1998 Donruss Crusade Alan Benes

Long ago in the 1990's card companies started making parallel cards.  Most sets by the late 90s had at least one such insert set.  Notice I said one parallel set and not the five or six that often appear in the sets of today.  Last week's Topps release of Gypsy Queen contained at least that many if not more.  Sure, the numbers on the backs of the cards today actually appear to be smaller and many of the parallel sets frequently run a one out of one and several other versions up to 100.  At the end of the day, there are plenty of collectors chasing the modern parallel sets, but when you look at the price of some of the parallels on Ebay and COMC some are disappointed at the return on their cards that are limited.  I attribute the low prices on parallels to the fact that multiple parallel sets actually mean that the number of parallels available on the secondary market is higher than in the past.

One of my favorite parallel, or chase sets of all-time is the Donruss Crusade set.  Specifically the 1998 version.  Last week I had the chance to add a nice Alan Benes card from this set which helped me close out my Cardinals set I was putting together over the past few months.

1998 Donruss Crusade Alan Benes

I paid less than $5 to buy this card and have it shipped to me on Ebay, but always enjoy closing out a set I am trying to put together.  While I was assembling the set it was clear that some of the high end players featured in this set, which again is printed to /250 or /100 for the purple version, carry far more value than the parallel cards of today.  A parallel print run card of a star player with that print run would be easy to find for less than $5.  However, the star players and high grade cards in set frequently sell for more than $50.  For example, three cards from this set that I looked into were a Cal Ripken, Bernie Williams, and Randy Johnson.  All three cards ended north of $50.  Imagine if you could sell you cards with a print run of 100 or 250 for that much.