Collector Stories | Going for Gold with the 1993 Topps Set

Collecting a Rockies Passion Project

Date: Sep 17, 2025

Author: Greg Bates

Topics: Baseball, Cards and Culture, Collector Stories, MLB

Length: 686 Words

Reading Time: ~4 Minutes

When the Colorado Rockies hit the field in their inaugural season in 1993, Nate Roberts was an instant fan. The expansion Rockies and Florida Marlins stole the show in the 1993 Topps Baseball set, which featured commemorative gold foil stamped cards for those two franchises.

With the combination of being a Rockies fan and card collector, the Topps’ 1993 release provided the perfect storm for Roberts, who was seven years old at the time. After re-entering The Hobby in 2021, he retraced his collecting steps and filled in the gaps he’d missed as a youngster. That included working on the 1993 Topps set.

“It’s all those players I watched growing up,” said Roberts, now 45 years old. “It’s got Nolan Ryan and Ryne Sandberg and Ken Griffey Jr. and Tony Gwynn, and all those All-Stars that I knew as a kid. It’s kind of nostalgic to be able to flip through that and just see them all. Obviously, the fact that it was the Rockies’ inaugural year, that’s my main reason for collecting.”

Different Ways to Collect 1993 Topps

The ’93 Topps release has multiple options for collectors. There’s the 825-card base set, the Gold parallel set, the micro set, the Rockies inaugural year stamp set, and the Marlins inaugural year stamp set. The limited-edition Rockies and Marlins cards were made available through special factory sets. Collectors can also go after individual team sets with the inaugural year stamps, and Roberts finished off both 40-card Rockies and Marlins sets.

“It started just trying to get each of those Rockies team sets from ’93 with the Marlins stamp and the Rockies,” Roberts said. “Then I thought, well, maybe I’ll get Griffey, maybe I’ll get Sandberg, and it just grew.” With a full base set collection, Roberts began moving through the other sets of the ’93 release, which eventually led to him completing the Gold run. “I started building it and then I found a guy that basically had the complete set and I bought that,” Roberts said.

Roberts, who works as an eighth-grade history teacher in Thorton, Colorado, had the most fun collecting the micro set. “Those were always a favorite growing up,” he said. The Gold set was special as well because of the chase aspect. Being a big fan of David Nied — the No. 1 pick by the Rockies in the 1992 MLB Expansion Draft — that was Roberts’ go-to card.

“As a kid, I ended getting that David Nied Gold,” Roberts said. “I think it was one Gold card per pack, so you would essentially have to buy 825 packs to find that one guy that you wanted. Getting that David Nied was really something.”

Collecting the ’93 Rockies

The 1993 Topps set really set in motion Roberts’ loves for Rockies cards. He latched onto collecting Nied and has over 100 different cards of his. “When I would go to a card shop, he would be the one I would look for,” Roberts said. “He was kind of the one from the get-go.”

Nied retired following the 1996 season, and Todd Helton started out his career in Colorado the next year. The smooth-swinging lefty quickly became Roberts’ new favorite player. Dating back to Helton’s rookie year, Roberts has collected nearly 2,000 of his unique cards.

“It was kind of cool with Todd Helton coming and being number 17, and David Nied was 17, so I just kind of stuck with that,” Roberts said. “Then the Rockies retired 17, so that’s the only two that I’ll have to chase.”

Late last year, Roberts was in touch with a big Rockies collector who was moving and couldn’t take all of his cards with him. Roberts wound up purchasing thousands of cards. He now boasts over 9,000 different Rockies cards from throughout the franchise’s 33-year history.

“It would be really cool to get to 10,000 unique cards,” Roberts said. “That would be a fun milestone to hit for sure. But when I’m spending money, it’s probably going to be on Todd Helton.”