1990 Leaf

The winner of the best issue of 1990 and it's not even close. Since Donruss had the little kids market locked up with their base cards, they took their Leaf brand and quit trying to compete with O-Pee-Chee and instead went after Upper Deck in the high end business. (Although with my printing background, I laugh that all they did was print on thicker stock and add a 5th color PMS Metallic Silver.) 

But you know what? They pulled off the best cards of 1990. They came up with a nice design, a relatively small set, and a low print run, and that added up to a stellar issue. I bought several boxes of these, at $40 each, and yet I am still missing half the Tigers in the set. Some things never change with Donruss. (Years later however, I did sell all of my Frank Thomas RC to more than recoup the $$$ I spent on these, so really I got the ones I have for free....)

The 1990 Leaf Detroit Tigers:

2 Mike Henneman

34 Lou Whitaker

60 Mike Heath

87 Frank Tanana

113 Gary Ward

133 Chet Lemon

165 Cecil Fielder

192 Matt Nokes

218 Alan Trammell

244 Dave Bergman

266 Brian DuBois

298 Paul Gibson

324 Tony Phillips

350 Larry Sheets

377 Lloyd Moseby

397 Edwin Nunez

429 Jeff Robinson

456 Lance McCullers

482 Jack Morris

508 Dan Petry