1991 Topps Desert Shield cards coveted by collectors, military veterans 35 years after Gulf War

After being stationed overseas for eight months during the Gulf War in 1990-91, Clem Bell was excited to return home. 

Little did Bell know that his flight back to the United States would include partaking in his favorite activity: ripping open packs of baseball cards. 

When Bell arrived at the airport in Al Jubayl, Saudi Arabia in March 1991, there were people handing out full, 36-pack boxes of 1991 Topps Desert Shield cards. 

Bell—part of a Navy Seabees battalion and an avid card collector—hadn’t heard that Topps had made the special cards just for the troops that fought during the war. 

“I had no idea,” said Bell, who was 25 years old at the time. “I got to the airport and they were handing them out. I was like, ‘Wow.’ It was like the end of a nightmare becomes a nice dream.” 

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Many of Bell’s friends that were heading home didn’t have any interest in baseball cards.

“I guess they had enough of me talking for eight months about baseball cards that they’re like, ‘Here, take these things,’” Bell recalled. “I’m like, ‘Well, they might be worth a lot of money. You might want to hang onto them.’ They’re like, ‘Nope, we don’t want them.’

“I saw people opening packs, taking the gum, throwing away the cards. There were 55-gallon drums by the dozens full of the cards. That was hard on me.” 

Seeing all those cards being discarded, Bell went dumpster diving. He took the military uniform out of his sea bag and threw it out, because he could buy new uniforms. Bell filled his bag with the Desert Shield cards. 

Bell’s sea bag was stored in the belly of the plane but he had five boxes of cards on his lap during the flight. Of course, being in the air for 10½ hours was a long trip home, so Bell killed the time by opening up an entire box; he felt like a kid in a candy store. 

“I remember walking off the plane trying to hold five boxes in my arms and I had a sea bag full of them opened,” said Bell, who figures he grabbed “tens of thousands” of cards. “I put in another probably five to 10 boxes of packs in that sea bag as well.” 

When Bell was rounding up all the Desert Shield cards he could take, little did he know the print run of the set or the desirability it would attract. All Bell knew was he had added some cards to his collection.

Topps released its regular 792-card set in February 1991. Right in line with other companies during the Junk Wax Era, those base cards were massively overproduced. It’s estimated there were four to five million copies of each card. 

Topps came out with its special-edition Desert Shield cards in March 1991. Every card is nearly identical to the regular series, except for an “Operation Desert Shield” gold foil logo embossed on the front. In December 1990, Topps sent a memo to its employees along with a sample Desert Shield card. The memo stated that the company had produced just 500 cases of the cards for troops. 

Knowing there are 20 boxes per case, 36 packs per box and 15 cards per pack, that means roughly 5.4 million total cards were produced. That comes out to a little over 6,800 of each player. 

Bell guesses that half of those cards never made it back to the United States.

“I’ve heard stories of the Marines and Army guys burning them to start fires, because it got really cold at night,” Bell said. “But during the day, it got up over 120 degrees. That’s why there are so many gum stains and wax stains on the cards because they were exposed to very hot weather.” 

Bell said it’s pretty obvious to tell the cards that were overseas because wax melted to the top and bottom of cards.

But not all boxes made it overseas. Since the war was so short, Topps didn’t send all the cards overseas.

“They were in the process of shipping cards over and then the war ended and soldiers started coming home,” Desert Shield card collector James Dial said. “So, they were mainly at the ports of debarkation, which, if I remember right, the one that was closest to where I was stationed probably would have been Charleston, S.C.” 

Another big Desert Shield collector George Divel said the cards attracted collectors who were non-military because they couldn’t buy them in stores. 

“There were literally people outside the base trying to buy them from soldiers,” Divel said. “That’s probably where some of the best conditioned stuff existed from but that’s only because it didn’t get shipped over. If it weren’t for that, there might not be any in perfect condition.”

Once the cases of Desert Shield cards arrived in Saudi Arabia, how they were distributed to the troops was at the discretion of those in command at each base. Some soldiers received one pack, while others had access to a full box. 

“I just think they had them left over and we were probably one of the last flights out, and they said take these,” Bell said. “I’ve heard stories of people only getting a few cards. I’ve heard stories of a pallet not making it over there; it was at the Air Force base in South Carolina.” 

The cards that made their way from Saudi Arabia back to America were mostly beaten up. And if they made it back, they were mostly loose cards out of the packs and boxes.

“It’s very rare to even have a wrapped box,” Divel said. “So, for instance, Steve [Hart] at BBCE has wrapped somewhere around 12 to 15 boxes, and even that’s very difficult to do. I think I own four or five of them. I know where over half the population of them are.” 

Due to the low number of cards produced of each player combined with the cards that made it through the war and travel, obtaining mint condition examples has proven to be extremely difficult. 

Of the 84,390 Desert Shield cards graded by PSA, 13,962 have garnered 10s. Bell feels lucky to be able to own thousands of those copies.

“If a player has a pop 17, I may own 12 of them,” Bell said. 

After Bell returned home from his deployment following the war, he placed his Desert Shield cards in a closet for about a year. After being discharged from the Navy, Bell started setting up and selling at local card shows. 

At one show, he decided to put out 17 Desert Shield cards on his table. It was a mix of some stars such as Barry Bonds and Nolan Ryan along with commons. Bell saw a sports car pull up outside and he watched a guy walk by every table to get to his setup. The guy wanted to know how much it would be to purchase all 17 of Bell’s Desert Shield cards.

“I was thinking that someone must have told him that we had those Desert Shield cards,” Bell said. “I had no idea what price to put on them, because I just didn’t know. They were brand new, they can’t be worth that much. I didn’t know the print runs at the time, no one did. I said, ‘Ten dollars each. One-hundred seventy dollars for all 17 of them.’”

The guy didn’t dicker with the price. He happily paid and walked off with his stack of cards. That was the moment Bell knew he was harboring some massive treasure at his home. 

Still with “tens of thousands” of Desert Shield cards, Bell started hand-collating sets. In the last 30-plus years, he has completed 47 sets—a combination of cards that are raw, graded and hybrid.

Even after building all those sets, Bell still has thousands of Desert Shield cards not in sets. 

“I traded a Rolex for like 15,000 cards,” said Bell, who is now 60 years old. 

As a teenager in 1991, Divel was big into collecting cards. He couldn’t find the Desert Shield cards anywhere to buy. And if he could find them, he probably couldn’t afford them. 

As an adult, Divel likes to collect extremely rare sets. He latched onto the Desert Shield release about a decade ago. 

Divel’s goal: complete a Desert Shield set entirely in PSA 10s. In 2017, Divel bought a set at auction that had all 10s except for about 40 cards. For the past nine years, he has been looking for those elusive 10s. The 49-year-old collector is now just 15 cards from achieving his perfect masterpiece; they are all cards of common players. 

Divel owns the current finest and all-time best 1991 Topps Desert Shield set on PSA’s Set Registry. 

“It’s a work of love,” he said. “I don’t think people realize how rare the set is. The price definitely does not reflect how rare the set is, much less how difficult it is to put it together.” 

Of his 10s in the set, 44 of the cards have a population of five or fewer. Out of the entire 792-card set, there is one card that has never been graded a 10: Luis Sojo, card #26.

To help knock out some of the cards he needs to complete his PSA 10 set, Divel is willing to buy the No. 2 set on the registry. That set contains all 10s except for 20 cards. 

It’s been a slow and tedious process for Divel with his PSA 10 set. A card that he needs doesn’t come available too often. 

“If I’m lucky, one a year,” Divel said. “That’s why I need the No. 2 set, because he probably has seven or eight of the 15 cards I need.” 

Divel equates the 1991 Topps Desert Shield cards to the infancy and popularity of numbered cards. 

“This is when Donruss started coming out with their Elite Series,” Divel said. “This is when they first started printing cards with numbers on them, except this set doesn’t have numbered cards. If they were numbered, I can only imagine what the value would be. People just don’t realize how rare they are.

“I think once people realize there were only 6,000 of these cards ever made each, and then just the idea of how many even made it back, and then look at how many have been graded. It’s one of the rarest sets probably in the past 40 years.” 

Divel loves that the Desert Shield cards form an iconic set. 

“Obviously, it means a lot to the veterans. It’s a great set when it comes to war,” Divel said. “When you mix that with America’s favorite pastime, I think it’s one of the best sets out there in the modern age.” 

During the Gulf War, Dial was in the Army but his unit didn’t get activated. A part of the 292^nd Transportation Company, he was stationed in Palatka, Fla. 

Dial didn’t get into collecting Desert Shield cards until years after the war. He had a friend who owned a card shop and a customer came in and bought a few packs of Desert Shield for around $40-$50 apiece. The guy opened the cards at the store and getting a chance to look at the cards piqued Dial’s interest. 

In 2008, Dial picked up a large lot of raw Desert Shield cards and decided to start building the entire set. Ranked No. 6 of the current finest in the PSA Set Registry, Dial owns one graded and four raw sets. He used to have a fifth raw set but he traded it for a 1951 Berk Ross set.

“At one point in time, I probably had 15,000, 18,000 raw Desert Shield cards,” Dial said. 

Dial also owns two unopened boxes of Desert Shield cards. Topps used four different box bottoms for the 1991 release—the same are used for the regular series and Desert Shield. Dial has two of the box bottoms but his goal is to have all four. 

Along with collecting the Desert Shield cards, Dial has found a way to give back to military veterans who served for America. 

“I just started sending them to veterans,” Dial said. “I created the first Desert Shield baseball card group on Facebook and people would say, ‘Hey, I served. I was in this unit.’ Some of the units I knew from being in the Army. I told them to send me an address and I’ll send you a card. And I would ask them, ‘What’s your favorite team?’ And I would try to see if I had one or two of the cards from that team and I would just mail it out to them.” 

From about 1991 until the pandemic in 2020, there wasn’t a lot of interest in community Desert Shield cards. But they have exploded over the last year with the 35-year anniversary of the release. 

Due to the rarity and value of the Desert Shield cards, counterfeiting is prevalent. It’s become so bad that SGC and Beckett no longer accept Desert Shield cards for grading.

The rookie card of Hall of Famer and Atlanta Braves legend Chipper Jones is the most coveted card in the set. PSA has graded exactly 1,000 Jones cards with just 30 (3%) garnering a perfect 10. 

Also, big names such as Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr. and Nolan Ryan—with their low population counts—sell for big bucks.

“Those cards are all sort of popping where they used to sell for $1, $2, $3,000,” Divel said. “I’ve seen some of them selling for $15, $20, $25,000. The Chipper hit a high of $50,000 one time and it’s probably around $20,000 right now.” 

According to Card Ladder, a Jones in a PSA 7, with a population of 179, hit a record high of $1,036 when it sold in March. Just seven months earlier, a Jones in that same grade went for $882.52—an increase of 17.4%. 

Due to its rarity, Desert Shield sealed boxes are also soaring in price. According to Divel, boxes can sell between $20,000-$50,000, depending on the day. 

“Even that I think is undervalued,” he said. 

Raw sets of Desert Shield cards are on the increase, going for about $7,500, noted Bell.

For graded sets, well, now we’re talking big money. Even though he is still 15 cards from completing an entire set in PSA 10s, Divel believes his set is worth $500,000. If he gets it finished, he is sure it can hit seven figures.

“I’d be willing to bet my set should be worth about a half a million dollars right now, which for a 1991 set is crazy because of the Junk Wax Era,” Divel said.

With it being the 35-year anniversary of the release, interest is at an all-time high. But Divel thinks the cards still have so much more upside.

“This is one of those rarest of the rare sets and it’s yet to hit so many peoples’ radars,” Divel said.