I mostly collected vintage as a kid with my Dad, but I also liked some of the modern stuff in the late 90's/early 2000's. Finest was one of the cooler brands, I have fun memories of 1998 Finest. There was a card store in my hometown with a great owner that was happy to entertain a 8 year old kid who was going to spend $5-$10 a trip and talk about cards. Even then, some people were really only looking for inserts or refractors. One really kind gentleman used to break his expensive boxes at the counter, take the base he didn't want and give them to kids or leave them behind the counter to be given out to kids later. I still have a few dozen 98 Finest that were very, very exciting to be given back then, including a Larkin and a Clemens. He'd give me and my brother a pile, and we'd have a ton of fun 'drafting' players from the stack. I peeled all the coatings off because they looked so much nicer that way.
I don't know the right word for it, but I loved the 'etched' look of the Finest/Chrome etc. lines of that time, where the players and objects are outlined with slight indents and the pebbly look to the background. Today they just use a flat chromium look that isn't as 'nice' and is more uniform.
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