It was 1992. The U.S.S.R. had collapsed a year prior and after a brief recession the global economy was back on track.

Indeed, you could hardly fail to witness the ultimate triumph of the Western idea any which way you looked: My family owned not one but two green station wagons with woodgrain trim. Old trading cards were being sold on the secondary market and new ones were being printed by the billions. In Canada, hockey cards were at the top of the pile.

Upon rediscovering a hockey card from his youth, a distressed-looking ’60s-era Topps card of a no-name goalie, my father took me aside and provided an object lesson in the difficulty of foresight. Don’t do what I did, he lamented, producing the threadbare souvenir. Save your cards. They could be worth a fortune someday.

Twenty years of darkness in a Rubbermaid container later, those cards are worthless, along with everything else from that decade. As for most kids of that time, the cards I amassed were from the very apex of the card collecting bubble.

A succession of market paroxysms followed. Thomas Clemmer, a hockey card dealer who runs Canadian Hockey Cards , writes that this era “could be called the dark days of hockey card collecting.” Production of cards exploded thanks to corner store speculators and overzealous manufacturers.

In 1981, when a Mickey Mantle rookie card was bought for $900 at a Toronto auction, the advertising executive buyer declared “I got a bargain.” Topps Mantles were already going for $3,000 elsewhere, but by 1991 the card had appreciated 1,000 per cent. That year Wayne Gretzky and Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall co-purchased the crown jewel of trading cards, a T206 Honus Wagner, the Flying Dutchman who starred for baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates in the early 1900s, for $451,000.

Baseball might have topped the market but in Canada the card story is naturally the story of hockey cards. Clemmer began collecting with Esso’s 1971 Power Players, but it wasn’t until the late 1980s, while visiting a baseball card-dealing friend in Seattle, that he saw the potential gain in hockey cards.

He began bargain hunting at Seattle card shops. At one shop, the unknowing owner pulled boxes of ’71-72 to ’81-82 Topps hockey sets out of the back room and sold them to Clemmer for next to nothing. Clemmer flipped them to other dealers, eventually bringing them to shows where he reaped tenfold profits on many of the cards, including a bevy of Bobby Orr rookies.

Hockey caught up to baseball fast: By the early 90s, his supply had dried up and he was selling the same cards as everyone else. Topps and their Canadian subsidiary, O-Pee-Chee, had been ramping up production to meet demand through the 1980s, but the market was glutted when Topps’ exclusive license with the National Hockey League and its player’s association expired in 1989.

Rushing in to join them for the 1990-91 season came Bowman, Pro Set, Score and Upper Deck. Many of the brands sold parallel sets (the same set of cards with different design elements or materials) and inserts (smaller sets, often with special materials and selections of star players) that could be found in regular packs, compounding the volume of cards.

According to Beckett, the pasttime’s price guide, by the 1992-93 season were were at least nine trading card brands selling sets with 30 inserts. Several food brands were also including cards with their products. If you were a card completist that year, you were eating a lot of Captain Highliner, Humpty Dumpty, Kraft Dinner and McDonald’s. Bonus if you shopped at Zellers.

People were counterfeiting cards and stealing from local shops. Manufacturers didn’t disclose how many cards they were printing. But assuming they could only increase in value, people horded them, creating an illusion of scarcity, says Angelo Exarhakos, president of Universal Distribution in Montreal.

“The amount of speculation back then — people were borrowing money — they were going to try and purchase as many new releases as they could. They believed they could double their money. It was a crazy hoarding period. At some point, it was a pyramid that was going to collapse. And it did.”

By 1993, hockey card sales were already crashing. Pro Set, which had only been in the trading card market since 1989, was in bankruptcy protection. Its cards were marred by poor quality and errors — and there were lots of them. Manufacturers would come and go for the next 20 years with only Upper Deck remaining a constant presence.

Card shops closed. Fickle investors abandoned hockey cards. Kids moved on to Pokemon. Adults bought tech stocks. Both collected beanie babies.

According to Beckett, today the lowball value for a complete set of 1991-92 Pro Set — 615 cards — is $7.50. But as with anything from those years — everything I own — you’d probably have to pay to have a card dealer take it off your hands. He’d just cart it to the trash.

People still try, says Jerry Helders of J.J. Sports during the Toronto Sports Card and Memorabilia Expo two weekends ago. “Even today people come. I’ve got a shoebox of rookies from 20 years ago. They’re all Pro Set cards, Score ’91, Tony Amonte rookies. I wouldn’t even give you a penny for the whole box.”

Cards from earlier years have held their value. Within hours of the Expo’s May 2 opening, Len Pottie of Platinum Promotions has parted with a Bobby Orr rookie card for $3,400. Vintage cards continue to coax open the wallets of baby boomers trying to recapture a material notion of their youth.

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The Expo has been running twice annually for almost 25 years. One sees few people and less big money. Prices are impressive but traffic isn’t. Even though most card dealing is done online these days, with 900 booths the Expo is the most important hockey card show in the world.

There’s a noticeable absence of young blood. Kids left the hobby shortly after the card bubble, says Helder.

But as the number of collectors has gone down, says Brad Krysko of CloutsnChara in Kitchener, there has been an increase in “super collectors.” The ’90s may have driven out speculators looking to score big on cheap packs, but devoted fans willing to spend thousands on premium products have increased in the 2000s. Buyers “rip and flip” boxes looking to strike it big on valuable limited inserts and when they do, they trade them in for more.

Catering to the nostalgia crowd, special “game used” sets come embedded with pieces of equipment used by players past and present, most often swatches harvested from jerseys. A card containing an autographed piece of an Art Ross stick from 1911-12 (forensically verified of course) is one-of-a-kind and worth $2,000.

High-tech curiosities can also be had, such as a mini-USB rechargable video card featuring Avalanche forward Gabriel Landeskog shaving ice and explaining the perks of playing left wing.

Geoff Connolly, who co-owns CloutsnChara with Krysko, says the increase in the cost of products has also moved up the average fan age. The cost per pack has ticked up significantly since the ’90s to play to the high rollers.

“In the ‘90s, a $3 to $5 pack was nearly unheard of and 99 cents was the norm. Today you’ll find single packs ranging from $1.99 all the way up to $400.”

CloutsnChara’s Connolly and Krysko are both in their 20s. They also operate an online community with 5,000 enthusiasts.

“Our in-store traffic is very good but it doesn’t even sniff our online traffic and customer base,” says Krysko. Many online members contribute to “group breaks,” buying a share of a case opened later at the store. Contributors tune in to streaming video to watch staff liberate their cards in real-time.

I’m told Young Guns rookies are still consistently valuable, so I picked up a box of Upper Deck. Not having opened a pack of cards in almost 20 years, I admit to being transported back to boyhood a little bit. My best result: a P.K. Subban “Shining Stars” insert going for $10 on eBay.