Early in 2008 I wrote that 1998′s Donruss Crusade inserts were the greatest of all-time. Having seen one in person, I can honestly say it is the only time one can refer to a baseball card as being “beautiful”.
There are three parallels to the ultra-rare Crusade line. The Green is #’d to 250, the Purple to just 100, and the most rare version, Red, is numbered to just 25 copies. This was Donruss reaching a level of excellence that they will never again come close to.
Recently, a Ken Griffey Jr. Red Crusade made its way on to eBay. When the auction was completed, 36 bids were made and the final selling price reached two grand and change. Take a look at the scan below. It does not feature a certified autograph or worthless cut-up jersey/bat.
This card managed to sell while this beloved 2005 Babe Ruth Jumbo w/ stripe could not garner even one lousy bid despite how much love it gets from Beckett and every online community that exists. Clearly, those forgotten 90′s inserts have enough clout to attract collectors and they don’t even need the gimmicks that card companies employ today.
So, does anyone have a Jose Canseco ’98 Crusade for trade?
This is a sweet insert set. Maybe I’m still six-years-old, but I love shiny inserts…
The Crusades are pretty cards.
In all fairness though, the Ruth was a Buy it Now.
The last one sold at auction went for $1,282.
You will see those sell higher again when the economy recovers.
However, the economy doesn’t factor in to the INSANITY of Griffey collectors.
One of my favorite sets of the 90s
I feel like I have one or two of these laying around somewhere… unless Donruss put out a very similar looking parallel, which is always possible. Great… every day I get side-tracked while trying to reorganize my collection!
Has there ever been a hotter hobby player than Griffey??
OMG! FIND THEM!
These were very hard to pull so it would be incredibly impressive if you had a few just lying around somewhere.
Haha, I’ll look tonight. I bought a huge box from a guy unloading his collection a few years back – mainly because it came with Piazza’s bowman rookie – and there ended up being a TON of decent cards/older inserts in it. Don’t remember how much I bought it for, but the guy had become disenchanted with the hobby and was desperate for cash. All I remember was that it was a good deal. (I was living in small-town Virginia at the time, so I figured the needed cash was somehow tied to drugs…)
The design really looks familiar. If I do have one, it’s among many other inserts in top loaders, and since I wasn’t collecting in ’98 I wouldn’t have thought it was rare at all. I’ll keep my fingers crossed…
Nice read! To bad my man “The HawK” wasn’t around for that set! Very nice looking cards and they seem to provide the main thing that drives us crazy player collector’s, THE HUNT!
Thanks
Craig
*Love the blog Mario!
jswaykos,
You should really take the time to look through those boxes. It’s not just the Crusades that pull down HUGE $$ as far as 90′s inserts go.
Wow… what an exciting evening I’ve got lined up for myself. I’m really hoping to have a Crusades insert in there! I’ll let everyone know tomorrow…
More proof why artificial 1/1′s produced on the ‘high end’ these days really aren’t all that special. There’s not all that much of the product created, so the relative chances of a ‘mojo’ hit are pretty easy. Even Razor Oval Office was a 1/99 chance of pulling the less-than-holy grail of dual George/Abe–not exactly ‘lottery tough’.
However, pulling a card number to 25 out of eleventy faptillion packs of a massively produced base product is genuinely hard to come by. That rarity is in relation to its parent product as a by-product of its distribution, rather than a limited quantity in an already limited production run in comparison.
Underappreciated in its day, they are easy to ignore when buried with other flotsam of the era. 1998 is practically the ‘new vintage’ (ooh! eleven years ago!).
It would be fun to locate some ’98 Donruss wax and have a crack at it.
Imagine back then $$, and Ebay was the last thing on your mind if you pulled a parallel.
Mojo
So what set were these an insert to? Just regular Donruss, or Signature, or …? Like, if I wanted to get one, what box of Donruss would I have to purchase?
Of all the years I have collected Jose Canseco I still have yet to run across a Crusade Red of his. I have the Green and Purple, but even those I only aquired within the past 3 years. Very tough, very sweet lookin cards!
Todd, I agree completely!! Think back even “further” to 1992 and the Donruss Elite series inserts! I’ve purchased TONS of cheap boxes and packs of 92 Donruss and still have never pulled one! Same with game used inserts in 97 UD.
1/1′s (or other low serial numbered runs) aren’t fun when you get a couple per box like some of these higher end products
I’m nearly positive I have a Craig Biggio in this series sitting in a binder somewhere. Didn’t even know they came in parallels.
I definitely do remember Donruss Elite starting in the early Nineties! The unbelievable part is that there were 10,000 of each one made at the time. Those seemed to be unbelievable odds back then. Even pulling one Elite of one player was damn near impossible. Entire eco-systems must have been wiped out to produce as much cardboard as Donruss made at the time (of course they weren’t alone).
I think the only Elite I ever pulled was the last year they had them, before they lost their MLB license (1998 I believe). I pulled a Jeter Elite, then numbered to 2500. Still pretty long odds by today’s standards, but even by ’98 Donruss must have been generating 1/5 of the product they put out in ’91 – ’92.
I have a red and a purple brady anderson both serial number 1….need the green…think that’ll be tough?
who made it on the cards? i mean theres a griffey, so were there other mariners like edgar martinez and randy johnson?
What boxes did these inserts come from? I can’t remember specifically. Obviously it was a donruss product, but which box or boxes had them? It seems so long ago.
Anybody?
1998 Donruss, 1998 Leaf, 1998 Donruss Update
Oh yeah ok. I remember the Donruss but didn’t know it came in Update and Leaf. Thanks a lot Mario! Keep up the good work on the blog. I know I don’t comment much but I read the material everyday and it’s great how much research and insight you put into each entry.
Thank you, Cin!
is this the leaf it comes in?
http://www.dacardworld.com/sports-cards/1998-leaf-fractal-materials-baseball-hobby-box-very-scarce
and is a third of the set in that, or could you get any crusade in there?
I have decided my lifelong set goal-donruss crusade!!! (green at least)
I don’t think it’s that one. Just regular Leaf. That one is like a premium version of Leaf.
If you can afford that box, I’d highly recommend it. It’s a little high priced, though.
oh, I see thanks. I couldnt really afford it was going to split with someone.. thanks ill try to find the normal leaf and donruss..
so that one is cool too though huh? it said something about having the feel of the game with nylon and leather.. is the border literally a glove?
I have 16 now.
[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x90/NationalYankee/xBanners%20and%20Stuff/sades.jpg[/IMG]
hi … i am looking for the 1998 Donruss Crusade Purple and Red of Pudge Rodriguez … can anyone help? … gracias
Anyone interested in a Mint, 1998 Donruss Crusade Red Version Kevin Brown?
The Crusade insanity does not end here. On top of the normal green, purple and red, there are other versions to track down.
1) Crusade Damage Replacements: these are just like the normal Crusades only they lack serial numbering on the back. If you would have sent a damaged Crusade to Donruss back in the 90′s, they would have stamped these cards with your cards serial number. Believed to have been backdoored when Donruss went bankrupt.
2) Crusade Executive Samples: these are also just like the normal crusades but have serial numbering with x’s. For example, a red would be “XX/25″. These are believed to be a quality test for Donruss executives. A full run of the Crusade series was produced before they went into production. Possible 1/1 for each version and also backdoored in the Donruss bankruptcy.
3) Crusade 2nd Series: these were to be an extention of the Crusade series. Not many have surfaced and it is not sure if all players and colors were produced. Players in series 1 either had a Crusade or Call To Arms version. With this second series, the players would get the opposite version of their original Crusade. These were also backdoored in the Donruss bankruptcy.
For Cruz Jr, I have the 3 original Crusades, the 3 Executive Samples, the red replacement and the green 2nd series Crusade. Looking for the green and purple replacement and the purple and red 2nd series.
i actually bought a crusade red (call to arms) of vladimir guerrero when i graduated grade school with $250 of my grad money. sold it couple months later. i think it was #7/25. definitely one of my biggest regrets but i was too broke to invest in cards like that then.
The 1998 Donruss Crusades were truly a special set for me. They darned near put me through college. Bob (ebay ID kingsbrat) was a sweet old man and the biggest Crusade collector you ever met. He would travel the country in search of Crusades (he had 3 of these Griffey reds in his collection). I personally sold him over 100 crusades during the early 2000′s – often times he would drive down to Phoenix and pay me in cash…a college kid’s dream. Bob passed on a couple years back and a large chunk of his cards found their way to auction – I can’t help but wonder if this Griffey red was part of it.
For those interested, I have this page posted with most of the Crusades that I have owned over the past 10 years, there were a few scans that I couldn’t find, but this should prove pretty comprehensive. I presently have just 1, all the rest have been sold. Also for those interested, about 25-30 of the cards shown at the bottom of my included link were the un-numbered backdoor version.
http://www.chippercards.com/other/crusadehist.htm