The rarest RC of 1991-1992?

Here's a short price list of early 1990s rookie cards:

$0.77 on SportLots

"Super Premium" rookie card of a Hall of Famer. This is the nicest of Jeff Bagwell's four main set(not update/traded) RCs. There's a million of these circulating. 

$1.50 on SportLots

Upper Deck managed to sneak in a "Final Edition" in 1991, and had the foresight to add this future legend. It's the only MLB card depicting Pedro Martinez in his pre-rookie season. There aren't as many of these Final Edition singles as the main set, but they're not hard to find. 

$0.20 on SportLots

Here's the only RC of a Hall of Famer in Upper Deck's inaugural basketball issue, and it's available for the price of a common. 

$2.42 on SportLots

12 year-old me would be crushed to learn that this Shaq rookie card can be acquired so easily. My friends and I ripped open as many $3+ packs as we could get our hands on to try and pull one of these. 

$2.02 - $2.52 (SportLots or COMC)

                                                                               

Score was the only company to include Martin Brodeur in their 1990-91 sets. His two RCs (English and French) are slightly more expensive than Dominik Hasek's RCs but waaaaaayyyyyyy cheaper than Patrick Roy's 1986-87 Topps card. That's because there are millions of 1990-91 Score singles floating around. My mother in law has at least a dozen Brodeur RCs. She could buy a dozen more and still spend less than the cost of a Roy RC.  

$2.73 on COMC

One more Hall of Famer here. Paul Kariya's first appearance in a mainstream set is this basic-looking 1991-92 Upper Deck single. However, this was not a basic card or set. This was a World Junior-only issue released in Czech. And it's still cheaper and more abundant than the inspiration for this post...

I'm pert'near finished with the first ten years of New Jersey Devils cards. There's only a dozen or so singles from 1982-83 to 1991-92 that I don't have, and this Bill Guerin XRC is unfortunately one of them. It's Guerin's only RC, and he did accumulate over 400 NHL goals over a stellar 18 year-career. But he's not a Hall of Famer, and he was never considered a superstar. 

I really didn't like him much during his playing days. He bounced around a lot and often complained about his contract, which is ironic because he's now the General Manager of the Minnesota Wild. He also assembled the US roster that lost to Canada in February's Four Nations tournament. I liked him even less after his pathetic display of groveling to Dear Leader, but I digress. 

Personal opinions aside, this is a Devils card and therefore should be in my collection. It is not, and here's why.

Parkhurst were reeeealll sneaky bastards, even more so than Upper Deck. This 25-card extension was available as a mail-in purchase on series II packs. Per TCDB, it is estimated that less than 15,000 of these sets exist.

Luckily, Guerin is the only Devil among them. 

This is what you can get for about $40+ shipping. Some extra Roy, Ray Bourque, Mario Lemieux, and Brett Hull cards, a playoff recap of the 1991-92 season -- indicating this should count as a 1992-93 release -- and three rookie cards. 

Trent Klatt's card would cost 10 cents in any other format. This one is $2.02 on Sportlots. 

Ray Whitney's RC is an interesting one. The highly underrated forward played parts of 22 seasons in the NHL, accumulating 1,085 career points (more than Guerin) and 385 career goals(more than Eric Lindros). His card should be ten times more than Klatt's but due to the scarcity of the set, they're equal. One - and only one - SL seller has both cards available for two dollars and two pennies apiece. 

He does not have the Bill Guerin. Beckett Marketplace does not have the Bill Guerin. No eBay seller is currently selling an ungraded Guerin (and I'd slide it into a 9-pocket page, so slabbed singles need not apply.)

The only place I could find that has a copy of this card in its intended free-range form... is COMC:

For that price you could buy the Bagwell, Pedro, Mutombo, Shaq, both Brodeurs, and the Czech Kariya. It appears that the Bill Guerin Parkhurst XRC is the scarcest rookie card in any set produced in 1991 or 1992. 

Topps added a High Series to their 1992 flagship and Stadium Club football card sets. Among the half-decent to very good players with RCs in this extension are Cowboys DB Darren Woodson and Packers WR Robert Brooks. 

The Brett Favre single in this set is more expensive than his 1991 Stadium Club RC - both of which would cost more than Bill Guerin's Parkhurst card. But they're not rare. I have both of them, as well as the Brooks RC.

Back on the baseball side, 1992 Fleer Update was a fairly limited release. Mike Piazza's RC is included. Jeff Kent and Tim Wakefield, too:

There's a John Valentin RC in this set that I don't have in my Red Sox collection. It's not available on SportLots or COMC. Could it be as scarce as that Bill Guerin card?  Nope!

Every team collector knows it's practically impossible to track down every single. And now I know that it can be an arduous task trying to track down a basic rookie card of a not-great player from the peak of the overproduction era.

Thanks for reading!  

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