When you could get a fun variety of foreign silver coins for under a dollar each. Please feel free to post any other coins with obsolete pricing.
My first mail order coin was an American silver eagle for $7 from Littleton. Oh, those were the days.
I plucked a couple of British trade dollars from a dealer's junk silver bin for ~$10 or so back then.
Not quite 90's.... but close. I got my driver's license in 2001. There was a pawn shop near where I lived, and I'd sort through their silver bin. Every once in a while I'd find something cool. Here's one:
I have one of these, but bought it about 3 years ago. Not cheap silver price, but it's a nice big chunk of sterling coin silver.
Not exactly foreign, but I felt it was relevant considering the topic. I'm pretty sure these coins were flipped over 20+ years ago, considering the price and age of the flips.
Cheap silver from the 90s was great, but the salary was a similar fraction of today also. I prefer the higher salary and the moderate silver cost of today.