One of the best things about growing up in the 90’s is that you could find something of the thing you loved in pretty much any format desired. One of my favorite things to collect was cards and stickers from Japan. For those of you who frequented comic shops you know as well as I do that they had everything and more. This list is for those of you who love to collect cards, or even just look at your friends collection from time to time.
10. Buffy The Vampire Slayer
The set had 90 cards and subsets including heroes and monsters. Plus they had very rare chase cards. I think all the girls in middle school had these nicely displayed in their clear binders. I know several who had drawn hearts in gel pen on the Angel cards.
9. The Simpsons
The Simpsons, really just hitting its peak around in the mid 90’s came out with a set of cards around 93′ every kid I knew wanted to get their hands on. They released a set in 1990 but I was too little to care then about them at four years old. Something interesting about The Simpsons is that any official merchandise will show Bart in a blue shirt, and anything that is bootlegged will feature a red shirt.
8. The Lion King
The way these cards were marketed was a thing of brilliance. They would put some in with your Burger King Kids Club meal and then kids would be clamoring to the nearest comic shop to get more. Or at least I would. Because I love Lion King. I was the girl in school with the super long hair, bicycle shorts, and a different Lion King Shirt everyday.
7. Batman
Batman anything was really all the rage. More specifically I coveted the movie production cards that came out. They were Shiny and the raised printing and details were really something special. Plus they had a set for each movie.
6. Star Wars
I was introduced to Star Wars before I could talk. My family has always loved it, more specifically my dad who also happened to keep his action figures in the safe. When the reboot happened in the 90’s the merchandise came out in full swing, along with the remastered VHS tapes no one asked for.
5. Marvel Masterpieces
While I mostly just love the X-Men I had more than a few of these. They helped introduce me to some of the other Marvel works such as Captain America, Ghost Rider, and Hulk. These were thick heavy cards and I say this for many card sets but absolutely stunning. Even the less interesting characters had stunningly beautiful artwork that you just needed to collect.
4. Star Trek
This is another show I was introduced to because my dad loved it. I started with TNG and worked my way back. These cards came out in 97′ just about the right time to get a lot of older kids such as myself interested in the older show.
3. Pokemon
I think Charizard was the one everyone wanted. Although not shown above. My little brother was able to talk my grandparents into parting with $60 for a first edition Charizard Holographic. I liked the water Pokemon. This series is still going 20 years later and while I have no idea if the cards are still making any money I know one thing. Every kid in the 90’s had at least one of them.
2. X-Men
Even before my love of Sailor Moon began I feel down the rabbit hole of X-Men Trading Cards. It doesn’t matter what era you started collecting these they were always so beautiful. I honestly would stare at them for hours, memorizing stats. One of the highlights was that they even had puzzle cards where you needed to collect all 9 to complete the picture.
1. Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon cards were admittedly a little hard to get in the U.S. but if you looked hard enough it was possible. The DIC collection of cards became available through those little kiosk things at Toys R Us and I must have spent $30 in quarters until I emptied that machine. I would take the cards and redraw them as posters for myself and friends. Also if you want to know how obsessed I really am with these, the cover photo for the article is my personal collection. There was even a CCG game too! It’s one of two very full binders and I have more hiding somewhere.
I would love to know what you collected! Tell Nerdbot in the comments or tweet @bremoonprincess and let’s talk about it!
*featured image is my own, all other images found on ebay.
