The Transition to Modern Cards: A Project Completed!

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by saucywombat

Nice post.

I had at one time collected all 1990's baseball Finest refractors (with the exception of about 15 of the 1997 gold die cut embossed)

Would disagree about the 1994 assessment. There in my estimation approximately the same number of refractors per card for 1994 that existed for 1993 (lets say about 250). Though overall population wise there are many more 1994 refractors because the number of cards in the set more than doubled from 199 in 1993 to 440 in 1994.

The Standard Catalog stated a run of only 4000 cases for 1994. If that is true there would actually be fewer than 241 examples of each refractor for 1994.

Strange but true.

Interesting. Every source I can find states that production for 1994 was greatly increased over 1993, and that 1995 scaled it back. 4000 cases was the print run for 1993, so I find it hard to believe that is accurate for 1994. Just anecdotally, having collected them in those days, I saw 94 Finest regularly at my LCS for $5 a pack, whereas 93 Finest was very hard to find, and ballooned to $20 a pack. Coupled with the better odds for refractors (1:15 vs 1:9), and with the checklist only increasing by 20 cards per series, there would need to be even less 94 produced than 93 in order to have the same number of refractors. And I highly doubt that. But I'm definitely open to learning something new. I'll have to pull out my Standard Catalog when I get home to verify.