Texas Rangers, and Cleveland Indians could be discovered tucked away in every wax box.
Beyond base cards and team packs, 1990 Score boxes provided collectors the opportunity to pull serially numbered parallel and insert cards of top stars as well. The flagship parallel available was the gold foil stamped “Super Stars” subset highlighting the biggest names in the game at card numbers like #SS1, #SS15, and so on. Other parallel and insert sets hunted in 1990 Score packs included “Call to the Hall”, “Top Prospects”, Team Leaders, and All-Star cards among others. The insert parallel cards within a given box run could contain inserts numbering anywhere from one to several dozen total extra premium cards.
Outside of the cellophane wrapped wax packs themselves, 1990 Score blaster boxes also included additional memorabilia for collectors. Each box front proudly proclaimed “Baseball’s Best” and pictures of Ken Griffey Jr, Bo Jackson, and Nolan Ryan. The waxy boxes when new would have held the shape and structure intact for safely transporting a factory sealed box of packs home from the local card shop. Inside the box lid flaps were additional advertisements, checklists of sets within like “Topps”, and Star Cards insert subsets to entice buyers.
As new sealed wax boxes of Score cards hit hobby shop shelves, traders eagerly ripped and sorted through the fresh 1990 cardboard looking to fill out their sets, evaluate rookie potentials, and search for hit parallels or memorabilia inserts. With 704 total base cards across two series of 342 cards apiece to acquire, along with prospects like Griffey and Fielder, completed 1990 Score sets in perfect condition would become a prized accomplishment for collectors as the years rolled by. While the newly founded Score company didn’t have the same dominant market position as Topps in 1990, their release helped grow the growing sports card collecting craze of the late 80s and early 90s.
Products of that time period had an excitement and speculative fervor surrounding them that has become more muted in today’s mature card collecting landscape dominated by graded vintage cardboard. Finding one of those original 1990 Score blaster boxes intact and sealed with the crispy packs nearly three decades later would hold tremendous nostalgic appeal and value for collectors remembering the bullpen of activity that once existed around these commodities. Issues like centering, printing lines and other flaws that plague certain problematic vintage releases don’t seem to be ubiquitous complaints about 1990 Score. This along with the presence of stars like Griffey and Martinez have helped the set maintain popularity.
As the flagship sports card companies of the era, both Donruss and Score pursued mass productions runs for their inaugural releases in an attempt to meet overwhelming collector demand. According to Beckett Almanac statistics, over 38 million total 1990 Score cards were printed between the two series of the flagship set. While high print runs can sometimes negatively impact long term collectibility and prices, sealed factory boxes, well cared for complete sets, and star rookie cards from the 1990 Score release are still eagerly sought after items by dedicated collectors today. Their lasting popularity and abundant availability even at relatively reasonable prices have made 1990 Score one of the iconic baseball card sets that helped popularize the hobby during its boom years.
For those with nostalgia for the 1990 MLB season and an affection for the vintage wax pack experience, hunting through an original sealed 1990 Score blaster box for star rookies and coveted inserts remains a uniquely satisfying way to embrace sports card collecting history. Even if key cards don’t present gem mint quality, simply owning a traceable product straight from the year brings collectors closer to the thrilling card hunting roots many remain fond of today. Over thirty years later, 1990 Score has cemented its place as a foundational release that introduced talented future Hall of Famers to the collecting world inside cardboard packs just as eagerly ripped now as they were upon the set’s initial store debut.
