After dedicating a lot of time exploring early ’90s baseball autograph insert sets, I decided to broaden my horizons a bit and delve into the world of hockey insert cards from the same era. In doing so, I stumbled upon two really attractive sets: the 1993-94 Donruss Elite and the 1994-95 Donruss Elite insert sets. The 15 1993 and 10 1994 insert cards are limited to just 10,000 copies each, and the latter set boasts a distinctive deckle edge design reminiscent of the iconic Topps baseball cards from 1969!
1993-94 Donruss Elite Inserts
The 15 NHL superstar Donruss Elite cards were random inserts in two different Donruss packs. Cards 1-10 were Series 1 inserts, while U1-U5 were included in Elite Update packs. As I wrote in the intro, they’re all numbered to 10k. In their promotional material for the set, Donruss included the Teemu Selanne card but didn’t highlight any set details.
The fronts of the cards have a color photo of an NHL start in a diamond with prism foil borders around it. The player’s name is printed at the bottom. The back features a card number out of 10, a serial number out of 10000, a headshot, and career highlights against a marble background with silver borders. I’ve read that the insert ratio was ~1:60 packs.
Here’s the set’s checklist:
- 1. Mario Lemieux
- 2. Alexandre Daigle
- 3. Teemu Selanne
- 4. Eric Lindros
- 5. Brett Hull
- 6. Jeremy Roenick
- 7. Doug Gilmour
- 8. Alexander Mogilny
- 9. Patrick Roy
- 10. Wayne Gretzky
- U1. Mikael Renberg
- U2. Sergei Fedorov
- U3. Felix Potvin
- U4. Cam Neely
- U5. Alexei Yashin
PSA has graded just under 200 examples, including 83 Gretzky, 31 Lemieux, and 23 Roy cards. A PSA 8 Gretzky sold for $67 in January 2022, and a PSA 10 Lemieux went for $285 in February 2021.
1994-95 Donruss Elite Inserts
In 1994, Donruss limited the Elite Inserts to ten and only included them in Series 1 packs. Again, only 10k of each were made. This time, however, the insertion rate was 1:72 packs. Donruss had the Jeremy Roenick card on its promotional material, but no other details were included in the piece I found.
I sort of wish Donruss had stuck with the design of the 1993 set but included the deckle cut as they did in 1994. For this series, the cards featured a rectangular player image on the front, surrounded by a silver foil deckle edge. The player’s name matching the silver foil border is an excellent integration. The back features the serial number out of 10,000 along the top with the card number, a rectangular photo, and some player information below it.
Here’s the set’s checklist:
- 1. Jason Arnott
- 2. Martin Brodeur
- 3. Pavel Bure
- 4. Sergei Fedorov
- 5. Wayne Gretzky
- 6. Mario Lemieux
- 7. Eric Lindros
- 8. Felix Potvin
- 9. Jeremy Roenick
- 10. Patrick Roy
PSA has graded a little over 250 of these cards, including 85 of Gretzky, 47 of Lemieux, 27 of Roy, and 25 of Brodeur. PSA 10 Gretzky’s have sold for between $150 and $250 in the past few years, and one collector has managed a complete PSA 10 graded set on the registry.
Conclusion
As you can see in the hockey card category of my archives, they aren’t my usual territory, but I’m eager to expand my knowledge and explore them further. While my expertise primarily lies in baseball cards, the 1993-94 and 1994-95 Donruss Elite hockey sets are really alluring, with the latter’s design harking back to one of my favorite deckle designs of the late ’60s. Stay tuned for more discoveries and insights as I continue my quest to learn more about hockey collectibles!
- I’ll probably start by including more hockey tidbits in The PostWarCards Newsletter.
- I’ve also written about junk-wax-era hockey cards a few times on the blog, first when I asked if the 1989 OPC had the worst goalie photos and then with a deep dive into 1988 OPC hockey rack packs.
- Last, one of my passions is checklists, and the hockey market for clean vintage ones is ultra competitive; some of my favorites are the Oreo Cookie Checklists.
Happy collecting!