1993 Finest Refractors - HUNDREDS of them!

[mouschi]

A year or two ago, I ran a poll asking what BO thinks the best '90s insert/parallel is. IIRC, the '93 Finest Refractors ran away with it.

These listings were posted on another forum by the user smapdi. There are a few auctions running now with HUNDREDS of '93 Finest refractors. Keep in mind: These were seeded at 1 a box, with the boxes going for around $650 each now.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-710-199...C/401681514790 - 710 refractors currently at over $2,000

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-510-199...C/143083437040 - 510 refractors currently at over $2,500

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-800-199...C/401681514791 - 800 refractors at $6,200 currently

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hoard-1000-...C/401681516804 - 1,000 refractors at $8,200 currently

This sparked a bit of debate as to what the print run is on these. It has long been said that they were limited to 241 copies. I did some sleuthing and found that between the PSA and BGS POP reports, nearly 300 Frank Thomas cards have been graded.

Surely, a lot of these are due to re-subbing, but to think anywhere near 100% of the print run has been graded is kind of silly.

Though 241 copies may seem huge by today's standards (I'll write more on this later), consider the Donruss Elite cards with monstrous 10,000 print runs and how well they sell. The '93 Finest is riddled with centering and refractor line issues, so when you find a well-centered, refractor line-free version of your guy, it can go for some good coin. Even if it comes out that the print run is double of what has been said all these years, I don't think that affects the value at this point.