Does anyone care about modern inserts?

[RoyalsCollector]

In honor of a new flagship release in the next few weeks with a bunch of new inserts, I wanted to start this thread. So inserts have next to no value, even rare case hits for whatever reason. I freaking love them though. Put them in my binders, one binder per season of releases, organized by set and numerical order. Look through them at least once a week. I think alot of them look great.

Anyone else? What are your favorites from more recent sets? I'll start:

1. Topps Black Gold - Flagship Update

I loved these back in the 90s and they look even better today. Also a relatively harder pull, seem to come about maybe 5-6 per case-ish?

2. All Aces - Flagship

I like pitchers even though they are hated by the hobby. The days of front-line starters throwing 250-300 IP a year are long gone, but its nice they get some love in a great insert set.

3. Galactic Greatness - Topps Chrome Cosmic

Legends cards in modern sets is a love/hate relationship for me. I love new treatment for the legends, but I think they look out of place in base sets. I'd prefer if each set had one nice insert set that paid homage to the legends. I'm a space nerd to boot. This fits the bill for me.

[base set]

In 2024 Big League I liked “To The Moon” & “Good Vibrations,” working on both.

The “All Aces” were great but I stumbled over wanting only the Aces of Diamonds a little. So I retreated to just a couple for small player collections.

From a few years back now I snatched up Panini’s 3000 Hit Club and am working on one of their ridiculously over-the-top (in a good way) “Bomb Squad” checklists.

When I say ‘working on’ though I don’t always complete insert checklists any more as the ridiculous inclusion of failed Rookies frequently looks silly just a few years later. I also tend to want cards assembled in multiples of 9 for simple enjoyment in a binder.

That is particularly true for the “Stars of MLB” retail inserts in S1/S2/Update, which was fantastic looking this year, a dud in 2023, and also very good in 2022.

[Twalk1975]

I buy a couple boxes of Cosmic every year because of the case hit inserts (actually hit two this year). And I own a few of the Panini baseball Downtowns.

Inserts are like parallels, I don't care about 90% of them, but a few I do like.

[hermanotarjeta]

With all the base set parallels being produced, I think inserts are really important to break the monotony.

Problem is, now all the inserts have a million parallels too, minus a select few.

Rarer inserts like hidden gems is cool. No parallels.

[Poorboy]

Still attempting to learn there’s only like 10,000,000 lol

[JMStang]

I like the 35th Anniversary (1990 this year), Black gold, & The Mystical ones this year.


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[TimBuckTwo]

I like turtles.

[Poorboy]

Seems like the Canadian guy with all the hidden gems does ?

[Twalk1975]

Originally Posted by base set

In 2024 Big League I liked “To The Moon” & “Good Vibrations,” working on both.

The “All Aces” were great but I stumbled over wanting only the Aces of Diamonds a little. So I retreated to just a couple for small player collections.

From a few years back now I snatched up Panini’s 3000 Hit Club and am working on one of their ridiculously over-the-top (in a good way) “Bomb Squad” checklists.

When I say ‘working on’ though I don’t always complete insert checklists any more as the ridiculous inclusion of failed Rookies frequently looks silly just a few years later. I also tend to want cards assembled in multiples of 9 for simple enjoyment in a binder.

That is particularly true for the “Stars of MLB” retail inserts in S1/S2/Update, which was fantastic looking this year, a dud in 2023, and also very good in 2022.

I like the Bomb Squad inserts. Pulled a red and a blue one of Vlad and Judge if I remember correctly. I regret selling them now because they were really cool.

[base set]

Originally Posted by JMStang

I like the 35th Anniversary (1990 this year), Black gold, & The Mystical ones this year.


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The 35th Anniversary design re-issues both are, and aren’t quite inserts in that they aren’t new designs. I quite like them though, as well as the similar efforts in the 2010s.

It is very nice to see those designs with always crisp modern printing rather than that being a rarely found exception to the general rule of poor printing back then.

Those checklists are also a place where Topps mixes photos from Spring Training with regular season action shots in a nice mix of portraits, candids, and action photos, rather than making the entire checklist just one type of photo. That makes for a good looking checklist as a whole, with less repetition overall.

Edit: I just scrolled through the 86s, 88s, & 89s and there is less visual diversity than I thought. I just recently had the 86s of Mountcastle and Javier on top of a stack of cards, giving me hope there would be more mixing. Regardless I think I am going to work on the 86 checklist.

[JWBlue]

City to City..

Glad they are returning.

[Drew3000]

I have zero but I think the planetary pursuits are cool

[RoyalsCollector]

Originally Posted by Drew3000

I have zero but I think the planetary pursuits are cool

Same, I'm glad its an insert that has value, but I haven't bought one yet!

[MC99LBC]

Originally Posted by Poorboy

Seems like the Canadian guy with all the hidden gems does ?

Yup it’s actually something that is a true ssp unlike the other inserts that have 1000’s of copies.

[TBTC Baseball]

I picked up one or two of these from the past few years. I like the throwback to old sci-fi.

2022 Bowman Chrome - It Came to the League #ICFL-8 - Jasson Dominguez [EX to NM]
Courtesy of COMC.com

2023 Bowman Chrome - It Came to the League #CFL-11 - Jackson Chourio
Courtesy of COMC.com

2024 Bowman Chrome - It Came to the League #IT-14 - Walker Jenkins
Courtesy of COMC.com

[NYRE2PECT]

Originally Posted by JMStang

I like the 35th Anniversary (1990 this year), Black gold, & The Mystical ones this year.


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I like:





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[ScooterD]

The Topps Reverance patch autos are a nice, rare insert that has stayed around a while

[Hollywood42]

Some of them feel lazy and low effort, and the parallels, the never ending parallels.... but some of the ones from the past few years that I think are cool:

Stars of MLB - they look cool

Heavy Lumber - love me some wood cards

All Aces - agreed with others in this thread, pretty nice design

Home Field Advantage - hit or miss, but the good ones are really good

Home Run Challenge - such a good promo. RIP

If we're counting patches here, I will always love Update All-Star patches

[sportzking]

There are some modern inserts I like.

As others also like them, All Aces and I don’t mind pitchers.

Home Field Advantage, cool design but some are too expensive for me

35th Anniversary and Topps gold parallels. Feels easy to collect and not too expensive to break the bank.

[Tom789]

I love the Topps 2030 set from Topps 2020 Series 2 and collected the entire set.

[Jazz Chisholm]

I love inserts and collect solely based on eye appeal. This is a great time for me because I’m a refractor collector. There are SO many cool cheap under $5 ones…2019 Bowmans Best Power Producers, the Topps Chrome Future Stars sets, etc etc

…and that’s also the problem. Most of Topps mid-end sets that focus on inserts are chrome. Everything is refractors. It gets super mundane, even for me.

Holofoil HFA’s are rad, as are the faux-wood Heavy Lumber…I just wish Topps would experiment more. Bring back holograms, dufex (if possible), put water in cards again ala Flair WOTF…anything to make it more interesting. I’m no expert in printing technology but I refuse to believe it peaked 30 years ago. Get creative or at least copy something cooler than SSP crap Panini did five years ago

[base set]

Originally Posted by Tom789

I love the Topps 2030 set from Topps 2020 Series 2 and collected the entire set.

Attachment 560706

I like those but I will probably just stop at 9 of them to instead go back in time to trippy Pacific inserts.

[mattglet]

There are some good ones listed above, but overall there are too many.

[Raleigh504]

I think if they got rid of parallels with the inserts then they would be more popular. Sometimes it is even hard to tell if certain inserts are the base or a parallel depending on the design.

[Cracktoast]

All Aces were nice and glad they are back for 2025. Did they ever make a Chrome versions or was it just flagship ? All Aces in Chrome or Sapphire would be amazing.

As mentioned in another thread I was really big on the Rising Inferno and Gladiators Of The Diamond inserts from 2024 Bowman as well.

As much as I love the 35th Anniversary inserts I'm hoping they end with the 1990 set. IMO the 90's had some of the ugliest most bland designs and 1991 Topps was officially the 40th Anniversary.