Hey, remember the ‘90’s? When everything was X-treme and X-citing and X-plosive and nearly every product or event figured out a way to feature a big, red, bleeding X that looked like it had been scratched out by a bobcat? XFL, X-games, most of the bands on the Surge Soundtrack (probably) – freaking everything had an X in it. Dudes in white college baseball caps driving pickup trucks with the requisite “No Fear” and Calvin-peeing-on-something-stickers would roam suburban neighborhoods blaring Jock Jams and subjugating their unfulfilled girlfriends, snacking on Gushers Xtreme Kiwi Xplosion and Mountain Dew, comforted by the fact that most brands fully approved their X-treme way of life. I guess what I’m getting at is that big, stupid X’s were everywhere, and it was embarrassing.

But somehow when Pinnacle did it, it wasn’t so bad.

While it is one of the many forgettable one-and-done sets of the late 90’s, 1997 Pinnacle X-Press actually did give us a handful of memorable cards. The base set is just okay, but overall X-Press is a testament to the effort that Pinnacle put into their inserts and parallels.

1997 Pinnacle X-Press #7

The bold, uncluttered base cards are reasonably attractive, sporting a pair of photos, plenty of team color, and just the right amount of gold foil. The back, however, is a lot more interesting.


Well, okay, so the Griffey is not all that interesting. Case in point: an action photo taken from an abandoned stadium. Where the hell is everybody? Is this really the best shot they could have used? And is it wrong to complain about a relatively large, full-color photo on a card back?

Pinnacle chose to forego quantitative career stats for a month-by-month performance breakdown, a unique and kind of ballsy way of doing things. It’s pretty costly in terms of space, so there is no room for a blurb. Altogether this back is a lot like the front: attractive enough, but far from all that and a bag of chips (‘90’s!).

1997 Pinnacle X-Press #7 Men of Summer

Men of Summer is a parallel done right. Where some companies slap a foil stamp on a card front and call it rare, Pinnacle completely changed the look of the card here. I especially like the addition of a shining gold sun in the right border. Sure, it’s just a bit of papery foil for the most part, but I believe this parallel rivals Pinnacle’s exclusive Dufex-printed Starburst insert parallel in terms of attractiveness.

There’s also an indicator of the parallel on the card back. You see that a lot now; not so much in 1997.

1997 Pinnacle X-Press #139 Peak Performer

Junior’s Peak Performers subset card from this set is actually pretty brilliant. This is some solid use of team color and the perfect quantity and placement of gold foil. My favorite parts are the big opening day banner in the photo and the way the Mariners logo appears to shoot diagonally across the card, barely missing the Kid’s knee.

1997 Pinnacle X-Press #139 Peak Performer Men of Summer

Here’s another perfectly-executed Men of Summer parallel. With the placement of the sun element, this card has Junior looking like the second coming (and in terms of guys named Ken Griffey, he literally was). It only made it onto these two cards, but Men of Summer is one of my favorite parallels of the ‘90’s.

1997 Pinnacle X-Press Far & Away #14

This card looks like it should be made of clear acetate, but it’s really more of a Chromium effect. I like the card back alright, but the front is a bit text-focused for my taste. And the film Far and Away starring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise was released a full five years before this card debuted. That’s hardly topical.

There was a home plate-shaped hobby box you could buy that in addition to a bunch of cards contained one of 20 Metal Works cards ingots. And when I say ingot, I mean it. Say hello to my heaviest Griffey:

1997 Pinnacle X-Press Metal Works #1 Bronze

It really is my heaviest card, even more so than the giant 19” x 25” oversized Griffey I got from Upper Deck last year. I keep it in a super-thick top loader not to protect it, but to protect all the other cards around it. You literally could give someone a concussion with this thing.

These ingots also came in silver and gold versions in runs of 400 and 200, respectively, but the bronze ones are far more common. I guess you can call Metal Works cards “inserts,” but they weren’t really inserted in the strictest sense. They were distributed one per home plate box. How else could you do it? Otherwise these would have been the easiest pack-searches in history. Just buy the one that goes CLANG when you drop it on the floor.

1997 Pinnacle X-Press Melting Pot #6 Sample

No, this is not the real deal. It is a sample because the real card is very much a gray whale: gettable, but for just a little more than I’m willing to pay. They’re numbered out of 500, a tiny run for 1997, so they aren’t very cheap. I think the patriotic aspect adds to the demand a bit as well.

Design-wise there’s not a lot going on here. Junior’s portrait is superimposed over an American flag with all the white bits done up in silver foil. The nameplate is as simple as they come while the back is fun and colorful, featuring the flags of many nations. In the Disney World that is Pinnacle X-Press, this card is EPCOT. There’s also a very brief blurb about the fact that Junior is American, something most of us gleaned from the giant flag on the front (and from, you know, just knowing things).

The funny thing about these is that I believe there are far more than 500 of the sample card floating around. Is that not a little strange to you guys? There being more of a sample card than of the actual card being sampled? And on top of that they created samples for every player in the checklist? So there are in reality literally thousands more samples than actual Melting Pot cards?

Overall, this is a very strange, offbeat insert card with few similar cards to compare it with. Maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten around to landing one. It’s just too darn weird.

1997 Pinnacle X-press Swing for the Fences Game Card

Like "You Crash the Game" from Upper Deck’s Collector’s Choice brand, Pinnacle’s “Swing for the Fences” was based on real-life stats from that year, namely who would lead each league in home runs. Winners could exchange cards for an array of prizes, one of which was a 10-card pack of upgraded versions of the Swing for the Fences game cards. The intricacies of the contest are just a little outside the scope of this blog, but you can read about them here.

Now, if I am interpreting this right, if you have the Griffey card and you win the contest, you can redeem the Griffey for a pack of cards that more than likely does not contain the Griffey? Ouch. The upgraded versions are really stupid, too: the Swing for the Fences logo on the front is gold foil, and that’s it. No other differences. Even the back is identical, game rules and all.

Call it a protest, but the upgraded exchange Griffey remains absent from my collection to this day. I need one, and I want it, I guess, but I am not actively pursuing it. I hate to end this post on a negative note, but there it is.

Here are the Griffeys I still need from 1997 Pinnacle X-Press:

Melting Pot #6 #/500
Metal Works #6 Silver /400
Metal Works #6 Gold /200
Swing for the Fences #26 Upgraded Winner Redemption

There are better one-and-done sets from the late ‘90’s, but there are many far worse ones. Despite a handful of missteps, I’m happy to give Pinnacle a pass here for the prodigious parallels and ingenious ingots they gave us.

"Hey, there are actually some pretty good songs on here" - Me in 1996

In terms of Bowman sets from this year, Griffey only appeared in two: Bowman flagship and Chrome. The other Bowman sets, Platinum, Sterling, and Picks & Prospects, included no Griffeys at all; and between the regular and Chrome sets he only made it onto one insert – the rest is base cards and their parallels. So while I usually cover one set per post, today we’re going to squeeze out a two-plunker with 2010 Bowman and 2010 Bowman Chrome.

2010 Bowman #40

While many suspected this would be Junior’s last season, nobody knew for sure. That being said, the Kid’s final Bowman card is light years better than his Topps flagship base card. The Topps photo is kind of far-away, taken at a funny angle, and doesn’t really capture the character of the Kid; but this Bowman card is bright, fun, and joyful. It wasn’t his first season back in Seattle, but he just looks so happy to be wearing that uniform again. It’s a sunset card I can live with.

He would retire suddenly a few months after this photo was taken, but for now he's right at home.

Design-wise I like how simple this year’s sets were. Bowman kept with the now-retired color-coded borders (I believe it was red for veterans, blue for rookies, and green for prospects) that began back in the 90’s. It’s arguably the simplest design we've seen from them this century, and it works. Strong blurb, too. The word "selective" was an interesting choice.

Here's a bunch of parallels:

2010 Bowman #40 Gold

2010 Bowman #40 Blue #/520

2010 Bowman #40 Orange #/250

Bowman loves colored parallels as you probably know. While I am technically missing the red 1/1 and the printing plates, I don’t count 1/1’s among the gettable cards for this set. For our purposes, my 2010 Bowman flagship Griffey set is complete.

2010 Bowman 1992 Bowman Throwbacks #BT62

This is the only Bowman insert Junior made an appearance in this year, and it’s pretty damn awesome. Everyone loves the cringeworthy ‘90’s fashion show that was the 1992 Bowman rookie roundup. Personally I’d have waited for 2012 when the set was 20 years old, but for some reason they did it at 18 years. Regardless it looks great, and they absolutely nailed the back. Love that portrait. A very cool tribute to one of the best Bowman sets ever made.

I know what you’re thinking: how would those base cards look if they were shinier with a permanent bend?

2010 Bowman Chrome #155

Design-wise Bowman Chrome is exactly like regular Bowman with a different photo, specifically another awkwardly-angled swing away photo much like the Topps base card. It appears to be an homage to Junior's sweet swing. It’s not a bad card, but it’s not a great one, either.

All the 2010 Bowman Chrome cards had a permanent bend or “bowing” which you’ve probably seen if you’ve ever stacked 2010 Bowman Chrome cards together with other cards in a long box. There’s nothing you can really do about it, either. Just consider it part of the charm of this set.

Here's the refractor which I imagine looks pretty cool in those colored parallels:

2010 Bowman Chrome #155 Refractor

One thing I’d really like to have seen is a Chrome version of the 1992 Throwback insert. With all the white in the original design they would have been super shiny, not to mention the refractors. Oh, well - missed opportunity.

Here are the Griffeys I need from 2010 Bowman and Bowman Chrome:

2010 Bowman #40 Red 1/1
2010 Bowman #40 Printing Plate (four 1/1’s)
2010 Bowman Chrome #155 Blue #/150
2010 Bowman Chrome #155 Gold #/50
2010 Bowman Chrome #155 Orange #/25
2010 Bowman Chrome #155 Red #/5
2010 Bowman Chrome #155 Superfractor 1/1
2010 Bowman Chrome #155 Printing Plate (four 1/1’s)

I included the 1/1’s but I have no plans to ever own them. Maybe a colored refractor or two will find its way here someday.

There it is: the plaque we’ve waited over 20 years to see. This past weekend I, like so many other Griffey fans across the world, watched from home as Junior gave the speech he was predicted to give way back before the Internet, cell phones, and even Inter-league play. On Sunday we finally got to hear the speech we’ve been due for so many years.


It came as no surprise that Junior’s speech was very much family-first. He had something sweet and personal to say to everyone, even ol' Craig. Those of us who have seen him speak know the Kid is an emotional guy. It’s always touching to watch him do that “aw, shucks,” tilted head, right hand to his brow thing he does. It’s a level of humility few Hall-of-Fame-level athletes can express. He even managed to make my wife well up (which is a feat, believe me – it might happen once a year, tops).

Junior was generous with his praise of other players and his fans, even mentioning one fan by name – Rob (lucky, lucky Rob), who travelled 6000 miles to see the Kid’s induction. He gave big kudos to his friends Barry Larkin and Edgar Martinez (“He deserves to be in the Hall”), but one of my favorite moments was when he called on his longtime friend and Kingdome outfield buddy Jay Buhner. Something about that moment felt particularly special to me. Maybe having spent years collecting their cards and seeing them time and time again horsing around and giving us wacky poses – it just felt very real to me. We all need that Jay Buhner friend.
There was a moment when he was talking about his Dad when he said simply, “We hit back-to-back home runs.” He said it quickly, like he wanted to hurry and get it out before a sob. Then he paused a pause I don’t believe was planned, like he was trying to overcome the emotion of the moment as well as the power of that statement. The crowd was, too. A wave of cheers came after a few seconds of silence as Junior regained composure. The crowd was sending him as much support as they could while at the same time saying, “Heck, yeah, you did.” What an awesome moment.

He went on to list some of the most memorable moments of his career, and most of them were his; but a lot of them weren’t: Randy Johnson’s no-hitter was mentioned as was Larkin's first grand slam and Buhner hitting for the cycle. He was celebrating other guys’ accomplishments in his freaking Hall of Fame speech. Who does that? He even spoke fondly of his short time wearing #17 for the White Sox, proud that he got to play in meaningful games every day. Griffey fans don’t like to talk about his cup of coffee in Chicago, but he made it sound like one of the best times in his life.

Junior’s speech showcased all the reasons we love Griffey. He was humble, honest, genuine, and modest throughout. And as superhuman as he may have looked so many times when wielding a bat at the plate or climbing an outfield wall, yesterday he looked relatable and human. At one point he had trouble getting through a particular sentence and had to stop and tell himself out loud, “Slow down,” like a nervous, well, Kid. We are all this man.


I didn’t cry – not once – until he put on that damn backwards cap. That got me, guys. It really did.

And did you see his suit?

A friend of mine was at the house as we watched the speech, and at one point when they cut to Ken, Sr. barely keeping it together, not even looking up at his son for fear of breaking down completely, I mentioned to her that he has a World Series ring and Junior doesn’t. She replied, “Yeah, but Junior got in the Hall of Fame. Which is better, really?” Touché.

I wore my dark blue Mariners jersey and a backwards cap the entire day. For the rest of the afternoon we (my friend, my wife, and I) would randomly interject “Griff-ehhhh” (similar to the way Peter Griffin said “SpongeBob” in that one episode) into every conversation possible. Moments of silence, moments of celebration – every kind of moment got a “Griff-ehhhh.” We all celebrate in our own way.

So many Griffey guys...

I really wanted to be in Cooperstown for the big event, but in addition to shelling out a pile of cash and travelling on multiple planes with a four-month-old, it would have required skipping my annual family camping trip which I haven’t done since it began 25 years ago (around the same time The Kid won his first Gold Glove). I settled for streaming it on my phone and airplaying it to the TV which worked beautifully. Thanks, MLB, for making it available online.

Oh, and a big shout-out to Mike Piazza. He gave a long and beautifully-assembled speech whose eloquence I admit I was not expecting. Not bad for a 62nd-rounder.


But this is what I watched for.

Congratulations, Kid.

1994 is the last of the “simple” Ultra sets. After this came parallels and paralleled inserts with insertion ratios astronomical by early-90’s standards. Obviously things got pretty hairy for big-name player collectors, so for now let’s take a minute and enjoy the leisurely pace of a time before the Gold Medallions, Platinum Medallions, and 1-of-1 Masterpieces that characterized the remainder of the Ultra timeline.

Look at these two!

1994 Ultra #120

They’re totes BFF’s. Buhner made it into the Hall of Fame speech – not much higher praise than that. I like how Junior is looking directly at the camera as if to say, “Excuse me – we are having a buddy moment. Could you please give us a sec while we celebrate our friendship with mutual being-good-at-baseball and complicated handshakes? Thank you.” Love this card.

I also like how the design is reminiscent of the inaugural 1991 design, e.g. lots of horizontal elements and a classy font. The large, etched-foil Ultra logo (on every card, btw) that replaced the flaming baseballs of the previous two sets also looks great even though it was only used for this one set.


On the back an abbreviated stat box and total lack of blurbage make space for three giant color action photos. This is an idea that would come to define a lot of 90’s cardboard: plenty of sizzle, very little steak. Not that I mind it – there are plenty of other cards (not to mention the inserts from this very set) to turn to for actual baseball information and more complete statistics. I’m willing to forgive certain sets of cards to be a little less informative for the sake of photography and foil (which is probably one of the defining characteristics of a 90’s collector). And speaking of foil, this may be the most ever put on the back of a base card.

1994 Ultra All-Star Team #8

All the inserts are pretty similar design-wise with player photos superimposed over full-bleed fields of primary colors populated with 90’s-style clipart. I don’t mind that Junior looks a little cross-eyed here – this is a fun, colorful card. In fact all the inserts put together have the appearance of a modern-day parallel rainbow. That big foil Ultra logo made it onto the front and back of this one.

1994 Ultra Award Winners #6

Here is one of my earliest Griffey inserts and a long-time favorite for one reason alone: that excellent “A.L. Top Glove” shield with the little fleur de lis. Is that thing official? As in used by MLB? Because it’s awesome. It’s a thoughtful, well-written blurb, too. Just a great card in general.

1994 Ultra Home Run King #2

Here is yet another full-bleed clip art background, this time in black with a brightly-colored neon silhouette. Also another totally sweet insert logo.

1994 Ultra On-Base Leader #6

On-Base Leaders is far and away the toughest get here, being a relatively big checklist and seeded at 1:36 packs. That’s the same insertion ratio as the Home Run Kings insert, but this insert could only be pulled from Series 2 pre-priced packs, effectively boosting the scarcity. While all the other Griffeys of 1994 Ultra can be had for a couple of bucks a piece, don’t be surprised if the price of an On-Base Leaders Griffey reaches into the double-digits.

While there aren’t any insanely rare or iconic cards from ’94 Ultra, it remains a great relic of 90’s cardboard with a lot of solid photography and some memorable designs.

Some of you may remember I began a difficult project last year with a very precise deadline. I challenged myself to complete the once-impossible-seeming Beckett Ken Griffey, Jr. Tribute checklist from 1996, and I gave myself until December 31st, 2016 to do it. The year is definitely winding down, so I figure it’s time for a progress report.

When I started I noted that there were 727 cards on this list (I was counting check boxes) when in actuality there are 769 total cards. So my figure of 570/727 or 78.4% should have read 570/769 which in actuality put me at 74%.

Luckily that didn’t matter much as I’ve made a ton of progress (more than someone with a newborn ought to). I’ve been keeping up with new Griffey adds on COMC, and I kept a very detailed list of eBay followed searches. The result is that I am now a whopping 96% complete the full list.

I have full-page scans at the bottom of this post if you're curious...

Look at all those checked boxes!

There are only 28 cards left to get over the next 4 months and 2 days. That’s 124 days or one Griffey every 4.43 days. While I do have leads on a half dozen or so of the remaining Griffeys, and none of those I need are particularly expensive, some of them are proving rather tough to find. Here are the real bears of the final 28:

From eBay

I expect this to be the most expensive card left to get. There are estimated to be about 700 of them floating around, and in 1994 numbers that’s a damn small amount. The only one I’ve seen available is a PSA 10 on eBay for $325.00. I’m going to hold off on that and try for a loose one.

The one I have

At 1:36 packs and in a checklist of 450 cards, pulling an AP of one of the four Griffeys from ’95 Pinnacle was a rare feat. I’ve got the base card which is historically the priciest of Junior’s cards within a given parallel. The other cards are two checklists (one of which has three other popular players on it) and the totally badass Swing Men subset. We’ll just see how this one pans out.

The much easier-to-come-by silver versions

If I had to guess what the final holdout is going to be, I would guess one or all of these (the Gold versions, I mean). The most annoying thing – they’re just game cards. As baseball cards there’s nothing especially great about them (the back is contest rules for goodness sake). They’re not even super expensive – they’re just super scarce. I suspect I’m one of the only idiots looking for them.

Parallels like these are proving to be some of the toughest gets. Take the 1996 Ultra Gold Medallions, for example.


This was the year Gold Medallions really started to mean something. What’s silly about this is that I already have what is far and away the toughest one to find: the 1:2440 pack Hitting Machines insert (not on the list, but come on). The rest of these pale in their relative rarity. Really, it’s not even close; and yet it’s these significantly easier finds that I’m having the hardest time tracking down.

On the other end of the spectrum are a handful of cards that are not particularly rare at all – it’s just that nobody is bothering to sell them.


This O-Pee-Chee redemption jumbo is one of them. I already have several of the much rarer gold foil version, but the crappy regular has been eluding my collecting crosshairs all year. I suspect someone out there has it and isn’t bothering to sell it because they figure it’s not worth the effort.


Then there’s the 1994 Upper Deck Jumbo Checklist #4. Look on eBay and there are dozens of every other card in this 4-card checklist…well, checklist. But #4? There is only one, and dude wants thirteen bucks plus seven bucks shipping. He’s dreaming.


And the 1995 Stadium Club #521 Extreme Corps 1st Day Issue! GAH! Now 1st Day Issue parallels have never been particularly easy to find, but I have literally every other 1st Day Issue card from every other year including the more expensive base cards, and this parallel I’ve never cared for is the one giving me trubs.

Don’t let these cards fool you, though. While it’s true that numerically this project has been a rousing success (I’ve averaged one new Griffey from the list per 3.4 days, which is ahead of my original goal of one per 3.5 days), what those numbers don’t take into account is that the remaining checklist is the most challenging part. Which brings us to prediction time.

Refractors! Finally knocked these out just this month...

Will I be able to finish this thing off? Honestly? Probably not. The numbers may look favorable in black and white, but the truth is that with every card I land the average scarcity of the remaining cards goes up dramatically. If I had a few more months I would be more optimistic. I just don’t think I’m going to be able to find every single one in this final stretch. It won’t be for lack of trying, but I cannot control the supply.

The last of the '95 Select Artist's Proof Parallels! I was beginning to lose hope for this one...

On the other hand, will I ever finish the list? Yes, I will. Regardless of whether I get past the finish line before my self-imposed deadline, I am confident it can be done. It may end up being a 21, 23, or even 40-year checklist; but dammit, I’m going to make it happen in my lifetime. Then I’m going to rent a time machine (cheaper than buying), go back to 1996, and show 15-year old me that it is, indeed, possible. I’ll also show him how bald he is going to get. It’ll be a bittersweet day for him, that’s for sure.

Here's the remaining list which I pretty much have memorized now:

1.1993 Finest All-Star Jumbos #110
2.1993 Upper Deck Iooss Collection #WI13 Jumbo
3.1994 Collector’s Choice #634 Up Close & Personal Gold Signature
4.1994 O-Pee-Chee All-Star Redemptions #8 Jumbo (regular non-foil)
5.1994 Signature Rookies Flip Cards Signatures #AU5 /500 (w/ Craig and Ken auto)
6.1994 Signature Rookies Flip Cards Signatures #AU4 /1000 (w/ Ken, Sr. auto)
7.1994 Signature Rookies Flip Cards Signatures #AU6 /500 (w/ Ken, Sr and Jr. auto)
8.1994 SP Holoview #12 Red
9.1994 Upper Deck All-Star Jumbos Gold #1
10.1994 Upper Deck All-Star Jumbos Gold 125th Anniversary
11.1994 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. Checklist Jumbos #4
12.1995 Collector’s Choice You Crash the Game #CG8A 7/2 Gold
13.1995 Collector’s Choice You Crash the Game #CG8B 8/24 Gold
14.1995 Collector’s Choice You Crash the Game #CG8C 9/15 Gold
15.1995 Collector's Choice SE #261 Checklist Gold Signature
16.1995 Donruss #340 Press Proof
17.1995 Pinnacle #304 Swingmen Artist's Proof
18.1995 Pinnacle #447 CL Artist's Proof
19.1995 Pinnacle #450 CL Artist's Proof (w/ Bagwell, Piazza, Thomas)
20.1995 Score #447 Platinum
21.1995 Score Rules #SR1 Jumbo
22.1995 Stadium Club #521 Extreme Corps 1st Day Issue
23.1995 Upper Deck #100 Electric Diamond Gold
24.1995 Upper Deck Predictor #R45 RBI Leader
25.1996 Collector's Choice #310 Gold Signature
26.1996 Ultra Home Run Kings #6 Gold Medallion
27.1996 Ultra Power Plus #3 Gold Medallion
28.1996 Ultra Prime Leather #6 Gold Medallion


I'll continue logging my progress with the list via the "Official Griffey Want List" tab at the top of this page, even if it takes us into 2017 (which is pretty likely at this point). Here are the full-page scans of the want list at the time of this post.





Fifteen-year-old me is excited out of his mind.

Thanks for reading!

A year ago this month I had the unique opportunity to turn a whole room into my own collecting dungeon/office/man cave. Now that a year has passed, here is a quick update on how that room has evolved.


The desk, of course, is the nerve center of the room. The top shelf of the hutch has all the non-overproduction-era cards divided up by team for trade purposes. The shelf above the computer holds all my cases, sleeves, screw cases, team bags, and other storage media. On the shelves to the right are my reference books, digital scale for shipping, and every note I've ever received from fellow bloggers in trades. I also have a lot of empty pack boxes I just don't have the heart to throw out (yet). To the left of the laptop is a steel phone stand with the Griffey Swingman logo cut out of it made by fellow Griffeynaut Jason.


Sadly my old HP scanner/printer finally gave out, so I had to buy a new one which works wirelessly via wifi. The green table is all-purpose, but the school desk on the left is strictly for cardboard. That corner also holds my signed Upper Deck super jumbo, uncut 1989 Upper Deck sheet 1, and a few other cool items (Megaman!).


Here's the school desk. I've got a few items on here going out to other bloggers, new Griffeys, some stuff slated for eBay, and a few smaller set boxes.


My Griffey cabinet houses the bulk of my collection, including all Griffeys worth less than ten bucks (the rest are in a vault at the bank). On top are large boxes full of blogger trades, mini collections, and my non-baseball cards.


Those big brown flat boxes hold my print collection which is a real pain in the B to store. To the left is the closet which is full of shipping supplies and hundreds of bubble mailers ready for trading.


I've had that Griffey poster since I was wee.


You may notice a few blanked-out items on the walls. If you want to know what I'm covering up, you'll just have to come visit (bring Griffeys).


These shelves see a lot of action, too. As you can see I got a small flat screen so I can watch DVD's and tapes while I do cardboard. Five of the shelves here are devoted solely to cardboard with a few more bits and pieces spread among the other shelves. The early-80's X-wing toy suspended from the ceiling I got at a card show a few months back.


Here are the card shelves. We have one with set binders and Griffey magazines, another with general cardboard items, one with a bunch of complete sets and my ongoing 1989 Donruss set building boxes, and the one on the bottom-right is a massive load of unsorted cards divided up by brand. Frankly I'd like to find something to do with all those cards. There are just so many, and I don't have the heart to throw them away. The "burn" box is full of damaged overproduction-era cards I'm saving for the fire pit game we invented a few years back.

One of my favorite things in this picture is the VCR which I keep connected to a DVDR at all times so I can digitize VHS tapes.


Here is my Griffey shelf. I don't generally collect big, clunky, non-card stuff like this, but I do enjoy it, so it's nice to have a place for it all. Kirby is there because it's just a really neat card.


Here are my CD, DVD, and VHS collections under the watchful eye of the X-wing. You can also see my MST3K prop collection on the top of the shelves over on the right there.

That's it. I know I'm too late for the contest, but I've been meaning to put this post together for a while, so there it is. I'm reigniting the blogging spark!

Coming soon: dozens of overdue trade posts. I swear...

In 1998 just about every card company tried in their own way to redefine the “set” with new configurations and the introduction of extremely complicated tiered base sets. Donruss did it with Preferred, Topps did it with a newly-complicated version of Finest, and Fleer did it harder than anybody with Flair Showcase. Everyone jumped on the complication trolley, leaving many collectors (including yours truly) scratching their heads at what they just pulled from packs.

“Look! I pulled a Class 6, Level B, Rainbow Gold, semi-common domino refractor polka-dot edition, Seat 12!” "Is that good?" "No idea."

Upper Deck’s foray into the inconceivable was 1998 UD3. And while ridiculous by most standards, this set was a cinch to understand in 1998.

What we have here is a 270-card checklist with three tiers of subsets in three different effects. So it’s really a series of nine 30-card subsets. On top of that we have a die-cut parallel that is also tiered and serial-numbered with the rarer cards appearing later in the checklist.

The result is that each card has three numbers: a set number (out of 270), a subset number (out of 90), and an effect set number (also out of 90).

I don’t want any heads exploding, so I’m going to stick with just the Griffeys. Here’s the breakdown:

Each player appears in only one of the subsets, Griffey’s being Power Corps (there is also Future Impact and The Establishment, but don’t worry about those), and each subset shows up three times in the main checklist, once per effect. Each of Griffey’s three base cards is the same subset card in one of the three printing effects, so there are three regular Griffey base cards. Each of the subset/effect pairings are also seeded at differing rarities.

Each of those three base cards comes in a die-cut parallel as well, doubling the number of cards for each player to six. Add two to that as there is also a blurry background Griffey cameo on the Jay Buhner Rainbow card and its die-cut parallel. Those, along with the Sample card and Blow-up box topper card, gives us a total of 10 Griffeys from 1998 UD3.

Here is the full Griffey checklist from 1998 Upper Deck UD3:

#S1 Sample
#60 (Power Corps Light FX)
#60 (Power Corps Light FX) Die-Cut #/2000
#60 Power Corps Blowups 5x7
#150 (Power Corps Embossed)
#150 (Power Corps Embossed) Die-Cut #/1000
#240 (Power Corps Rainbow)
#240 (Power Corps Rainbow) Die-Cut #/100
Jay Buhner #213 (Power Corps Rainbow) (cameo)
Jay Buhner #213 (Power Corps Rainbow) Die-Cut #/100 (cameo)

So let’s start at the top:

1998 Upper Deck UD3 #60 (Power Corps Light FX)

The first 90 cards in the checklist are in an effect called “Light FX,” which is a fancy way of saying “etched foil.” These are 1:1, making them the easiest Griffey pulls in the set.

1998 Upper Deck UD3 #60 (Power Corps Light FX) Die-Cut #/2000

The die-cutting and numbering are the only differences here from the regular card. It doesn’t add much design-wise. I do appreciate the pre-rounded corners, though.

1998 Upper Deck UD3 #150 (Power Corps Embossed)

The next 90 cards are all in the Embossed effect. The Power Corps in this effect are only slightly rarer than those in the Light FX at 1:4 packs. As you can see this effect is bordered in bronze.

1998 Upper Deck UD3 #240 (Power Corps Rainbow)

The last 90 cards are in the Rainbow effect which is really just a refractor. At 1:12 packs these are the rarest non-parallel Griffey base cards, but this effect also includes the rarest subset/effect pairing at 1:24 packs for cards from The Establishment subset. The gold looks good, too, I must admit. The die-cut for this baby is limited to only 100 produced, a super low run for its time. It’s probably very expensive, too, so I’m in no hurry to complete this one.

And to make things more complicated...

1998 Upper Deck UD3 Jay Buhner #213 (Power Corps Rainbow) (cameo)

It's a cameo! Junior is sitting in the background by the dugout, hat on backwards, watching his buddy at the plate. Yeah, it's pretty blurry, but come on - that is so our guy.

Here are all the Griffeys I need from 1998 Upper Deck UD3:

#S1 Sample
#60 Power Corps Blowups 5x7
#150 (Power Corps Embossed) Die-Cut #/1000
#240 (Power Corps Rainbow) Die-Cut #/100
Jay Buhner #213 (Power Corps Rainbow) Die-Cut #/100 (cameo)

As for the design, it was a hot minute before I realized this was even a base card. I was already used to UD3 and its base set made up of multiple subsets from the 1997 product, but this year’s set is much more complicated and frankly looks a lot less like a base set. I always mistook it for a multi-tiered insert - I think it’s that big “1997” on the card front and plethora of text boxes that make it look that way. Those characteristics just aren’t very base-y, ya know?

I don’t know where they were planning on taking this brand, but whatever it was didn’t happen. I suppose it should be no surprise that I’ve never seen 1998 UD3 mentioned on the blogsphere apart from this post. 1997 UD3 comes up every now and again, but I think a lot of folks are content to just forget 1998 UD3 even happened.

When the vintage nouveau explosion arrived in the early 2000’s, all brands that weren’t Topps suddenly had a decision to make: openly steal Topps’ vintage designs or create new designs that only borrow from Topps. All the major companies did one or the other at some point in this short span.

So it’s no surprise that the base cards of 2001 Fleer Tradition sport a design reminiscent of the 1955, ’56, and ’60 Topps sets. Like its predecessors in design, each card front features a portrait on one side and an impressionist painting of an action shot on the other. The big, bold name plate along the bottom and a small cartoon on the back also look familiar.

I don’t blame Fleer for borrowing – it could be argued that they wanted this to have the look of a “vintage baseball card,” not a “Topps card.” The fact that the vast, vast majority of vintage cards were made by Topps couldn’t be helped. Like if surf music made a big comeback and suddenly the early-60’s Beach Boys albums started flying off the shelves – new bands would play surf-style music that would no doubt sound a lot like The Beach Boys because they were the standard-setters (no disrespect to Jan & Dean and the other surf bands of the 60’s – BTdubs, I would be 100% behind a surf music revival happening).

If anything I respect the fact that they created an original design in the vein of the vintage Topps designs, but not an overt rip-off. That being said, there are still several missteps in 2001 Tradition that can’t be ignored. Gird your loins for a little classic blogger bitching and moaning.

2001 Fleer Tradition #140

A few minuses and one big plus with this one. First, the big, black nameplate is uggz. Many of these vintage sets were colorful and fun, but this one comes across a little dark. Second, Griffey looks like he’s watching TV on this card. This guy has one of the most expressive faces in baseball, but they picked the most deadpan portrait they could find. At least we get to see the signature backwards cap, and for the first time it is a Reds cap. That fact alone is the plus that saves the card. I also like the painting, and the back is pretty cool, too.

2001 Fleer Tradition #427 Checklist (w/D. Graves, S. Casey, P. Reese, S. Parris)

Fleer got creative with the checklists, and nothing says vintage like floating disembodied heads. I really do like these cards. They’re fun and kind of playful. They were also fun and playful when Topps did them in ’63:


I’m not mad, though. Nobody owns the copyright on the human head.

It appears that the Reds pitcher that led the team in wins and ERA in 2000 did not have a base card in this set or even a photograph of his disembodied head on file with Fleer. Steve Parris retired in 2003 after nine seasons with four teams and a 44-49 record, 4.75 ERA, and just shy of 500 strikeouts. He had gone 12-17 for Cincy in 2000. Steve even appears on a card with Junior in the 2001 Victory set, but remains (noticeably?) missing from 2001 Tradition.

2001 Fleer Tradition Diamond Tributes #24

Pinstripes!!! Photography-wise this card has the same problem as the base card: a deadpan portrait that also happens to be a sweet backwards cap shot. Then again, it’s also nice to have an insert point out a player’s off-the-field heroism as this one does for every player in the checklist. A fun design whose fonts, pinstripes, and simple design all scream classic baseball.

2001 Fleer Tradition Warning Track #8

Everywhere that Diamond Tributes insert excels, this one falters. I suspect they were trying to stick with simplicity in the design, and while the concept is good the execution is a little lackluster. It’s plain and the colors clash something horrible, particularly in the area of the grayed-out crowd above the wall. This insert was a rare pull at 1:72 packs, and it included names like Josh Gibson and Larry Doby which I love, but I just never found these cards very desirable. It doesn’t seem like they put a lot of time into them - even the back feels thrown-together. Of course, that didn’t stop me from picking up a copy of the Gibson and the Doby for my collection.

The background wall is embossed which is kind of cool....I guess.

I read a quote once that a critic is someone who puts on a suit of armor and attacks an ice cream sundae. Since then I try not to be overly critical when I do write-ups of cards (especially with Fleer inserts which are usually pretty neat). I really don't want to be that guy, but bear with me on this next one. 'Cuz I fucking hate it.

2001 Fleer Tradition Lumber Company #3

Lumber Company has been a standard insert of Fleer sets going back to 1996, and it was almost always cool….until now. This year they completely blew it. While most years of Lumber Company use wood grain and texture right in the design of the card, the 2001 version is just a big, team-colored rectangle with a massive team logo and a bat sporting the insert name. It really sucks. This insert would bounce back design-wise (the forthcoming 2006 design is a favorite), but 2001 is just the worst. Boo this card.

2001 Fleer Tradition Grass Roots #14

This card makes me laugh. It’s an attractive design and talks about Junior’s similarity with Willie Mays, but that image of Junior running through gigantic blades of grass is such a literal treatment of the insert name that it boggles the mind. The fonts and design are balanced and classy, but really this card looks like a scene from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Or should I say, The Kid?

2001 had a lot of problems, but there were some bright spots, too. There are plenty of decent non-Griffey base cards, the “Stitches in Time” insert is an attractive tribute to the greats of the Negro Leagues, and the inclusion of a few retired legends in regular inserts was still pretty innovative. The way I see it, had they fixed the color on Junior’s base card, not fudged up Lumber Company so bad, and included Griffey in the “Turn Back the Clock” relic insert, I’d have a very different perspective on this troubled set.

I'm sorry I cursed, but you were warned...

Baseball is hardly ever televised in my hometown. We don’t have an MLB team in New Orleans, and the closest one to us never brought locals any excitement, even in the few-and-far-between good years. All this made me a bit of an anomaly in the mid-to-late 90’s when I followed baseball closest. The only outlets for my MLB fandom were Baseball Tonight, the occasional TBS Braves or WGN Cubs game, and the newspaper box scores which I would read each morning, even before the comics.

So the look of those box scores is very much burned into my memory, and seeing one even now brings up the excitement of seeing a stat line full of numbers next to “Griffey Jr” in tiny black and white print, and scanning the home runs breakdown to see if my favorite player was any closer to that hallowed #61.

Of course these mornings eventually got harder and harder to swallow for Griffey fans like me as McGwire and Sosa pulled away in 1998, leaving Junior with *only* 56. By the time Bonds took every bit of fun out of the home run race in 2001, I was back to reading comics first again, and I’ve never looked back.

So I have a big ole soft spot for this set. On the surface the idea is simple: a set of cards based on the iconic and universal baseball box score. Personally I would have taken the idea and made an insert for another one of Fleer’s myriad sets, but I’m not one of the creative geniuses Fleer had working for them in the early aughts. They stretched it into an entire sub-brand with numerous relics and numbered parallels and everything.

2002 Fleer Box Score #28

The obvious highlight here is the real box score used right in the design. Thanks to context clues in the box score and a little sleuthing on baseball-almanac.com, I was able to deduce that this from the Reds’ first game of the year on April 1st, 2002, a mere seven days before Griffey would suffer a major knee injury. The Reds would lose that game to the Cubs with Junior putting up one hit and a sac fly.

It makes sense that Fleer would use the box score from Opening Day as the idea for this set probably came during the off-season when brands are brainstorming new ideas, Fleer moreso than most. I’m too lazy to do the research, but I’m willing to bet that all the box scores used in the base set are from that same day, April 1st, 2002.

The design itself uses a lot of gray and white which can come across washed-out and boring, but in this case it makes the color in the logo and player silhouette seem to pop off the card. The design carries over to the back of the card nicely.

I just can’t help wondering how great this would look, you know, super tiny.


Ah, there we go. This is the Classic Miniature version which looks exactly like its regular base card counterpart only pint-sized and serial-numbered. It’s just your basic parallel - nothing to write home about, really.

2002 Fleer Box Score #28 Classic Miniature #/2950

It is numbered out of 2950. That's a nice, round number.

2002 Fleer Box Score #240 All-Star #/2950

A generous chunk of the base set is broken up into subsets that could each be its own decent insert. My favorite is this All-Star subset. It’s printed on glossy plastic in lieu of paper and features a slight sparkle to that giant star background. This card is brilliant despite looking a bit like a page out of a coloring book. It includes complete All-Star stats on the back and heralds Junior’s ASG MVP status right on the front in addition to his years of ASG nomination. The blurb needs an Oxford comma, but apart from that it is very much above-average. This is also one of those not-often-seen Griffey Mariners cards that came out while he was well into his career in Cincy. There weren’t many of these after 2000.

There is parallel in this set called First Edition that is very much a gray whale in that it is not terribly expensive but I just don’t want to spend the money. There are three cards available as First Editions: the base card, the miniature parallel (yes, a parallel of a parallel), and the All-Star Subset. Each is numbered to just 100 which would mean a lot more if this set came out four or five years earlier. Apart from the serial number and little “First Edition” banner on the front of the card, the only real difference on the base cards is that it uses silver foil instead of gray. Ho-hum. Here’s hoping the other two are more exciting.

2002 Fleer Box Score Press Clippings Base Relic

By this time relic cards were very much run-of-the-mill, but Fleer made this one fun with tasteful use of foil and the kind of good old fashioned overcooked patriotism that one could expect in post-9/11 America. I love that close-up portrait on the card back, too. Shine on, you crazy relic.

Here are the Griffeys I still need from 2002 Fleer Box Score:

#28 First Edition #/100
#28 Classic Miniature First Edition #/100
#240 All-Star First Edition #/100
All-Star Lineup Game-Used Quad Relic (w/ Bonds, Walker, Manny)
All-Star Lineup Game-Used Quad Relic (w/ Bonds, Piazza, Bagwell)
Press Clippings #16

In terms of PC checklist completion, I am doing a pretty shameful job here. That Press Clippings insert is not rare at all, and the somewhat desirable quadruple relic from this set is pretty affordable. Yet I still don’t have either one. This set is a shining example of how my (and the market’s) attitude towards acquiring Griffey’s cards changes when it comes to sets made after 2000.

Just three months before Griffey would leave MLB forever he would get his final Finest base card. He would make into a few inserts here and there in the following years as well as a super fun, 10-card, die-cut insert of his very own in 2016; but as Finest doesn’t put retired players into their base sets, this would be the last time Junior would ever have a card there.

It should be noted that the Kid appeared in every Finest base set from the inaugural set in 1993 all the way through 2010 – that’s 18 straight years of Finest base cards. In fact Griffey was the last remaining player from the original 1993 checklist to still appear in the set this late. By 2010 every other player with a 1993 Finest card was retired. That stretch may be some kind of record, and if I had the time you better believe I would look into it further. But, doody calls.

No, that’s not a typo.

2010 Finest #65

The base design this year is one of my favorites of the 2000’s – a silvery, full-bleed, larger-than-life team logo with the player superimposed over it and a simple nameplate below. I’d like to have seen a player-specific blurb in lieu of that Finest Trivia box, but as a Junior sunset card, we could have done a lot worse here.

Here's the refractor:

2010 Finest #65 Refractor #/599

It's really not all that different, but I must admit the silvery logo background works well with the different color refractors:

2010 Finest #65 Blue Refractor #/299

I say that only having the blue, but I can imagine the others look pretty darn good, too. The blue is probably the most team appropriate here, though, so we've got that going for us.

Here are the Griffeys I need from 2010 Finest:

#65 Green Refractor #/99
#65 Gold Refractor #/50
#65 Red Refractor #/25
#65 Purple Refractor 1/1
#65 Framed Printing Plates (four of each)

I have a real shot at the Green and Gold, and maybe even the Red someday if the price is right, but I can't imagine ever owning the purp. That's a shame, too, cuz I really want that purp.

Welcome to Page 18 of the Great Griffey Frankenset!

If you're not familiar with the idea of a frankenset, it is a customized set of cards properly sequenced by card number that all tie into a connecting theme. Some frankenset themes include whole teams, mini-collections, and even just generally great cards or photos. This is the first frankenset I'm aware of that is made up of just one player: Ken Griffey, Jr., the man of a million cards. I took the liberty of including things like inserts, parallels, cameos, and oddballs for the sake of variety and because it's just more fun that way. Enjoy!

Here is page 18 of the Great Griffey Frankenset:


Completeness of page: 9/9

Completeness of the Frankenset so far: 99% (161/162)

Team distribution so far: Mariners: 112/161 (70%), Reds: 44/161 (27%), White Sox: 2/161 (1%), No team indicated: 2/161 (1%)

Approximate retail value of this page: $39.00 ($3090.25 running total)

Page 18 Notes: Unfortunately this is the first Frankenset Friday you've seen from me since March. I have the whole checklist planned out well into the hundreds - I just don't have the time to put the actual posts together. Despite that, I had some free time tonight, so here is Page 18 only six months late! With this one we are doubling up the quantity of White Sox Griffeys in the set which means they now have the same number of Griffey cards in this set as cards with no team indicated. The pride is back!

Page 18:


154. 2006 Fleer Tradition #154

This is one of my favorite faux-throwback designs from Fleer Tradition. I love the use of the cap instead of the team logo.


155. 2014 Panini Prizm #155 Camo

Regardless of how you feel about Panini Prizm, the camo refractor is pretty cool and seems popular among collectors. Just don't drop it in the jungle.


156. 1990 Upper Deck #156

This one is all about the picture. It's also the card I think about when I think about why they call him The Kid.


157. 2000 Upper Deck MVP #157 Silver Script

I call these "surprise parallel," because it's not so obvious in a stack of cards as, say, a refractive camo pattern. I just remember noticing one day that this one had a signature on it and the others didn't. Boom: surprise parallel.


158. 2003 Victory #158 Laying it on the Line

A game card from the last year of Victory. This is not the best Victory card in this Frankenset, or even the best one on this page.


159. 2000 Victory #159

This is. They also made Junior a special card to celebrate his trade to the Reds and tacked it onto the end of the base set this year, but this shot of backwards-hatted Griffey at the Home Run Derby is just awesome.


160. 2009 Topps Heritage Chrome High Number Series #CHR160 #/1960

My favorite player on one of my favorite vintage designs with a big ol' smile done up in mirror-like chrome. I'm pretty psyched Junior got a card in this set with this high a number.


161. 2008 Upper Deck Timeline #161 1994 UD All-Time Heroes

There it is! A White Sox card! Only the second one in the Frankenset. Savor the flavor, guys, because there aren't many of these coming...


162. 2002 Upper Deck UD Authentics #162 (1989 design)

Finally, while I'd like to have seen an updated portrait instead of a run-of-the-mill action shot, I still love a throwback design from Upper Deck. Maybe we'll get more someday.

Here's the back of page 18:



Thanks for reading, and look for page 19 coming...ugh, Lord knows when.

In 2004 Upper Deck offered to buy the Fleer company for 25 million dollars. Fleer, who had been in financial trouble in the years leading up to the offer, thought their business was on the verge of a major upswing and rejected the offer. Only a year later in 2005 Fleer ceased trading card operations and began liquidating assets to pay back their creditors. It was then that Upper Deck swooped in and bought the Fleer brand…for a mere $6 million.

The following year Upper Deck did the Fleer brand justice with three all new Fleer sets; and I’m happy to report that they did a reasonably good job at it. There are hints of Upper Deck influence in the card designs, but you can also see the effort that went into keeping them as true to their Fleer pedigree as possible.

First they did something maybe Fleer should have done years before: simplify. They stripped away all the spinoffs and ran with the three core Fleer sets: flagship, Tradition, and Ultra. I have to wonder if maybe Fleer had done this they would have been able to weather the great cardboard slowdown of the 2000’s.

Next, it appears to me they also tried to streamline the Fleer aesthetic to that of a modernized vintage brand. Across all three Fleer brands we see a lot of bold, full-bleed, colorful cards with very little foil compared with previous issues. This direction made sense for Upper Deck, too, as Fleer was now their connection to the past having made cards in one way or another since the ‘60’s and continuously since 1981.

The acquisition of Fleer by Upper Deck is something I would have been skeptical about were I actively collecting in 2006, but looking back now I consider it to have been a good thing, while it lasted. A few years back when I heard that Disney bought the Star Wars franchise I was pessimistic to say the least, but having seen Episode 7, I feel a lot better about it now. That’s what 2006 Fleer is to me: proof that maybe Upper Deck would do this right.

2006 Fleer #316

The base cards are simple in a way comparable with the Fleer base designs of the early ‘90’s (wait...let me finish the sentence before passing judgment) but cleaner with more team-appropriate coloring (see? Not that bad). Upper Deck kept the great old crown logo that Fleer had already resurrected in recent sets. Also they refrained from including their own logo anywhere on the card backs, so the only way you could know these were Upper Deck cards was from the micro-printed legalese.

Speaking of the backs, if any part of this card is meant to say “throwback set,” it’s this part. Simple, clean, no photos, and a small blurb – it’s like an 80’s card back slightly modernized.

2006 Fleer Lumber Company #LC-16

Fleer made the Lumber Company insert for over a decade, and in that time they had their highs and lows as could be expected. When Upper Deck got a hold of it they were strong right out of the gate. Look at this wood-grain on this puppy! The cool insert logo, the tasteful foil – this is one of the better-looking Lumber Company designs in the whole timeline.

2006 Fleer Team Leaders #TL-7 (w/ Aaron Harang)

There’s not a whole lot to this card – it’s the same offensive/defensive leaders pairing by team we’ve seen many times before. It’s well-executed for what it is and probably the most valuable Aaron Harang base card available. On a side note, did every card in 2006 mention Junior’s Comeback Player of the Year honors? Because we are three-for-three at this point. Damn.

2006 Fleer Top 40 #T40-1

The Top 40 players in baseball according to Upper D….er, I mean Fleer. And Griffey got #1! Yeah! Take that, Harang.

I’m not 100% sure whether they gave Griffey card #1 because he was the best. Albert Pujols put up better numbers in 2005 pretty much across the board. My guess is they did it, at least in part, because everyone was still reeling from the steroid scandal and Griffey was a popular, All-American, non-implicated face to head up the set with. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it altogether.

Four-for-four on the comeback player thingy, btw.

2006 Fleer Autographics Autograph #FL-KG

Now we’re talking! This card is a bit historical in that it is the first officially-released Junior autograph on a Fleer card. Fleer Griffey autos had been sold before in the form of aftermarket releases from companies like Scoreboard who sold their wares in places like HSN and QVC, but this one is a legit release and one of the better things to come out of Upper Deck’s acquisition of Fleer (UD had an exclusivity deal with Griffey when it came to his autograph on cards). This is one of the short-printed cards from the Autographics insert limited to 150 copies.

The only drawback here is that the card fails to mention Griffey’s NL Comeback Player of the Year Honors. Scandalous! So, I grabbed a sharpie and fixed it:


So much better.

Here are the cards I still need from 2006 Fleer:
#316 Glossy Silver
#316 Glossy Gold
Fabrics Jersey Relic #KG

That glossy insert is not easy to come across but it shouldn’t be terribly expensive when I finally find it. The jersey relic is on eBay right now for $15.00 but that’s just a little more than I’d like to spend on it. Unfortunately the photos on that auction fail to show the card back, so I have no way of knowing whether Griffey’s NL Comeback Player of the Year honors get a mention. If not, well, that’s why God made sharpies, isn’t it?

On Tuesday I started a project that is now more or less completely out of my hands. Simply put: I mailed a box containing 500 Griffey cards to a fellow Griffey collector along with a note containing instructions. Here’s the box:


The goal here is to help build everyone’s Griffey collection a few cards at a time. The idea is simple: you take what you want out of the box, put in what you don’t need (duplicates and such), and send the box on to another collector. It’s a fun and, apart from the cost of shipping the box, inexpensive way to spread the Griffey love.

I’ve also included a section where folks can write their name, city, the date, and any comments they want as they receive the box and send it out again.


This project depends entirely on the generosity of other Griffey collectors. I honestly have no control over what happens next, and that is kind of exciting. Is it possible that someone could decide they want all the Griffeys and keep the whole thing? I suppose it is, but I don’t think that is going to happen. I like to think my fellow Griffey collectors are going to embrace this thing and use it as a tool to contribute to the card collecting community, find some trading partners, and maybe even make some friends.

500 Griffeys!

The project has a built-in “opt-out” option, too: I’ve included my contact information (on the letter and also taped to the inside of the lid), so as patriarch of the project, anyone who doesn’t want to participate can simply shoot me an e-mail, and I will gladly pay for shipping back to me so I can send it on to the next Griffey collector. My goal is to keep the box going as long as possible.

Then again, the ultimate opt-out would be for them to simply keep the box and call it a day, but I am hopeful that won’t happen. While I didn’t include any specific rules against that, it is totally against the spirit of the project and of being a decent person in general. Most of the cards in the box could be had for less than a buck or so on COMC (or just for the asking from most Griffey collectors), so that would be pretty lame. Plus if it did happen, the last person to mail it would know exactly where they sent it, so it’s not like we wouldn’t know who it was. Then a quick drive over to that dude’s house with a hammer to dispatch them from the gene pool, and we’re back in business.

Try me.

Anyway, this is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and I finally had some time this week to get it done. I figured if it gave me the chance to clear out some space in my Griffey Overflow Box and help out a bunch of fellow Griffey collectors in the process, it was time well-spent.


Godspeed, little box.

I went into 2016 expecting two things to happen: First, I thought that, despite becoming a new Dad, I would still have plenty of time to blog. I mean, the boy’s gotta sleep sometime, right?

I was wrong. I mean, he slept - a lot - but that’s when I slept, too. Hence, I was usually snoozing in what I thought would be my blogging time, and my post count suffered. As some of you may know I’ve all but dropped off the face of the Earth in that respect.

The other expectation was that it would be a very lean year when it comes to new Griffeys. I thought I’d be whittling the Top Acquisitions list back down to ten and that maybe a new autograph or two would top the list, and that would be it.

Again, I was wrong. The collection actually made some pretty respectable gains this year with the help of a couple of Griffey collecting social media groups, Griffey’s return to the spotlight via his Hall of Fame induction (and plenty of attention from Topps as a result), and a sharper focus on completing the 1996 Beckett Tribute checklist. Oh, and I went a little autograph-crazy as you will see.

So, while this year can in no way compete with the monster year the collection had in 2015, it was still pretty remarkable despite the low blogging activity. That sums up 2016 for me: still Griffeying, just not writing about it.

A reminder: last year I began grouping like cards together rather than rank each one individually, and I did it again this year where it made sense. One of my focuses was the parallel-heavy 1996 Beckett Tribute checklist not to mention all the great Griffey-centric inserts that Topps gave us. As a result, this Top 30 list has way more than 30 cards on it. That escalated quickly.

Here goes:


30. 2016 Topps Finest Careers Die-Cut Set #1-10

As a Griffey fan I am all about Topps’ Griffey-centric inserts for 2016. At one card per case, the 10-card Finest Careers insert was not an easy pull. I even bought a box of Finest (so unlike me) when they came out in the hopes of pulling one (which I didn’t), but over the months I was able to piece the checklist together as the prices cooled off and people started listing them for reasonable amounts. I really love the fun modern font and die-cut design – it’s a Finest insert through-and-through. Well done.


29. ‘90’s Stadium Club First Day Issues

You are going to see a lot of ‘90’s parallels on this list since I’ve been hard at work trying to complete the 1996 Beckett Tribute checklist. I’ll admit it: this is a boring parallel by most standards. It’s also pretty scarce which is how it ended up here. It’s nice to see First Day Issue and Stadium Club in general are both back and great as ever, but I do miss these holofoil stamps.


28. Late ‘90’s Ultra Inserts & Gold Medallions

Ultra from this era is quite a hurdle. They got pretty hardcore in the late 90’s with a ton of tough-pull inserts and the significant beefing-up of their Gold Medallion parallel. Combine both of these (which is precisely what Ultra did) and you have tough inserts made tougher by a super-tough insert parallel. So for player collectors in the ‘90’s, things were, well, tough, and they remain so for ‘90’s PCers such as myself. Despite many months of active searching, there are still several I need to finish the Beckett Tribute checklist.


27. Collector’s Choice Gold Signatures

Look at all these gold signatures! My cousin and I busted a ton of packs of this product in our day, and in all that time I pulled only one gold signature (Gregg Jefferies). To us, Gold Signatures were a legendary parallel, and I never thought I would have this many. I like to think that were he still around, even so many years separated from the hobby, he would appreciate this little stack of one of our all-time favorite parallels.

Sorry to get a little sad on you there – to make up for it, here is some ink:


26. 2004 Upper Deck Diamond Prosigs Collection Autograph #204

This is the lowest-ranked an autograph has ever been in the 4-year history of this list (not counting one that didn’t even make this list). Nothing against this card – it’s a beauty – but at heart it’s a simple sticker auto on a base card. Just look at the card number. I’m used to autographs having numbers made up of letters, usually with an “A” added. #KGA and #AU1 and such. This is card #204. How do you have an autographed card #204? Anyway, Griffey signed it, so there’s that…


25. 1998 Circa Thunder Rave Reviews #7

If you want insane ‘90’s-style die-cutting and foil work, look no further than this…thing. It was the 1:288 monster of Circa Thunder, and it really looked the part. I know it’s so 2003 to quote Family Guy, but design-wise it reminds me of Peter Griffin’s negative review of The Godfather: “It insists upon itself.” Still, like The Godfather, everyone seems to love this insert, including me.


24. 2006 Flair Showcase Hot Gloves #HG-19 /150

Upper Deck’s version of Fleer’s Hot Gloves insert is unsung but hella-rare and one of the best in the series. There don’t seem to be stated odds anywhere (how do you not state odds in 2006 – you crazy, Upper Deck), but there are known to be only 150 copies of each player. So if you’re a Hot Gloves completionist, which I am, it’s a must-have and among the toughest gets to finish off the timeline.


23. 1995 Pinnacle White Hot

Here is a rare parallel of an insert from way back in 1995. Red Hot was seeded at 1:8 packs with a 25-card checklist (pretty big, obviously). The stated odds of pulling a White Hot version were never stated, but they are most definitely a lot rarer. As the owner of several of the Red Hot cards, including the Griffey, seeing one of these for the first time took me completely by surprise. Like dating a brunette for years then one day she dyes her hair blonde, and in the time it takes for you to get used to it you kind of feel like you’re cheating on her….but it’s still her so it’s OK but also naughty and titillating.

I finally worked “titillating” into a paragraph about baseball cards! This blog has officially gone too far.


22. 2004 Upper Deck Etchings Etched in Time Autograph #ET-KG #/1625

If you are just getting into the Griffey game and you want a cool autograph for not a lot of coin, look no further. There are a whopping 1625 of these floating around, so there is no premium for rarity here. What I’d really like to do is get a box of this stuff as it’s the product into which Upper Deck inserted those amazing A Piece of History 500 Home Run Club cards, the numbered-out-of-25 autographed version of which regularly sells in the several thousands. Pulling one from a box may be the cheapest option for us regular shmoes.


21. Pinnacle/Select Artist’s Proofs

OH MY GOD THESE ARE HARD TO FIND. Seriously. It wouldn’t even be that bad except that Griffey had SO MANY CARDS in both Select and Pinnacle base sets – we’re talking checklists and subsets and EVEN MORE checklists. And some of these checklists feature multiple Hall-of-Famers on one card so you also have to compete with PCers of those guys to get them. Brutal.

There are 475 of each Select Artist’s Proof base card which isn’t very many for this early in the rare parallel game. As for the Pinnacle AP’s, well, I have no idea how many of each there are, but I suspect its even less than those in Select. Anyway, you are looking at SO MUCH MONEY AND TIME in this little group of cards.

Look out for cards 20-11 tomorrow, and thanks for reading!

I’m pretty sure I already did one of these in 2016, but here is another because CONTEST!

My card cave is more of an everything cave. I collect a lot of different things, so in addition to being a closet/storage room, this is my media room, computer center, office, poster repository, memorabilia emporium, and, of course, card cave. Most importantly it is my nerd sanctuary.


This is my desk, where the magic happens. I'm in the middle of making the switch from PC to Mac, so I'm doing a lot of data consolidation and transfer. It's taking a long time (and eating into my card collecting time and budget), so I'm making this post while waiting for transfers to finish.


Above the desk is cardboard storage. The orange-labeled longboxes are trade fodder separated by team.


Beside that is everything else I need for blogging, trading, and collecting in general. Highlights are a postal scale, my original 1996 Beckett Griffey Tribute magazine for checking off new additions, and an envelope containing every note everyone has ever included with a trade package. I'm kind of an orderly hoarder.


I’m in here a lot because as you can see this is where the computer is. The reason I stick with laptops now is obvious if you’ve ever had to evacuate you home with a desktop computer. That computer is a media server streaming 1.5 terabytes of content to the rest of the house. 600GB of that is BBC, PBS, and National Geographic nature documentaries. 147GB is just Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Soon the Mac will be where the PC is, and the PC will be only a download machine and media server. I may use it from time to time for burning CD's and such, but the end goal is to be mostly Mac by Mardi Gras (which is at the end of February!).


Here is my scanner, which is relatively new as my old one had simply had enough of my wife fiddling with it. This one is totally wireless, but nearly every scan comes out crooked, so it's a trade-off.


To the left of the desk is this little old-school (a term I’ve never gotten to use literally until now) desk that never doesn’t have cardboard on it. Here you can see I have some new PC adds, a new silly names (mostly Dicks), a stack of Richie Allen cards, and some boxes I use in my sorting. This small desk is my main sorting area, and the cubby beneath is ideal for storing small card boxes. Harold Reynolds’ head supervises from his suction cup.


The card cabinet is the heart and soul of the card cave. It contains the better part of my Griffey card collection minus anything worth more than a few bucks. The real stuff (a solid quarter of my collection) resides in a big safe deposit box at the bank in longboxes sealed in large air and watertight bags with desiccant packs. The Griffeys are arranged by year and brand in binders. Below that are my Griffey duplicates, off-size Griffeys, and non-Griffey keepers. No one card in this cabinet is worth more than ten bucks at most. Because I run a public blog about my Griffey collection, I’m very careful about what cards I keep at home.


Next door to that is my next biggest collection: posters and prints. I have roughly 500 posters, some framed, most not. Those unframed prints live in these large boxes or giant portfolios. Poster collecting is not a great hobby to have if you don’t have a lot of space or if you like money. One of my favorite artists, Daniel Danger, made that blue paper lamp. I don’t have proof, but I think I have the largest Daniel Danger collection in Louisiana.

When I converted this room from a guest bedroom to my nerd sanctuary I removed the closet doors completely and added a storage shelf. There’s very little fun stuff in here – it is mostly storage with a few surprises hidden here and there. Above the closet are a few signed setlists from They Might Be Giants, The Rentals, Galactic, and an autographed gig poster for one of my musical heroes, Brian Wilson (who I'm seeing in March!).


Left of that is one of my favorite walls in the house. It’s got my Jeff Soto Dune Poster, my Snoop Dogg on hemp paper, and a bunch of different autographs from various Saints as well as jazz legend Herbie Hancock. I drew over a few items here because there are some things YOU CANNOT SEE.


The bookshelves are where I keep all my go-to collection stuff and display items.


The middle shelf is the not-very-valuable part of my coin collection which I hope to get my son to help me curate when he gets old enough to not eat the pennies. Below that is where I keep my "collector" vinyl, that being the stuff that doesn't get played because it's worth actual money.


This shelf may interest my specific audience more. Its where I keep large quantities of cards I don't intend on keeping, all broken down by set. If shipping was cheaper, none of these cards would be here. You'd probably have some of them right now.


This middle bookshelf is 80% baseball cards. We have the Griffey collectibles shelf up top followed by my media shelf (hooked up to the TV up top) complete with a VCR hooked up to a DVDR for VHS-dubbing. Under that are my Griffey magazines and a bunch of complete sets in binders, then a lot of miscellaneous baseball card stuff, and at the bottom a whole bunch of complete sets and my '89 Donruss boxes.




These shelves used to be completely full of DVDs, but I recently completed a project where I sorted most of the discs into disc binders and put all the DVD cases into a giant storage bin in the attic. I have not yet decided what to do with the newfound shelf space, but the whole space is less cluttered already.

On top of this bookshelf is my MST3K prop collection, the original Sports Illustrated football phone, and my Christmas Story leg lamp. One entire shelf of that CD collection on the left is Radiohead. Another is They Might Be Giants. I am a big nerd.

So, this was my card cave at its best. I write that in the past tense because if we ever have another kid (and we plan to someday), this will become my son's room, and I'll have to find a place for all this crap. God help me.

I more than doubled the number of Griffey autos I have this year from 13 to 28, and I even managed to add a few of the pre-2000 variety which tend to be among the most sought-after. Get used to seeing ink on this list.


20. 1998 Finest The Man #1 #/500

If this were a list of Griffeys that look like pieces of delicious candy, this card would probably be #1. The #/75 refractor version sells for a hefty premium, even for a numbered-to-75 card from 1998, for the simple fact that it looks so darn cool. And delicious. I can’t blame folks for driving the price up – this may be my favorite Finest insert ever, and that in itself is a zesty mouthful.


19. 1994 Bowman’s Best #40 Refractor & 1995 Bowman’s Best #49 Refractor

At 1:9 packs these don’t seem like they should be as rare as they actually are. At $5 per 4-card pack, you had to spend about $45 to pull a single refractor. The 1995 numbers aren’t that far off from these. I’m thinking overall production figures had to be pretty low considering how few come up for sale.

The best thing about these cards is that they are some of the earliest refractors you can get, and they are beautiful. I put off pulling the trigger on them for a long time, but I needed them for the 1996 Beckett Tribute checklist, so I just went ahead and did it this year with no regrets. Is it just me or were refractors shinier back then?


18. 1999 SP Signature Edition Autograph #Jr.

I used to say that a good measure for the quality of a player collection, especially a player from the ’80’s and ‘90’s, can be measured by the oddballs it contains. This is still true to a point, but when it comes to top-tier Griffey collections I’ve learned there a lot of other measures. Things like sub-100 ‘90’s parallels and the scarcest of ‘90’s inserts (seeing a trend here?); but the most popular measure of a great Griffey collection seems to be the quantity of pre-2000 autographs.

Any Griffey collector will tell you pre-2000 autos are where it’s at. There are only 59 (give or take) specimens to be had with the priciest of those being hand-numbered to very small quantities. Many of the cards on the list aren’t even official – they’re aftermarket releases from the likes of QVC and the Highland Mint that just happen to use pre-2000 cards. Still, there are collectors out there whose mission is to obtain every one of them, and there are even a few who have actually done it – I’ve seen the pictures. It’s quite a feat, and expensive on a level never really discussed on this blog. We’re talking a literal fortune.

This is one of those pre-2000 autos, albeit one of the more common ones. There is nothing really spectacular about it apart from the fact that it’s on-card (as most were at this time) and pre-2000, but that’s enough for me. I don’t plan on shelling out thousands trying to get every Griffey auto from that era, but when one comes up for a reasonable price and if I’m feeling saucy, I’ll bite.


17. 2000 SPx Signatures Autograph #X-KG

This is as close to a pre-2000 auto as you can get without it actually one. It was probably signed while Junior was still officially with Seattle. It barely edges out the genuine pre-2000 auto for the fact that I think it’s just a tiny bit rarer and I like the design more.


16. 2001 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Ultimate Signatures #KG Silver #/24 & Bronze #/70

The gold is a bit out of my price range at the moment, but I got these for roughly the price the unsigned relic versions go for (which is still kind of a lot for a baseball card). Still, it’s a popular design, and the cards themselves look great. Plus they’re both on-card. Maybe I’ll go for the rainbow in 2017…


15. 2008 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Signatures Autograph Bat Barrel #KG5 #/243

This is my first autographed bat barrel card as well as my first Griffey White Sox auto. While it’s still weird to see Junior in a White Sox uni, I definitely have a fascination with his cards from that era.


14. 2006 Fleer Autographics Autograph #KG /150

You are looking at the first ever Griffey autograph from Fleer. Upper Deck, who owned exclusivity to Junior’s signature on cards, acquired the troubled brand just the year before after Fleer declared bankruptcy. Upper Deck would go on to release a total of five Griffey autographs under the flagship Fleer brand right up through the final Fleer set in 2007. They also released two Griffey autos under the Fleer Tradition brand this same year including a 1989 Fleer rookie buyback auto that I totally want; but since 2006 Fleer was released in April and 2006 Fleer Tradition was released in August, this one was definitely the first. It’s a little piece of cardboard history only collectors can appreciate.


13. 2000 Upper Deck Game Jersey Autograph Jersey Relic #HKG (unnumbered)

It’s an auto-relic! One of the few I have for Junior, this is one of the first of its kind. It was released under the Game Jersey banner which is how the first jersey relic was released in 1997 and which continued right up until Upper Deck had to stop making baseball cards altogether in 2010. It appears to contain a piece of Mariners jersey, too, which is rare for a Reds card (not as rare as a Mariners card with a Reds relic, obviously, but still rare). There are numbered versions of this that go for much more, but not nearly as much as ones from only the year before when he was still a Mariner. These are a perfect example of the disparity between Mariners-era and Reds-era Griffey autograph prices. It’s a great design, too.


12. 2005 Upper Deck Reflections Dual Signatures Dual Autograph #KGKG Red #/99 (w/ Ken, Sr)

This is the red parallel of a card I already have, but it’s just so cool that it is getting yet another high spot in the Top 30. And being that both Griffeys are in their Cincy reds on the card front, this parallel is the most appropriate one.


11. 1994 SP Holoview F/X Special F/X #12 Die-Cut Red

I remember when these were brand-new and, frankly, pretty amazing. The moving hologram featured a changing image of the player’s face as you turn the card. Griffey’s is particularly creepy because at first he is smiling his massive Junior-smile, then as you rotate the card it slowly turns into a stoic stare like your smart-ass older brother might have done that time you made a lame-ass joke. There are thought to be around 700 of these floating around, and they consistently sell in the triple-figures. An iconic ‘90’s insert.

Okay - this is it! This next post is the big one: the Top Ten New Griffeys of 2016! Hope you like awesome stuff.

No, there are no signed 19”x25” Upper Deck giveaway monsters, legendary ’93 Finest refractors, or Mickey Mantle autographs to be found in the Top 10 this year, but this was still one of the best years we’ve had over here at the Junior Junkie. And for the first time half the cards in the Top 10 are autographed. Enjoy!


10. 2015 Leaf 25th Anniversary Clear Autograph #/25

If you’re wondering if this card broke into the top 10 simply because it is printed on a lovely slab of thick, clear plastic, you’re absolutely right. Panini has embraced the clear autograph, and I’ve wanted one since I first saw an example on Panini’s blog last year. In addition to being on-card and hand-numbered, the clear plastic slab creates a floating autograph effect that is just killer. This Leaf 25th Anniversary set also includes some sweet-looking, autographed metal cards as well as buybacks. Gimmicky? Maybe. Maybe I like gimmicky.


9. 2005 Ultimate Signatures 500 HRs Dual Autograph #/250 (w/ Willie McCovey)

I feel a little guilty for not ranking this one higher - it’s quite a pairing, and I’m a big McCovey fan. Then again if McCovey wasn’t on this card it probably wouldn’t have broken the top 15. One of the coolest aspects of this one is that these are not sticker autos – both players actually handled this card. It belongs in a case with Junior’s 2006 Upper Deck base card which features The Kid posing with Willie who is sitting in a club car sporting a sweet green track suit. If I had a time machine I would travel back to that very moment with an ice chest full of beer and some lawn chairs and just shoot the shit with those two.


8. 1993 Pinnacle Cooperstown Dufex #22 /1000

Here is one of those cards you don’t even know exist until you start chasing a certain ‘90’s player in earnest. Then you find out that owning one is a rite of passage among your player-collecting brethren and you feel out of the loop, so you panic and overpay to get one. Actually I’m proud to report that I exhibited actual patience (for once) in acquiring this one, biding my time until someone started an auction far below its value as opposed to the $300 Buy It Now’s I’d been seeing. I ended up paying far less than I thought I‘d have to. Is that a tinge of fatherly wisdom I feel? Time will tell.

Only 1000 sets were made in Dufex, and most of those were given out at a big card show in Dallas in ‘93. Lord knows how the rest made it into circulation. And while a run of 1000 sounds like a lot, for 1993 that is hella-tiny. Combine that with the fact that it’s a real looker for its time, and you get what may be the most desirable Dufex Griffey there is.


7. 1996 Pinnacle Skylines #1

Skylines is a deceptively scarce insert with insertion ratios that appear reasonable until you factor in how difficult it was to find the packs they came in. Collectors are polarized about the design, too – there are a lot of haters out there, but I’m willing to bet some of that is attributable to the card’s scarcity and not the card itself. Personally I think these are really cool, and this one remains one of my favorite acetate cards ever made.

I acquired one back in April via an eBay auction and was very excited to do so, but in a bizarre twist I ended up finding another one in a dime box just a few days before writing this. A LITERAL DIME BOX. To put that in perspective, one of these sold on eBay a few months ago for over $200. I think that makes this my best dime box find ever.


6. 1991 Topps #790 Desert Shield & #392 All-Star Desert Shield

The highest-ranked non-auto/relic cards on this list and the only Topps cards in the upper half of the Top 30 list, the Desert Shield parallels are incredibly tough finds especially in decent condition. There’s a lot of attempted price-gouging with these, too, particularly with graded specimens (again, condition is a major factor with these). Personally I like my Griffeys unslabbed where I can help it, so these were perfect for me. A fun bit of cardboard with its own piece of historical context stamped right into the front.

Now that we’re nearing the end, I’ll admit that no one card stood head-and-shoulders above all the rest this year. You could shuffle these final five cards around in any order you want – they’re all potential #1’s on this list.


5. 1996 SPx Ken Griffey Jr. Commemorative Autograph #KGA1

I hate to admit it, but I know you other ‘90’s guys can relate: they totally got me with the holograms and sweet die-cutting here. I mean, I was 15, so how could I not be utterly smitten with this set? And it’s not like they still make cards this cool nowadays, so you could argue the design here stands the test of time. Oh, and the autograph is on-card! I don’t remember sticker autos even existing back then, but nowadays they are pretty much the standard. Back in 1996, it simply wasn’t done yet.

We have a pre-2000 Griffey autograph which is a big deal in itself, but this card and I have a personal, historical connection as well. I was still actively collecting when this card came out so I was very much aware of its existence. I even actively chased it back in ‘96, using all my (um, Mom’s) baseball card money on packs that only contained a single card, barely acknowledging the astronomical 1:2000-pack odds. I pined for it. On top of that a kid who lived down the street actually owned one. His parents bought for him, the lucky bastard. Still, I knew my day would come, and it finally did.

So yeah, this card would have made a perfectly valid #1. The act of ranking these cards at this level is pretty arbitrary to be honest, but tradition is tradition. Let’s move on…


4. 1998 SP Authentic Chirography Autograph /400 (slabbed BGS 8.5/Auto 10)

Of all the pre-2000 Griffey autographs out there, you are looking at what is arguably the best-looking one. It’s just SO. DAMN. COOL. I mean look at it - it’s kind of perfect. The design, the photo, the on-cardiness - It’s got a timeless quality that is the only reason I put it above the ’96 SPx auto.

Mine has a surface blemish that apparently brought the BGS surface grade down to a 7.5 which in turn gave us an overall grade of 8.5 among otherwise excellent subgrades. But who cares?! This is one of my favorite baseball cards. Period.


3. 1998 Upper Deck A Piece of the Action Game Jersey Relic #KG /300

In 1997 Upper Deck gave us the first-ever baseball card jersey relic. Their follow-up to that ground-breaking move is this insert from the following year. A Piece of the Action Game Jersey relics appeared in 1998 Upper Deck Series 1, 2, and Rookie Edition, the latter of which was the only place where you could find the Griffey.

As you can see the jersey is huge and the design one-of-a-kind for relic cards. Personally I think it resembles a Fleer insert more than anything. The card is not numbered, but there are known to be 300 of them.

This Griffey has reached legendary status among Griffey collectors for a few reasons: its relative scarcity, the size of the relic, its earliness in the relic game, and the fact that it is a true Mariners relic from when he actually played there. Most Griffey relic issues (by “most” I mean “almost all”) are Reds cards that were produced when relics were…well, I don’t want to say “run-of-the-mill,” but it’s hard not to. I can’t even tell you how many Reds relics I own, but I can probably count my pre-2000 Griffey relic cards on one hand. Actually I know I can – I have three, and one of those is a swatch from a damn Santa hat. This insert along with 1997 Game Jersey and a handful of others are the only relic options we Griffey collectors have from before he went to the Reds.

Even more legendary is the autographed version of this baby which is hand-numbered out of 24. Unfortunately I don’t have that one yet because I need money to live. There is also a Buhner from Series 2 has both a jersey relic and a bat chip. Drool…


2. 1998 Donruss Crusade #39 Green #/250

It's a testament to how crazy 2015 was that this, the relatively common (probably not the right word here) Green version of the legendary Crusade insert is #2 on this list just a year after the much rarer purple version of this card was #4. You are looking at the very last Griffey acquisition I made in 2016, and it only took a few glasses of bourbon at a family Christmas party to make me say "aw, screw it" and finally pull the trigger. So all I'm missing now is the #/25 Red version which just happens to be one of the true holy grails of Griffeydom. There is currently one on eBay for $10,000, and the amount of bourbon it would take me to pull that big ol' trigger would kill a horse. Green and Purple are plenty - a man's got to be able to sleep at night.

Right?

Thus we have reached the end of this year’s Top Griffey Acquisitions list. While this year’s #1 is not quite the doozy-and-a-half as it’s been in previous years, I think it’s one of the coolest cards I’ve ever seen let alone had the chance to own. Does it deserve to be #1? You be the judge:


1. 1992 Upper Deck Bloodlines Griffey Family Triple Autograph #/1992 (w/ Ken, Sr. & Craig)

For the third year in a row an autographed Upper Deck card gets the top spot. This card is not famous or popular by Griffey collecting standards. It’s not even particularly expensive (Craig and Ken, Sr. autos just don’t command that much money). Still, I think this is one of the coolest autograph issues ever made for any player.

It started with the 1992 Upper Deck Bloodlines card which demands a discussion all on its own. Somebody once asked me to make a list of the Top 10 Griffey cards of all time which I started to do before realizing a few minutes in that this would be a can of worms I didn’t want to open. There are just too many ways to go about it. Do you go by value? Autos and relics? What about ultra-rare parallels? Is it right to include 1/1’s?

Every Top 10 Griffey list I’ve ever seen includes numerous cards that sell for well into the hundreds and sometimes thousands which is great if that’s how you are ranking Griffeys. My list was a little different, made up of Griffeys I considered to be important and/or iconic. And guess which card that currently sells for $0.43 on COMC made my list? The plain, unsigned 1992 Upper Deck #85 Bloodlines base card featuring all three Griffeys in Mariner blue. It’s not expensive or rare by any measure, but if I ever revisit a Top 10 Griffeys project, this card will be on it.

So like I said, it started with a 43-cent card I consider to be among the greatest Griffey cards of all time. A company called Scoreboard got a hold of 1,992 of them, had them signed on-card by all three Griffey men, inserted them into specially-made, ultra-thick, bottom-loading cases, and sold them through QVC (yes, the shopping channel where you can buy overpriced gemstones and massive quantities of knives at 2am).

I’m also happy to report that of those 1,992, I got one of the better ones. I’ve seen versions of this where they must have been signing with the same pen for a while and the signatures are splotchy and missing ink here and there. The autos on this one are bright and thick with ink, and shade of blue that is very similar to that on their uniforms. I am just smitten with this card and proud to name it my #1 Griffey acquisition of the year.

Now’s a good a time as any to announce that I foresee a collecting slowdown for 2017. I still refuse to stop blogging, but as baby becomes more mobile and expensive, there’s bound to be less and less room for active Griffey acquisition. I still plan to complete the 1996 Beckett Tribute checklist as well as acquire all the coolest new Griffeys for 2017, but I can’t promise I’ll be able to keep pace with the last few years.

Then again I said all this last year and still had one of my biggest Griffey-collecting years ever, so don’t be surprised if I land a Red Crusade or something insane like that. Frankly I don’t really know what I’m going to do day-to-day anymore except perhaps not blog enough.

See y'all again in 2018! (just kidding...I hope)

Sorry it’s been so long, fellas. I do miss ya. I miss blogging, trading, and cardboard in general. A few other things I miss are alcohol, staying up past midnight, cursing openly, sleeping past 6, and going out whenever I damn well please; but life has changed a lot since last March.

He's HUGE

I go to bed at 9pm every night now. My wife and I can usually be found in the kitchen washing bottles, preparing fresh bottles, cooking dinner, eating said dinner standing up, and wrangling alphabet magnets from around the fridge, all while singing, dancing, and generally entertaining the little one. None of our meals are entirely ours – some of it is broken up into tiny little bits for the boy; and even then there’s no guarantee he’ll eat it. Much of it ends up flung on the floor for no reason at all (thank goodness we have a dog). I should also mention that all of this is indescribably fun and rewarding, even when it’s not. I can’t imagine life without it.

So I don’t really have time for card blogging, and frankly I barely have time for cards at all. BUT (it’s a big but), I do have a confession to make:

I’ve been cheating on the hobby.

A lot of my collecting effort (and budget) has gone to my burgeoning vinyl collection. I have a good reason for that: we can actually enjoy the vinyl collection together. I can put a record on and we can listen to it as a family. And we’ve been doing exactly that for a few months now – at least a record a night, always something different. We sing, dance around, play bongos. He has a little plastic guitar, xylophone, maracas, harmonica, tambourine – the whole nine. It’s really fun.

I designed and built this cabinet myself to contain it all, and this is still only half of the collection.

Card collecting, despite all the trading we do, is a solitary hobby; and even now as I sit poking at my keyboard, I feel like a hermit. I can hear my wife and son on the other side of the wall behind me, playing; and I’m in here, typing about cardboard. I love this hobby, but I can’t justify that.

No one knows my collection the way I do, and no one else can enjoy it. Not yet, at least. I’m allowing for the fact that someday the boy will be old enough to enjoy cards on the same level as I do, and I’m proud to say that when that happens, he’ll already have a great appreciation for music in multiple genres because record collecting is as much – if not more – fun than card collecting.


Also I've been on a hardcore furniture-building kick lately in part because no one makes furniture that can hold all the records I have. I built that cabinet you see up there, and another one for the man cave. I even made the cabinet door out of old records that were no longer serviceable as records.

The record door!

So between building furniture, collecting records to fill said furniture, and oh yeah, raising a child, my time is spent. So the time has come to rethink those parts of the hobby I will stick with, and those I need to let go.

I am holding on to the Griffeys, most of the complete sets, the best trade fodder, all my non-Griffey keepers, and a few other things for when he is older and can appreciate them with me. BUT, I am letting go of a large quantities of cards. In fact, as of this past weekend the deed is already done.

GONE

I put this massive lot of cards on Craigslist and the Facebook Marketplace for $250, expecting to sell it for around $200 – and that’s exactly what happened. While I got interested parties from both sources (a lot of folks wanted to come over and dig through the boxes, but I wasn’t having that – I just wanted them gone), I ended up pulling the trigger with a young guy via Craigslist named Jeremy. He’s a fellow collector with two kids who lives near me and totally understands my position. He's a vintage set builder, so I've linked him to a few blogs here. Now all those boxes are now gone, but don’t worry. I still have plenty to trade.

No regerts!

Part of me wants to start liquidating some Griffeys, too; maybe start by unloading my Griffey duplicates in one big lot, then some of the choice cards from my personal collection, specifically ones that are worth a few bucks but to which I have no emotional attachment. For now I am fighting that urge, but it’s hard. Have you seen what Griffeys are going for recently? The Crusade purple is going for more than double what I paid, and the ’93 Finest refractor is going for triple. It is bananas. This kind of seller’s market hasn’t existed since the ‘90’s. I assume it’s the HOF induction that reminded a bunch of grown-up 90’s kids how much they used to want these cards.

Speaking of liquidation, this is not the only hobby that I have been slowly backing out of. Much to my wife’s delight I have been selling off my precious poster/print collection, piece by piece. I’ve even let go of several Radiohead posters which have always been the cornerstone of the collection (like Griffey is for my cards). I’ve made a lot of Radiohead poster collectors very happy in the last several weeks as some of the posters I’ve been selling off are truly scarce and very difficult to let go. It’s been nice having an extra inflow of cash, too, as my toy instrument expense is up 8000% this quarter.

A few recent pickups

There is one area of the collection in which I’ve made some real progress, and that’s the 20-year checklist. Remember that? I probably don’t need to tell you that I did not, in fact, complete the checklist by the self-imposed deadline of December 31st, 2016; but I am ridiculously close. I think I only need 13 more cards which puts me somewhere between 98 and 99 percent complete. I can’t wait to put this thing to bed, but it is taking longer than I thought I would…

Also the Griffey Generosity Box is still out there. We should see an update via blog post from the most recent recipient very soon!

Oh, and I joined the most recent Nachos Grande group break despite the fact that there are NO GRIFFEYS in Archives this year. Grrrr....

So long story short, I’ve slowed down considerably. I still search for Griffeys and follow the hobby on social media, but I haven’t been reading the blogs because I feel guilty about not posting, trading, or even simple things like building the new flagship base set. I still buy a few cards a week on COMC, but the majority of my collecting budget now goes to Discogs, a database and marketplace for record collectors.

As for what to expect from me going forward? I’m sorry to say not much. I will not be posting with any kind of regularity. I was hoping to at least continue features like the Great Griffey Frankenset and Design Timelines, but nope. I was excited to find the time to complete my Best Griffey Acquisitions of the Year posts (here are links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) back in February (a month late), but a huge chunk of that (the runners-up) got cut because I didn’t have time to put it together. Big, research-intensive posts of yesteryear are simply not in the cards – pun intended.

Still, I have a few posts waiting in the wings that I'll try and bang out of the coming weeks. And I don't even want to think about how far behind I am on trade posts.

I do ask that anyone I owe cards to drop me an e-mail/tweet/whatevs and I will send you stuff. I’m sure there’s a ton I meant to send out that’s slipped my mind completely (because I suck at this now).

Again, I’m still collecting Griffeys, buying the occasional pack, and sniping new Griffeys on eBay and COMC semi-regularly, but card collecting as a whole has taken a back seat where it is nestled between a diaper bag and a car seat base. Oh, and it’s sticky for no apparent reason.

Don’t give up on me yet, though. Keep me on your blog roll. This post is not me bowing out of the blogsphere – quite the opposite. I’m letting you know that I’m still here, and I still plan on surprising you every now and again. Like today. Surprised?

[Note: I cut this list short because I want to post these great cards but never had the time to finish it as I originally planned. Still, here's most of what was to be the runners-up post for best Griffey Acquisitions of 2016. Enjoy!]

The Top 30 Griffey Acquisitions list is my favorite post to make all year. It’s a challenge putting it together as I have to go through a year’s worth of eBay and COMC histories as well as trades and purchases with bloggers and through social media groups, not to mention cards acquired at card shows. But it’s so fun reliving my Griffey-collecting year that all the work I put into this post hardly feels like work at all.
These are scans of Griffeys that, while they aren’t Top 30 material this year, deserve a mention. It’s my biggest runner-up post ever, too, so forgive the page load time. And with the extremely limited blog posting I’ve given you for the past few months, this will be the first time I’ve shown most of these. Enjoy!

We're starting off with an autohgraphed card. That’s right – an autographed card did not crack the Top 30 this year. I never would have expected this to happen. Griffey card snob level: expert.


1991 Score All-Star Jumbo Autograph w/ COA (The Score Board, Inc.)

In all fairness if the Top 30 list was any longer, this would be card #31. These cards were sold by the company Score Board Inc. and sold via home shopping channels with COA’s. They could have chosen a better card for mass-signing; but hey, it’s on-card and the price was right.


1992-98 Highland Mint Topps Mint-Cards Bronze #KG92

Here’s another after-market warlock. This is Griffey’s 1992 Topps base card in the form of a heavy brass ingot with a custom screw-down case and COA. The COA is a little weird to me. I mean, if it was autographed that would be one thing, but it’s a heavy brass reproduction of a baseball card. It would be like going to New York and buying a souvenir with a certificate that says “This is an authentic reproduction of the Statue of Liberty.” Reproductions by definition are not authentic, so why waste paper on a COA? Anyway, it’s kind of awesome, so here it is.


1992 McDonalds Limited Edition Collector Pins (set of 3)

I already had the complete set of three McDonald’s pin cards, but here are all three again with the pins still on them! They’re a bitch to store, but you can’t say I don’t have that McDonald’s pin checklist on lockdown.


1992 MTV 3rd Annual Rock n' Jock Softball Challenge #3 /20000

I used to watch these Rock n’ Jock things on MTV with my older sisters. This card is so perfectly 1992 I can’t even stand it. On the short-list of my favorite oddballs.


1993 Alrak Ken Griffey Jr. Bellevue Youth Baseball Benefit #NoN

Just a well-executed oddball from the heyday of oddball brands like Alrak. They’ve produced a lot of "what am I looking at?" Griffeys in their time, and this is one of the best.


1993-95 Cardtoons Big Bang Bucks #BB-8

Cardtoons is back! I found this by accident which is the same way I discovered all the other goofball Cardtoons cards I’ve picked up over the years. It’s the same illustration as on the “Ken Spiffy, Jr.” card from the same brand, but on a wacky currency design. Cards like these have made several Top Griffey Acquisitions lists in the past, so I couldn’t not give this thing a mention.


1993 Mothers Cookies Mariners Team Set

Mother’s Cookies made a lot of Griffey cards, but for some reason this one from 1993 is the toughest to find. I had to buy the entire team set to get one which was fine with me as it also included PC’s Dan Wilson and Jay Buhner.


1993 Topps Finest #110 4x6 Jumbo

It was the Golden Age of jumbos for the sake of jumbos…


1993 Upper Deck Fifth Anniversary #A1 10x12 Jumbo

I mean, really. The Golden Age. Just the case this thing came in is weighty and darn impressive. Photographed with giant baby for scale.

1994 Mothers Cookies #4


Another gem from the cookie-era.


1994 Studio Gold Series Stars #4 #/5000

I’ve had the silver one for ages and it’s so nice that I always wondered how it wasn’t serial-numbered. I only just learned about these even coming in gold and finally with some well-deserved serial numbers.


1994 Topps Spanish x3

How many of these did Topps even make? They are super tough to find.


1995 Score Platinum Team Sets Seattle Mariners

Here’s another set I bought in its entirety in order to get not just the two Griffeys therein but also some beautiful cards for Randy Johnson, both Martinez(es? ez? ‘s?), Jay Buhner, and Dan Wilson. The cost of the whole set was actually less than the cost of the two Griffeys alone. Fun fact, and many of you more seasoned collectors may already know this: if you want a specific card from a scarce set, be sure to price the full set, too. Oftentimes it is around the same price or even cheaper than the single card you’re after. I’ve seen this time and time again with Griffey cards. It still boggles my mind.


1995 Upper Deck #100 Electric Diamond Gold

I busted a TON of this product back in the ‘90’s and again in 2013 and only ever pulled two Electric Diamond Golds: Jim Abbott and Jeff Conine. Not bad pulls, but I’ve known for a while the Griffey was going to be a challenge. One finally fell in my lap very late this year which was great timing as I needed it for the 1996 Beckett Tribute checklist. There’s nothing special about the card apart from the color of the foil, so I should resent it; but I love ’95 Upper Deck enough that the worst this card gets from me is mild indifference.


1996 Leaf Limited Pennant Craze #4

Mid-90’s Leaf is some of my favorite cardboard, especially when it’s not cardboard but FELT! So felty!


1996 Leaf Statistical Standouts #/2500

Another mid-90’s leaf, Statistical Standouts was a perennially tough pull. They’ve even held their value pretty well over the years. So they remain relatively tough to this day. It’s a great insert timeline, though.


1996 Select Certified League Preview #1 (w/ Hideo Nomo)

This is a very pretty card from the days when Hideo Nomo was the hottest name in the hobby. That sidearm thing had everybody fah-reaking out and paying $12.00 or more for common base cards. I remember it well. This was probably a $100 card back then.


1996 Studio Press Proof Gold /500

Just a rare parallel from a time when rare parallels seemed somehow even rarer.


1997 Donruss Fabric of the Game Superstar Material #5 #/500

Fabric of the Game was a tiered insert with two Griffeys in it of which this is the slightly rarer one. While this card is made of wood, other cards in the set were made with more unusual materials such as leather which I would have liked to see.


1997 Finest #342

This year’s Finest base set was multi-tiered in terms of rarity, and of all the Griffeys in all the tiers, this is the rarest one. There is also a refractor, an embossed, and an embossed refractor which you should just give up on right now because you’re never going to own it. Except you, magicpapa – you totally own it.


1997 Fleer #206 Tiffany

This almost made the Top 30 list because the Tiffany parallel from this year was such a tough pull at roughly one per box. This doesn’t sound too bad until you consider that the base set was huge, so landing a specific player was much harder. I had never even seen one of these until I got this Griffey in the mail - they just don’t come up for sale often. If you see one for your PC guy, stay on it until it’s yours.


1997 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle #10 (w/ Bagwell, Young, Caminiti, Jones, Piazza, Bonds, Burks, Sheffield, Smoltz, Thomas, Knoblauch, Thome, A-rod, I-rod, Belle, Gonzalez, Pettitt)

It’s a 90’s collector’s dream! So much love and so much ire on one card, and with Dufex printing no less!


1997 Pinnacle X-Press Melting Pot Samples #6

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you’ve got to love a card of which there are more samples in the world than the card being sampled. I still haven’t pinned down the real deal, but I’m also in no hurry. I already have the sample, you see.


1998 Leaf Rookies & Stars Cross Training #2 #/1000

Here is the rarest non-parallel Griffey you can get from 1998 Leaf Rookies & Stars, a set burgeoning with cool, serial-numbered Griffeys.


1998 Pinnacle Epix Play Emerald #E1

These are complicated so I will save the in-depth description for a proper post. Suffice it to say that of the twelve total Griffeys there are to be had in this insert, this is the ninth rarest; and Emerald cards in general are the rarest color. I’m not confident I’ll ever find it in me to spend what is needed to complete this thing, but they are pretty.


1998 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle Collector Club Box Set #KEGR

This is Griffey’s card from the Pinnacle version of Topps Stadium Club, but as Pinnacle went bankrupt soon after the club was created it wasn’t around for long at all. The membership came with a t-shirt, so if anyone knows where there might be an XL of that laying around, I’ll pay handsomely. Like, Pinnacle t-shirt handsome.


1998 SP Authentic 300 HR Commemorative Trade Card

I also got the #/1300 jumbo commemorative card you traded this card for, but there’s something about the trade card that is so much cooler. I like to imagine this was pulled from a pack many years after the deadline passed, and everyone involved had a good laugh.


1998 Stadium Club Triumvirate #T16B

Everybody loves Triumvirate cards! Most collectors remember them from the ‘90’s, and those that don’t were reminded when Topps brought the insert back in the newest generations of Stadium Club. The insert, later renamed “3x3” (boo this), included two Griffeys per set for two years (1998 and 1999), each available in three parallels. That makes for a total of twelve Griffeys, some of which get awfully expensive, even now.


1998 Stadium Club Royal Court

It’s not all that rare – I just really like the design here. Purple cards FTW!


1998 Topps Gallery Gallery of Heroes Jumbo #GH 1

At a bar here in NOLA called “St. Joe’s,” there is a little piece of men’s room graffiti that I giggle at every time I go for some blueberry mojitos. It reads, “If you don’t like Morrissey, I don’t f***ing trust you.” Now, I like Morrissey. I don’t LOVE Morrissey, at least not enough to write such a powerful statement about him on a wall. But I recognize that to this person, if you like any music at all, you should be able to appreciate Morrissey as good music.

That is exactly how I feel about the stained glass effect of the amazing Gallery of Heroes inserts. Anyone who likes baseball cards at all should have some kind of appreciation for these. If you don’t like Gallery of Heroes, you can just get right on outta here. You are a bum. And you don’t like baseball cards.

Anyway, this is the jumbo version, and it’s just as beautiful as the regular-sized card.


1998 Upper Deck Unparalleled

Check out that wacky 90’s die-cutting!


1999 Skybox Metal Universe Diamond Soul #8

The lenticular fad went away back in 1995, but it wasn’t until this insert four years later that I actually liked a lenticular card. This is a gem of ‘90’s insert craziness.

I need a break from scanning, but before I go, here is a list of all the Pacific inserts I picked up in 2016:

It’s not the photography or card design or anything obvious that makes this set so whack-a-doodle – it’s one thing: the Gold Medallion parallel. This set is impossible to talk about at all without that bloody parallel coming up and bumming everyone out. Let’s start with the nuts and bolts.

The trick (as you may already know) is that this parallel isn’t just for the base set. Every single insert, even the one that is seeded at 1:288 packs, is subject to the Gold Medallion parallel which immediately multiplies the scarcity of your card tenfold. Every pack had a Gold Medallion card and an insert, but every tenth pack had a Gold Medallion insert.

That being said, ’96 Ultra has some pretty baddass inserts with radical designs, die-cutting, and materials. A few of the more desireable inserts have insertion ratios that range from 1:20 up to 1:75 (and yes, one that is 1:288). You have to multiply these by ten to get the ratios of Gold Medallion pulls. Here are the GM insert pulls we’ll be focusing on today (the ones with Griffeys – derp):

Prime Leather Gold Medallion1:80
Rawhide Gold Medallion1:80
Power Plus Gold Medallion1:100
Respect Gold Medallion1:180
Diamond Producers Gold Medallion1:200
Call to the Hall Gold Medallion 1:240
Thunder Clap Gold Medallion1:720 (retail only)
HR King Gold Medallion1:750
Hitting Machine Gold Medallion 1:2880

Bear in mind that this is for a non-player-specific pull of each general insert in Gold Medallion. To get the ratio for a specific player, you have to multiply these ratios by the number of cards in the checklist. Then the ratios look more like this:

Prime Leather Gold Medallion1:1440
Rawhide Gold Medallion1:800
Power Plus Gold Medallion1:1200
Respect Gold Medallion1:1800
Diamond Producers Gold Medallion1:2400
Call to the Hall Gold Medallion 1:2400
Thunder Clap Gold Medallion1:14400 (retail only)
HR King Gold Medallion1:9000
Hitting Machine Gold Medallion 1:28800

You could do this with any set – that is multiply the ratio by the number of cards in the checklist and get some astronomical number to impress the readers of your card blog with what an amazing collection you have. THAT IS NOT THE PURPOSE HERE. I did this to illustrate not just the scarcity of these Griffeys, but the massive quantity of difficult cards in this set as a whole. This is not bragging – it is warning.

Maybe you are a cock-eyed Griffey completionist, and you are looking to get started on your set of 1996 Ultra Gold Medallions. I’ll admit that I like your enthusiasm, but I also feel a duty to discourage you from letting this parallel into your life. Those little round bits of foil can make or break your average Griffey collector. They can bring a grown man to tears of frustration or tears of joy. Neither of those tears are well-spent, my friend.


Occasionally I read about how the Earth is overdue for an extinction-level asteroid strike, and I get a little depressed. Then I think that if the Earth were to be struck by a big enough asteroid, we may not ever know it. The shockwave from the collision would travel faster than the speed of sound, so we wouldn’t hear it first – it would find you in dead silence. It would have to come around the horizon to kill you, and if it’s travelling faster than the speed of sound odds are you wouldn’t even see it until the very last moment, certainly not enough time to know what was happening. You would disintegrate where you stand, and that would be it. You would simply blink out of existence with no realization that it was even happening – just a quick, peaceful end. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about 1996 Ultra Gold Medallions because you would be star meat.

Just trying to make you feel better is all.

1996 Ultra #126

The base card this year is lovely. I am super into the bright green cap with the all-gray uni and heavily-tinted Oakleys. Plus his pose is easy-breezy – you just can’t get Griffey down. The silver nameplate gets a little lost in the mix of lighter colors here, but I couldn’t possibly care less. This is a nice base card.


The back is weird but solid. It’s a collage of baseball poses, presumably all taken on the same day, possibly in the same inning. Ultra has always been about flash over substance, and they’re great at it; so it’s easy to excuse the total lack of blurb and the small, abbreviated stat box. The photos more than make up for it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first Gold Medallion of 1996 Ultra:

1996 Ultra #126 Gold Medallion

This was far and away the biggest year Gold Medallions would ever have, so it’s no surprise they decided to do it REAL BIG in the base set. The Medallion is everything – literally – with the player superimposed on top. Junior’s pose here makes the Medallion logo itself looks like a big tire swing.

You may notice a dusty buildup on the surface of some base Gold Medallions - if you're any kind of collector, you've encountered it before. I have no plans on cleaning the card surface, but it can be done. On any other card that stuff would indeed be called "gunk," but on the Griffey it is a "patina."

The backs of GM cards are identical to the regular versions of every card apart from a little indentation on a few of them, so we will not be giving them separate scans today. Later sets would include a “G” behind the card number for the parallels, and even that would be enough of a difference for me to bother showing them; but these are literally the exact same. You’re missing nothing.

1996 Ultra Promotional Sample

There’s also this sweet sample version with plenty of promo pizzazz, that being the stuff printed all over the card letting you know that this is a promo and you are special for having one. To those promos that have only a tiny indicator hidden on the bottom of the back of the card that says “sample” in minuscule letters, I say BOO. I’m a sample celebrator, and this one really cups the balls.

1996 Ultra #579 Ultra Stars

Griffey appeared on one subset in the Ultra base set this year, a star-studded, mildly patriotic number with an expensive-looking foil font and nameplate. As subsets go this one is pretty decent, and have I mentioned the seriously epic Griffey smirkage?


Oh, man. Griffey knows you got jokes. You in trouble now. Again, I’m pretty sure this and every other photo apart from the one on the front of the base card was taken in the same game. It’s that same uniform combo in every picture. I’m cool with it and everything, but damn.

1996 Ultra #579 Ultra Stars Gold Medallion

The Gold Medallion is, again, everything. They only embossed a few of the stars here, but you get the idea.

1996 Ultra Checklist #3

In case you couldn’t tell by the giant text heralding the fact, this is a CHECKLIST, or a card that lists all the other cards that are also cards. Ultra’s checklists were not included in the base set – they’re actually a 1:4 insert this year. How would you like to reach that tenth pack and finally get your hands on a Gold Medallion insert and it’s a checklist? I know for a fact that happened to at least two people because I ended up with their cards:

1996 Ultra Checklist #4 Gold Medallion

The GM inserts are, as usual, ten times rarer than the regular inserts, making this a 1:40-pack checklist. This is a good time to mention that there are several variations on the Gold Medallions this year: the all-encompassing EVERYTHING Medallion found only in the base set, the all-new “low-profile” Gold Medallions, and the classic Medallions (as seen in the 1995 set). You will notice throughout this post that in addition to changing size and design, the medallions will also change color. The Medallion here is the low-profile variety, and as you can see it is silver. The Gold Medallion is SILVER. Just go with it, man.

1996 Ultra Checklist #4

So this photo was probably taken only seconds before (or after) the photo on the base card, and it’s one of my favorite Griffey checklist cards ever made. I think it’s the Oakleys and green cap – something about that combo makes him look like an alien soldier from the planet EATTLE. And with that bat equipped it’s obvious he’s a total melee character.

1996 Ultra Checklist #4 Gold Medallion

For Series 2 as the foil used for the checklists was already gold, they went ahead and gave us gold Gold Medallions. This time it’s not just a cute parallel name. Also the Medallion is of the classic variety, that being a whole, embossed medallion slightly smaller than the low-pro Medallion on the other checklist. This is the kind of GM you will see on most of the inserts here.

Sick of checklists? Good. Prepare to be sick of inserts and the prolific use of verbiage describing rarity. That’s pretty much the rest of this post.

We’ll start with the most common inserts and work our way up – way up.

1996 Ultra Prime Leather #6

Hey, it’s more photos from that same game! The two most common inserts in 1996 Ultra are both leather–themed, meaning they both focus on fielding. This is the Series 1 leather-themed insert, and personally I consider this the better of the two. It is heavily-embossed, feels leathery, and prominently features a great insert logo and organic nameplate. I’ve had this card for over 20 years, and it’s still an old favorite.


You might already have noticed that I am a big fan of nicknames of which Griffey has a few; but this is my first time coming across “The Grifter.” I’m into it, too, as it’s a cute play on his name and the fact that he steals other guys’ runs in the outfield. I will actively try to work this nickname into future posts.

1996 Ultra Prime Leather #6 Gold Medallion

The Gold Medallion version of this insert fell at 1:80 packs. Here they gave us the classic version of the medallion, and it looks great against the reddish-brown leather of the card. While this one is far from the scarcest GM in this set, the big 18-card checklist can make it a challenge to pin down the Griffey (or any specific player for that matter).

1996 Ultra Rawhide #4

Here is the leather-lovin’ insert from Series 2, and while it’s not as fun or tactile as its cousin from Series 1, the design is bright and attractive. And again, I still think the photos here are from the same game.


I really like this blurb. It basically says, “Of course he broke his damn wrist – dude thinks he can catch everything!” You sassy, Ultra. I like you.

1996 Ultra Rawhide #4 Gold Medallion

Classic Gold Medallion on leather – still digging this combo. These are 1:80, but with a measly 10-card checklist this is the easiest GM insert Griffey pull in the whole set (not counting checklists). Go get it.

1996 Ultra Power Plus #3

Power Plus is a carry-over insert from 1995 and would continue for several more years. The design of this insert is always colorful, incorporating either a spectrum of color or a large quantity of holofoil. The 1996 version is unique in that it features a spectrum of swirling etched foil with plenty of gold foil text. I will never hide my deep love for rainbow-themed cards.


Finally, a photo from a different game! The blurb here features a quote from the Scouting Report that positively gushes about how awesome our guy is, so yeah – I like it. Mighty are his sea-sons!

1996 Ultra Power Plus #3 Gold Medallion

These GM’s step up the rarity slightly to 1:100 packs and also have a slightly bigger 12-card checklist. Despite this, it is still easier to find GM’s of a specific player in this insert than Prime Leather.

1996 Ultra Respect #2

I don’t remember ever seeing this insert again in any Fleer set after this year, which would make it a one-and-done. There’s not a whole lot to the design here – just large embossed letters in a sparkly silver holofoil, a tiny nameplate, and a big ol’ portrait. The back is a simple but solid blurb against a white background.

Both photos on this card again appear to be from that same game. I may be way off about all that, but I hope I’m not. I like the idea of going to a single game with one camera and shooting someone so photogenic that you come away with enough material for an entire set plus inserts.

1996 Ultra Respect #2 Gold Medallion

At 1:180 packs multiplied by ten cards in the checklist, to guarantee a Griffey pull in this set would set you back a whopping 1800 packs. Here we see my personal favorite color of the low-pro medallion, a rare sparkly silver holofoil version – the same foil as on the “Respect” lettering.

At this point it’s obvious that Ultra went with the most cost-effective foil color for each insert – gold on cards that already have gold foil, silver when they already have silver, and so forth. I’d have liked to see them change the parallel to just “Medallions,” but it’s nothing to get your panties in a twist over.

1996 Ultra Diamond Producers #3

This insert tricks me every now and then into thinking it’s a few years older than it is because that insert logo is pretty similar to Ultra’s 1994 logo. Here they put all the photography on the front in grayscale, but also added a layer of holofoil sheen that give the entire surface every color in the spectrum. A simple but high-end-looking design.


Oh man, so much info in that blurb guys. Love it. And I’m getting a little weary of seeing “Junior” in “parentheses.” Just say Junior, bro. Anyway, great photo.

1996 Ultra Diamond Producers #3 Gold Medallion

Tied for fourth as the most difficult Griffey pull from 1996 Ultra, this is the first insert to break the 1:200 pack barrier. The 12-card checklist puts it at 1:2400 packs to pull a specific player. That’s a lot of Mylar.

1996 Ultra Call to the Hall #2

Pre-Panini Donruss Diamond Kings would always reference their artist-in-residence Dick Perez. Sometimes it would be just a simple signature on the illustration itself, and sometimes it would be a complete autobiographical write-up with a portrait of Dick himself. Heck, even Topps gave Mr. Perez his due eventually. There’s no mention of the artist on this one, though, which is a shame because the illustration is good – better than some Perez work I’ve seen. I’m even willing to forgive the orange background here as well as the fact that it has both the look and feel of a Topps Gallery card. Oh, and if you ever come across the Tony Gwynn from this set, do not look directly at it. Promise me!!


A fun and inviting card back that keeps with the theme and palette of the front. I can’t imagine it being any better without including a little info about the artist.

I'd better come clean here - Call to the Hall Gold Medallion is the only Griffey I don't have from 1996 Ultra. It's not even super rare or expensive - I just haven't come across one for sale since I began writing this post. I'll have it soon enough. In the meantime, consider this duck a placeholder for the actual scan once I do have it in-hand:

This space reserved for 1996 Ultra Call to the Hall #2 Gold Medallion

Exactly as scarce as the Diamond Producers insert, Call to the Hall is the last of what I consider the “gettable” Griffey Gold Medallions of 1996 Ultra (which is kind of stupid because it's also the only one I don't have). The rest, HR Kings, Thunder Clap, and Hitting Machines, are all exponentially scarcer than any of the cards we’ve seen so far. Get ready for a big step up in Medallion rarity.

1996 Ultra HR King #6

These were printed on real wood grain, so every card is a little different with minor imperfections in the printing and foil application that I find endearing. The red-bronze foil looks great with the wood, too.


The back is not super different – nice photo, great blurb (I love that first sentence), no complaints. Overall this is a very well-executed wood card.

1996 Ultra HR King #6 Gold Medallion

This is one of my favorite GM’s because of that unique foil color. At 1:750 this is the second-rarest GM insert by ratio, but as you can see I listed it third-to-last in this post. That’s because the smaller checklist gives us a specific player ratio of 1:9000, well below the 1:14400 Thunder Clap. Don’t get me wrong – that’s still a ridiculous ratio, but numerically this rare Griffey is still a lot more common than Thunder Clap for reasons I will go into later.

1996 Ultra HR King #6 Exchange Card

According to Baseballcardpedia, Fleer was not happy with how the printing turned out and swapped out these insert cards with a redemption card late in the game. I am unsure how these exchanges worked in terms of the Gold Medallion parallel; but I have never seen a GM redemption card, so I assume whether you got the regular or the Medallion version was decided at random.

What all this means for us is that the real balls-to-the-wall collectors out there need to get their hands on the regular, the Gold Medallion, AND the exchange card. Work it!

Alright – final two.

1996 Ultra Thunder Clap #11

I’m not bragging, but I actually pulled one of these 1:72-pack Thunder Clap cards back in 1996 – it was Eddie Murray. Sure it was one of the less-desireable pulls in the checklist, but you better believe I kept that thing and still have it to this day. I’m super into purple cards, after all; and I like Eddie Murray a lot. Also this scan does not do justice to the holofoil in the lightning bolts here. They absolutely make the card. You need to see one of these in person to get the full effect.

I’d like to mention one thing that Thunder Clap taught me. To me Ultra inserts always seemed a bit garish and candy-like; not in a fun way, but in a cheap way. That may sound snooty of me, but it’s how I felt, even when I was busting packs at 15 – they were cool but cheap. Then one day I actually looked at the set in a Beckett and saw what even my little unlisted Eddie Murray Thunder Clap card was “worth,” and I was shocked (I think it was like 20 bucks which was a ton to me). Despite how they looked, these were some tough cards to find. Knowing what I know now, I have a weird appreciation for these inserts. They’re not the prettiest or most expensive-looking cards, but their audacious scarcity is endearing to me.


I forgot to take a nice scan of the back before locking this one up in the safe deposit box, but I was so excited to finally have a post for you today that I borrowed an image from COMC for this one. It won't be the first time I've resorted to this.

Anyway, you’ve got classic backwards-cap Kid looking at somebody who just said something a little too quietly and he’s like, “Hm?” With all the inserts in this set it’s no wonder we’ve started to get some repetition in the blurbs, but I forgive them. Some great factoids there.

1996 Ultra Thunder Clap #11 Gold Medallion

So as we just mentioned there are 20 cards in this checklist. The insert itself was retail-only so you couldn’t pull It from hobby packs (which explains how I landed the Eddie Murray – I was always more of a retail kid), and on top of all that they were seeded at an astronomical 1:720 packs. This puts specific player pulls at a staggering 1:14400, making this the second rarest overall Griffey GM pull by the numbers.

HOWEVER, I’m convinced that there are approximately the same quantity (or the numbers are at least very close) of the relatively unsung Thunder Clap Gold Medallion as there are the “rarest” Griffey card in 1996 Ultra.

Hitting Machines Gold Medallion, the final card in this post, is widely regarded as among the scarcest insert cards of the 90’s, but it follows that if only retail packs contained Thunder Clap inserts, then there could be the same quantity or fewer of those than the insertion ratio would have you believe. This is despite the fact that Hitting Machines appears twice as scarce by the numbers. After all, the latter was available in both Hobby and Retail packs and Thunder Clap was retail only. On top of that the much larger checklist for Thunder Clap only adds to the scarcity of the Griffey.


The trouble here is that we may never know for sure as we do not have production figures for the sets as a whole nor the ratio of retail versus hobby packs produced. What we do have, however, are production figures from 1997 Ultra from which we can extrapolate the potential production figures of 1996.

Danger: there are a lot of assumptions ahead, but just go with this for a sec.

All we need to get approximate production figures is a serial-numbered parallel or insert with a stated insertion ratio. 1997 Ultra put Gold Medallions to shame by giving us Platinum Medallions which are #/200 with a 1:100 insertion ratio and 533 cards in the checklist. That gives us 1,066,000 hobby packs produced split between series one and two. That is a nice, hard number, and it’s probably reasonably close to what they put out just a year earlier, wouldn’t you think?

Now, let’s say Fleer made a comparable number of retail packs as hobby packs (This is the biggest, most scoff-worthy assumption, I know). That would give us 2,132,000 packs total.

Given those figures, the math says there are about 74 Hitting Machine Gold Medallion Griffeys (hobby and retail) and 74 Thunder Clap Gold Medallions (retail only) in existence. That’s a weird number, sure, but it’s probably not far off from the correct one.


Let’s say that I’m wrong about there being comparable quantities of retail and hobby packs produced, and there were twice as many retail packs as hobby. In this case the math says there are 111 of each Hitting Machine GM and 148 of each Thunder Clap GM. Again, this is all guesswork, but my guesses tend to be pretty well educated or I wouldn’t publish them on the Internet, bastion of accuracy that it is.

All I’m getting at is that while the Thunder Clap GM is generally regarded as the second-rarest Griffey in this set, it is probably about as scarce as or potentially scarcer than the Hitting Machines GM.

1996 Ultra Hitting Machines #4

I kind of feel like I took all the jam out of this card’s donut with my whining about how Thunder Clap is probably just as rare, but there’s no denying that 1996 Hitting Machines is one truly awesome insert. Look at that die-cutting, the design, the color. It’s not just a randomly rare card that is rare for the sake of rare – it’s a real beauty with massive curb appeal. At 1:288, these were the toughest non-parallel pulls in Ultra history up to this point, and unlike Thunder Clap they look the part.


And that's kind of the best blurb ever (I'd like to have seen a question mark at the end there, but whatever). My only issue with these is probably the same issue a lot of unlucky collectors have: it’s incredibly easy to damage. All those points – 28 to be exact – and long bits of paper card that jut out several millimeters, just waiting for sticky kid fingers to carelessly jam them into sleeves and damage them forever. This card sold a lot of screw cases.

Alright – they don’t get much rarer than this:

1996 Ultra Hitting Machines #4 Gold Medallion

I'm still thrilled to have found one of these. It was a while before the HOF induction (when prices started skyrocketing on many white whale Griffeys), so I’m certainly glad I snagged it when I did – I definitely couldn’t afford one now, even one with a crease in one of the gear spokes like on the one you’re looking at. There is currently a PSA 8 specimen with a $2,000 opening bid, and a PSA 10 is listed for $4,500.

Now I’m the first to admit that condition matters a lot, but I find this card is not quite as subject to heavy price degradation due to condition issues. Sure, near-perfect specimens should and do command massive premiums, but lesser specimens still appear to hold their value. If you want to take this as me saying, “My card is damaged, but here’s why that doesn’t matter,” fine – I’ll own that. But the fact remains that once you reach this level of scarcity, condition tends to matter less. A hole in your collection is a hole in your collection, and whether you have a PSA 10 or a PSA 5, they each fill that hole the same. The thriftier Griffey collectors out there know what I’m talking about.

So how many of these things exist? We will never know for sure, but I do so love extrapolating a mathematically sound guess from available data. As I mentioned before, if we assume that 1997 Ultra production figures are comparable to 1996 figures and that there are about the same quantity of retail packs produced as hobby ones, there are as few as 74 copies of each player. If there are twice as many retail packs produced as hobby packs, there may be as many as 111. Regardless, there are not freaking many, and the prices these fetch reflect that.

Now I’m sorry to do this again but IT’S IMPORTANT: I want to touch again on this card’s scarcity and demand relative to Thunder Clap. The reasons Thunder Clap is not as expensive are obvious upon looking at the cards side-by-side: right off the bat there is less curb appeal and a total lack of die-cutting on the Thunder Clap side. On top of that there is also no insertion-ratio wow factor and an almost total lack of legend surrounding it.

When I say “legend,” I’m talking about word-of-mouth within the collecting community. A perfect example of said legend is this post from 2011, the link to which I’ve seen make the rounds on various online collector forums whenever this insert comes up in conversation. At the time that post was made (September, 2011) there were a lot of owners of this card who had seen the numbers and knew what they had, and plenty more who did not. I feel like this article may have changed that. A lot of Griffey collectors old and new have happened upon this article, myself included, and decided then and there that this is a card they had to own.

By the way, the author of that blog post is Patrick Greenough, and his site, Radicards, contains a blog that is pretty solid. And we're accidental friends now on Facebook.

I’ll sum it up this way: MAGICPAPA doesn’t have the 1996 Ultra Thunder Clap Gold Medallion Griffey. For those of you who don’t know Magicpapa, allow me to illustrate how crazy that fact is with a Venn diagram of my own design:


I like to think that if Thunder Clap got the recognition it deserved, he might have bothered picking one up a few years back when cards of “The Grifter” were a lot cheaper and he was picking off legendary cards one-by-one. Or maybe they’re so rare that he couldn’t find one (I doubt this – he would have found one). It remains the only Griffey I am aware of that I have and he doesn’t. This has never happened.

Put it on my tombstone: Thunder Clap is more than likely as scarce as Hitting Machines or at the very least their respective production runs are very close, closer than most collectors think. If you want to shoot for the moon and show off to your Griffey-collecting friends, spend a fortune on a Hitting Machines Gold Medallion and link them to that Radicards post; but if it’s simple rarity you’re after, the Thunder Clap Gold Medallion is where the value is.

Alright - that dead horse has been beaten enough.

I’m happy to report that at great expense and patience, I have acquired all but one of the Griffeys from 1996 Ultra, and the last one I need isn't all that rare. Here is a complete list of all 28 Griffeys from this set:

1996 Ultra #126
1996 Ultra #126 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra #126 Sample
1996 Ultra #579 Ultra Stars
1996 Ultra #579 Ultra Stars Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra Series 1 Checklist #4 of 10
1996 Ultra Series 1 Checklist #4 of 10 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra Series 2 Checklist #3 of 10
1996 Ultra Series 2 Checklist #3 of 10 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra Call to the Hall #2
1996 Ultra Call to the Hall #2 Gold Medallion (I still need dis)
1996 Ultra Diamond Producers #3
1996 Ultra Diamond Producers #3 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra Hitting Machine #4
1996 Ultra Hitting Machine #4 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra HR King #6
1996 Ultra HR King #6 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra Power Plus #3
1996 Ultra Power Plus #3 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra Promotional Sample
1996 Ultra Prime Leather #6
1996 Ultra Prime Leather #6 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra Rawhide #4
1996 Ultra Rawhide #4 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra Respect #2
1996 Ultra Respect #2 Gold Medallion
1996 Ultra Thunder Clap #11
1996 Ultra Thunder Clap #11 Gold Medallion

I recommend you do not try this at home. There are worthier parallels and inserts out there to be had. Stadium Club Matrix, for example, is a beautiful and reasonably scarce parallel that is very satisfying to collect. And the Heading for the Hall insert from 1995 Leaf is gorgeously-executed and features some great early die-cutting and serial-numbering. Get out while you can; there is only woe for you here. There are simply not enough Gold Medallions to go around - it’s simple numbers.

Don’t be the odd man out, forever unsatisfied, obsessing over the gaps in your collection, forever checking and re-checking your eBay saved searches as you waste away into a groveling, desperate hermit, begging other collectors on various card forums for a simple glimpse of the Griffey cards you will never own. Those little foil circles are not worth it. I implore you, collect something else. 1996 Ultra is for NOBODY.

AND IT HATES YOU

Bruh I just wrote a 5000-word treatise on 1996 Fleer Ultra I am a f***ing loser omg damn