May 29 2008 6:58 AM Junior Mint By Darren Rovell The most famous card in the history of pictures on cardboard is the T206 Honus Wagner , so rare that one of them sold for more than $2 million last year. The most well-known card of the modern era is the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr., the No. 1 card in the company's inaugural set. As Griffey nears the 600-home-run landmark, sales of the Upper Deck No. 1 are as brisk as always, with buyers snapping up a couple of dozen every day on eBay at prices ranging from $15 to $300. These two cards, the bookends of the collecting phenomenon, are exact opposites. The Wagner is the white whale of the card trade : elusive, highly coveted, and known to drive men to madness. The Griffey is the childhood lust object that everyone's mother saved, arguably the most popular, most widely held baseball card of all time. When Griffey welcomed collectors to the very first Upper Deck set, investment was just about to trump fun in the card world.

Kids had started putting their collections in plastic sheets and hard cases rather than bicycle spokes and shoe boxes, and investors would cross-check every card picked from a pack against the latest issue of Beckett's price guide. It was in this environment that Upper Deck launched in 1989 as the first premium baseball card, protected from the threat of counterfeiting with a hologram on each card, protected from the stain of the wax pack thanks to its unprecedented foil wrappers. There was no gum included, and packs cost an industry-high $1. Baseball cards were serious business. Advertisement The Griffey card was the perfect piece of memorabilia at the perfect time. The number the card was given only furthered the prospect of his cardboard IPO. Junior was chosen to be card No. 1 by an Upper Deck employee named Tom Geideman, a college student known for his keen eye for talent. Geideman earned his rep by consistently clueing in the founders of The Upper Deck, the card shop where the business was hatched, on which players would be future stars. Geideman took the task of naming the player for the first card very seriously. Using an issue of Baseball America as his guide, Geideman knew that card No.

1 would belong to Gregg Jefferies, Sandy Alomar Jr., Gary Sheffield, or a long-shot candidate, the phenom they called "The Kid." It's probably the most thinking Geideman ever did compiling a checklist, save for the 1992 Upper Deck set when he assigned numbers that ended in 69 to players with porn-star-sounding names. (Dick Schofield at No. 269, Heathcliff Slocumb at No. 569, and Dickie Thon at No. 769.) Despite the fact that Griffey had yet to crack the majors, Geideman had the confidence that the top pick in the 1987 draft would live up to his pedigree. It goes without saying that this was a genius selection. You could imagine how the people at Topps felt when Junior became an instant superstar—and they hadn't even included him in their 792-card set. Get Slate in your inbox. From the very beginning, card buffs saw the Upper Deck No. 1 as not just a collectible, but as an investment.

Baseball card fans, who had once traded away duplicate cards in a quest to compile a complete set, started hoarding as many Griffeys as they could. Collectors' hands would shake when they saw Griffey's face in their pack, confident that this card would be the key to financing a college education. But the truth was that even though Upper Deck printed fewer cards than its contemporaries—Donruss, Fleer, Topps, and Score—in this case, supply came close to meeting demand. Today, many people face the reality of unloading their Griffeys at a heavy discount on eBay. On May 4, for example, you could find two people selling two separate lots of 11 Upper Deck card No. 1s. One guy was selling a lot of 26, which eventually went for $760. Advertisement It comes as no surprise that the Griffey card is the most-graded piece of cardboard in the history of the hobby.

( Card grading , if you're unaware, is done by services that slap a card in between plastic and evaluate exactly how pristine it really is.) Professional Sports Authenticator has graded 51,800 Griffeys, while Beckett has graded about 25,400. (PSA's second-place card is the 1985 Topps Mark McGwire Olympic rookie card, with 46,000 grades. Beckett's No. 2 is the 2001 Upper Deck Tiger Woods card, which has been graded about 21,500 times.) A Griffey that was graded a perfect 10 once sold for north of $1,000. Now it would go for closer to $275. "Raw," ungraded Griffeys sell for $15 to $50.

(By comparison, Donruss and Fleer versions of the Griffey rookie, from graded to ungraded, usually range in price from $1 to $20.) Despite Griffey's illustrious career—some might call it disappointing relative to all the hype—it's amazing that the card could even command a couple hundred bucks, given how common it is and how many of them seem to be in great condition. More than 1 million Griffey cards were printed. In Upper Deck's original mailing to dealers, the company said it would sell 65,000 cases of card packs. With 20 boxes in a case, 520 cards in a box, and 700 different cards in the set, there would be about 965,000 of each card produced for the boxes. Combine that number with the amount of Griffeys in the untold number of "factory sets," and you'd have your production run. Advertisement Given the number of Griffey cards in circulation, there have long been rumors of an illicit reason for the card's ubiquity. Upper Deck, the legend goes, knew that printing the cards was just like printing money.

As such, there was a sheet the company could run with 100 Griffey cards on it, instead of the standard sheet that had just one Griffey in the top corner along with 99 pictures of other players. "If that existed, I never saw it," says Buzz Rasmussen, Upper Deck's plant manager at the time. Rob Veres of Burbank Sportscards , a memorabilia dealership with a warehouse of 30 million cards, says that if Griffeys were produced in greater quantity than other cards, he would've expected to come across larger collections of the card. If there was no funny business, why are the Griffey cards so abundant? The most natural explanation is that more were saved. Figure that about 95 percent of Frank DiPinos, Henry Cottos, and Steve Lombardozzis have hit the garbage can, while a huge percentage of the Griffeys have survived. Some dealers also swore to me that, although Upper Deck claims its packs were sequenced randomly, there was in fact a predictable pattern in the company's boxes that became valuable to learn. Therefore, the unopened Upper Deck packs that remain are less likely to have Griffey cards stashed inside them.

There's one more reason for the Griffey profusion. While the card might not have received an extra production run, there was extra attention paid to its condition coming out of packs and factory sets. Because the Griffey was card No. 1, it resided in the upper-left-hand corner of the printing sheet. It was therefore more susceptible to miscuts and corner bends. Being the first card in the factory set also turned some of the Griffeys blue, the color of the box. Card collectors and dealers who received less-than-perfect Griffeys would write in to complain to Upper Deck. The nascent company—surely understanding that its products would be seen as investments—couldn't afford any bad PR at that early stage. According to Jay McCracken, then the company's vice president of marketing and sales, the customer service desk was the place to find stacks of new Griffeys. The company was more than happy to exchange the bad card for a pristine one to keep its customers happy. That came in handy a decade later when the value of a Griffey would be determined by the card graders. When Griffey hits home run No. 600, don't look for the value of Upper Deck No. 1 to skyrocket.

After all, there's likely a card in circulation for every person living in the city centers of Cincinnati and Seattle. That sheer quantity, though, does mean that the lasting image of Ken Griffey Jr. won't be anything he does on the baseball field. It will be a picture of an overjoyed teenager in an airbrushed Mariners hat. Ken Griffey Jr. trading card display at Hall of Fame lacking iconic Upper Deck rookie card comment Three baseball cards stand apart as the unquestioned most iconic pieces of cardboard ever printed: the 1909 T206 Honus Wagner, the first card whose print run was cut short and whose value soared into the millions; the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie, the true beginning of baseball cards as a piece of Americana; and the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie, the No. 1 card in the first card set that signaled the beginning of baseball cards as an investment.

Given the place that these three cards hold in baseball history, it is baffling that the Baseball Hall of Fame's 12-card display on Ken Griffey Jr.'s wall, unveiled over the weekend, didn't include the 1989 Upper Deck card. Courtesy Darren Rovell Among the cards included were two unrecognizable cards in the top row, followed by his 1992 Studio card (which collectors never really cared for) and his Topps rookie debut card -- which didn't draw much interest because after Upper Deck, his Donruss and Fleer rookie cards commanded the most attention. The second row features an Upper Deck card from 1990 and another Upper Deck card at the end that is -- wait for it -- a checklist. Huh? The last row is a caricature card from a Score set, and then three more random cards. Thinking that there had to be some strange reason why Griffey's 1989 Upper Deck card wasn't included, I contacted the Hall of Fame to see if they could assist. "The design of this exhibit, as with all our exhibits, comes from our curatorial and exhibitions teams," wrote Hall of Fame spokesman Jon Shestakofsky in an e-mail.

"In this case, the determination of which cards to display was based purely on the visual aesthetic of the wall display as a whole, with cards chosen solely on the basis of the imagery. There was no singular reason not to include the 1989 Upper Deck card, or any other particular card." Translation: The cards were chosen based on how they looked, not based on how important they were in history. The Upper Deck Company That's fine for other players. It's not fine for Ken Griffey Jr., who -- as any baseball fan between the ages of 35 and 45 knows -- was the object of affection for the golden age of the baseball card. And Ken Griffey Jr.'s 1989 Upper Deck card was the real-life version of a golden ticket. We didn't leap for joy in card shops or in our homes when we pulled a 1992 Ken Griffey Jr. Studio card. And I certainly couldn't tell you before I saw this display what Griffey's 1990 Upper Deck card looked like -- unlike its predecessor, whose image is seared into my head for all time. In every museum, I understand there are certain pieces that make it because of how they look.

But it's time to take Griffey's1989 Upper Deck card and go to a copy shop and blow it up and place it on that wall as soon as possible. Because any fan who has a clue knows that the omission of this card compromises the whole display. To take it a step further, to keep the display as is would be an embarrassment. Set Registry: The Beginning of an Era - The Story of the 1989 Upper Deck Baseball Card Set Sports Market Report Kevin Glew - October 9, 2007 With its high quality, glossy stock, dazzling color photos and the most famous first card in modern hobby history, the 1989 Upper Deck Baseball set revolutionized the industry. "It was the first premium-type set that came out. Upper Deck was on the leading edge there," said Dave Jacobs, who owns the PSA Set Registry's No. 1, 1989 Upper Deck set. "They actually started a domino effect for that type of premium set." Ryan Farabough, proprietor of the registry's No. 4 set, agrees, "I think it really set the bar for quality after it came out.

Within the next few years, everyone upgraded and tried to keep up and I think it just really energized and changed the hobby." Issued in foil packs in low and high number boxes, this trailblazer boasted 800 cards (1-700 in the first series, 701-800 in a high number series). Two different factory sets – one featuring cards 1 through 800 and another comprised of cards 701 to 800 – were produced. The set also includes the Rookie Stars (#1 to #26) and award winners (#658 to #667) subsets and a series of Collector's Choice art cards (#668 to #693). The fronts of these singles showcase a large color photo of the player surrounded by a white border. An artist's rendering of the runner's lane from home to first base appears to the photo's right, while a team logo and the player's name are printed across the bottom of the regular cards. Another color photo, along with the player's biographical data, statistics, card number and a hologram are included on the regular card backs. Ken Griffey Jr. is the set's inaugural single.

The most renowned rookie card of the modern era, more than 50,000 Griffeys have been graded by PSA. At press time, there were 1,266 PSA 10s and 15,843 PSA 9s. "It's not that difficult to get in PSA 10," noted Jacobs. "It's very readily available in PSA 9." Logic might dictate that because it's the first card in the set, the Griffey might be susceptible to damage, but Jacobs says that Upper Deck inserted a blank white card in front of the future Cooperstowner's card for protection in factory sets. "Upper Deck had a lot of insight when they did that," said Jacobs. "Had they not put that card in front of that No. 1 card, it would've been a mess." Other notable rookies in this offering are Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Gary Sheffield, Craig Biggio, Tom Gordon, Steve Finley, Jim Abbott and Omar Vizquel. A number of Hall of Famers are also part of the set, including Cal Ripken Jr., Tony Gwynn, George Brett, Kirby Puckett and Mike Schmidt. Two innovative Nolan Ryan cards are also featured.

The Ryan Express is showcased in a "triple exposure" photo (#145) in the first series and tossing a football (#774) in the last series. Error cards were also plentiful in this set. Some Sheffield rookies, for example, were printed with his position "SS" upside down on the card front. There's no premium for this variation. Another flaw is that many cards were printed without holograms or have duplicate holograms. These cards are not rare, nor highly coveted by collectors. The most notorious error, however, is the reverse negative Dale Murphy card (#357). Reportedly pulled from production early in the print run, this card is not easy to track down. Of the 102 graded by PSA, there has only been two gem mint examples. At its peak, the Murphy was selling for more than $100, today a PSA 9 example generally commands between $20 and $40. Despite being a relatively modern set, 1989 Upper Deck poses a number of challenges for registry enthusiasts. "It's still new enough that if you want any of the common players, you're going to have to submit them yourself," said Farabough.

Jacobs knows all about self-submissions. He is just six cards shy of a straight PSA 10 set. Many of his PSA 10s are not only self-submissions, but they're the only gem mint examples in existence. Four of the cards he needs have no PSA 10s at all. With all this in mind, Jacobs says the most important character trait that '89 Upper Deck collectors can possess is perseverance. "I got a good start on it and I just stayed with it and I think that's part of it. A lot of guys will start building these sets, then they just get bored with them," he said. A surprising variety of condition issues also hinder the set. Jacobs says he often pulls batches of cards from factory sets that have centering issues. He has also had problems with dinged corners. "It's got very sensitive corners," he said. Another common flaw is damage to the holograms on the back of these cards. "That's ruined more (PSA) 10s for me, where the card had the centering, the card had the corners, the card had the gloss . . . but then the hologram was tore up on the back," said Jacobs.

But arguably the biggest condition issue is scratches on the photos. "When you shuffle the cards . . . you can actually scratch the surfaces of the card," said Farabough. So far, competition for graded 1989 Upper Deck cards hasn't been fierce, but Farabough expects this to change. "I think it's the only set from the late '80s, early '90s that stands out as . . . the potential to be anything," he said. Jacobs has similar sentiments. "I've always loved that set. The '89 Upper Deck set, to me, was kind of the turning point in the hobby, when the hobby was taking a really bad road," he said. And while the set is considered a trailblazer, Jacobs is on the brink of blazing his own path into hobby history. When he tracks down the six remaining PSA 10s that he needs, he will become the first registry member to complete the 800-card, 1989 Upper Deck set in gem mint condition. "I will finish it," he insisted. Copyright © 2017 PSA – A Division of Collectors Universe. Nasdaq: CLCT. All rights reserved.

Our Sponsors 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie Card History 0 By Dave Sliepka | Beckett Baseball Editor It’s one of the most iconic baseball cards of all-time. It helped define a generation of collecting. Here’s the story of the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card and its lasting impact on the hobby. A New Era for Baseball Cards The 1988 season of MLB card releases ended much like the seven before. Very little was different in the way of creativity, packaging, design, and player selection. Since 1981, Topps, Donruss, and Fleer had released standard card sets in wax packaging. Make no mistake, 1988 was a huge year for cards. Some believe it was the year of the highest production runs ever. Anyone that was collecting around that time had to own a set or three of 1988 Donruss. Maybe even a case, or ten. New card spending was skyrocketing. Every week, somewhere in America a former card collector was trying to become business owner by opening card shop.

Everything collectors and shop owners thought they knew up to that point was about to be turned on its head by a group of southern California businessmen, shop owners, and one key teenager who knew a lot about baseball prospects. In the spring of 1989, a few months later than first hoped, arrived 1989 Upper Deck Baseball — a foil-wrapped, tamper-evident pack contained high gloss cards on high quality white paper stock, with images on both sides, and a hologram. As you read this now, it’s hard to imagine those five key innovations all happening overnight in one product. Equally important was the price. 1989 Topps was selling for $0.45 a pack. Boxes could be had at $14 to $16. Upper Deck came out at $1.00 a pack. Ask a dealer for a box that first weekend of release and it’s $35 for 36 packs. It was like going from a rotary phone to an iPhone. It was an enormous leap in quality and price. Just like any new product, some jumped on the “new technology,” and some poo-poo-ed the gimmicks.

At the first shows you could hear things like, “One dollar a pack? That’s lunacy. They will be out of business in one year!” Meanwhile, across the room there were single cards of card #1 being bought and sold quickly at $4-6 each. Again, $4 for a card in 1989 seemed crazy. Few, if any cards since 1985 had that value. Some bought in, others dismissed it as a worthless fad. What few knew at that time was that Kid, that smiling kid on the 1989 Upper Deck card number 1, would drive that product, drive that company, and develop executives for the hobby that are still working today. Fresh Faces The Upper Deck was a card shop in Southern California before it was a card company. The owner, and some of his partners came together with the backing of California Angles players Duane Buice and Wally Joyner to create Upper Deck, the card company. Staffed with great financial minds like Richard McWilliam, hobbyists like Jay McCracken and Bill Hemrick, combined with leaders in print technology like Paul Sumner, Upper Deck was on track to create a beautiful product like the hobby had never seen.

But we all know a good look means nothing without collectible content. Joining them to fill this role was a bright young local teenager who everyone knew as the baseball prospect wiz. Tom Geideman would go from high school and “Rookie Card Stock Broker,” to a card shop and card company executive in little over a year and a half. He was tasked with putting the 1989 Upper Deck Baseball checklist together, a checklist that would be one of the most important to a generation of collectors. How Griffey Became #1 Filling in 664 of the 700 card set would be fairly easy. The first 26 though, where chosen to be Upper Deck’s Star Rookie subset. Topps also had introduced a Future Star subset of Rookies in 1987. Donruss had Rated Rookies since 1984. Fleer had its dual player Prospects subset dating back to 1985. None of those companies, however, took much of a risk with who appeared on those cards. Typically, it was just players certain to make the 40-man roster that spring.

Heading into 1989 spring training, the locks for everyone’s rookie subsets were Gregg Jefferies, who already was up with the Mets in 1988, Sandy Alomar Jr. of the San Diego Padres or Double-A Player of the year, Gary Sheffield. It would have been so easy to just select Jefferies. He was the most experienced player and collectors couldn’t wait to get their hands on his cards. Griffey had to look like a long-shot to anyone in that position. He was injured the year before and not even expected to start the season in the majors. Although he was the Mariners’ number one overall draft pick in 1987, he had never appeared above Doulble-A to that point. But Geideman, who was born within a few days of The Kid, had a hunch. As he put his initial checklist together, “Griffey was always the guy for me.” Geideman just needed to convince his supervisors, including Jay McCraken. “It was never about the first card in our first set. I honestly never thought about that,” said Geideman. “For me, it was about having the best prospect at the front of the Star Rookies subset.

I knew he had so much more upside than Jefferies, who was already over-hyped in my opinion.” The 26-card Star Rookie subset photo call out asked for 50 players. Only 20 came back. To execute his hunch would not be easy. Upper Deck could not use minor league photos, and none existed of Griffey in Mariners garb. This added to the commitment required to have him included in the set. Fortunately, Sports Illustrated photographer V.J. Lovero was on assignment to capture Ken Griffey Sr. on a day off and was able to add Junior in the shoot. Those were the days of photo “airbrushing” to make uniform and logo changes. Any collector of cards from the 1970s and 1980s can point to some pretty ugly airbrushed efforts. Some say it was “Photoshopped.” Not exactly. Photoshop was not released until 1990. It was actually an image of Griffey in a San Bernadino Spirits uniform, corrected with a graphics machine called Scitex. Upper Deck staff stripped in a Mariners logo over his Spirits had, and tinted the color a bit.

The effort and gamble, paid off big time. Griffey made the Mariners opening day starting line-up after a spring training batting average of .359. And the rest is history. Or, in this case, historic. And if you wonder if being the #1 card maters? Look at the 1992 Upper Deck Football set #1, Dan McGwire. The value of an ungraded 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card eventually climbed over $100. Years later, the rest of the set became almost irrelevant. There was a time when the Griffey might run you $140 and you could buy a factory set for $150. Its success propelled Junior to become the spokesperson for the company. Print ads, TV commercials, card shop signage — Griffey and Upper Deck were everywhere together. So that leads us to the question, how many are out there? How Many 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie Cards Exist? In doing research for this piece, there were stories published that estimated the initial print run of Upper Deck Series I at 1 million of each card.

Then High Series came out, which also included more of the first 700 cards. By then, the late adopters of the $1.00 price point had come around. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. Griffey was trading well over $10. Production estimates quickly doubled. Then, there were two different print runs of the complete factory set, the one with the clear cello wrap and one with just the clear disc shaped sticker on the box. Legend has it that 500 count boxes of the card were being shopped around the SoCal warehouse shows in late 1989. Between BGS and PSA, more than 90,000 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie cards have been graded. For comparison, the second highest graded card in the set is Randy Johnson with around 35,000. Wondering how many top grades are out there? Both PSA and BGS have graded about 2,400 9.5s or 10s. On any given day you can find 500-1,000 copies listed on eBay alone .

It’s not uncommon to find lots of 5, 10, 30. You must also consider there are still many sealed cases, and unopened boxes for sale. There are still many unopened factory sets for sale, and likely in your very own closet. So are there a million Griffey Upper Deck Rookies out there now? We may never know for certain, but we do know there is no shortage. The Legacy of the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. On the 20th anniversary of the card’s release, Sports Illustrated called it, “ The Last Iconic Baseball Card .” ESPN would run a Darren Rovell feature on it. Most would argue the most iconic cards ever are the T-206 Honus Wagner and the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle. There are only about 60 Wagners. The Mantle was a double print with estimates in the tens of thousands or more. In collectibles, iconic has little relation to production. In recent years, the card, the set, and the whole hobby has settled quite a bit. Raw copies of the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey below can be found for under $10.

But not for those higher end versions, of course. One collector recently plunked down a cool $2,000 for a BGS 10. PSA 10s can generally be found for $325-425. The card has been produced in porcelain, gold plated, Anniversary reprints, parallel reprints, buy backs, autographed buy backs, authentic signed reprints. Seattle-based rapper Macklemore had Junior appear in his Downtown music video. The brief cameo was not as much the highlight as it was when he had Griffey don a uniform, cap, turtleneck and jewelry to reprise the image of his most famous rookie card. Macklemore was six-years old when the card was released. And living in Seattle, Junior quickly became his hero. In a recent interview with The Sporting News, Griffey was well versed in the history of his card. He knew the photo was originally a San Bernadino shot. And he admitted to still owning “over 100” copies of the card. Tom Geideman remained at Upper Deck through 1994.

He moved on to Classic Games until 1998, when he started SA-GE Sportscards with Robert Sadlak. In speaking with Tom, we addressed the myth of there once being 100-card sheets being printed of just Griffey cards. Not fully expecting any real answer we could use, he said this, “Upper Deck always had a vibrant softball team. It was one of the few times I would cross paths with the pressmen. I do recall a few times when they would joke, ‘printed the Griffey sheets again today.'” He continued, “Honestly, I never saw them. I can’t verify yes or no. I doubt it, though.” One thing is certain no matter how many are out there, the demand remains high. 1989 was really the perfect storm for Griffey and his cards. He was young, good-looking, big smile, five-tools with a gorgeous swing, top draft pick and noted son of a World Series Champion. Combine that with the inaugural release of the highest quality baseball cards produced up to that point. All of this sprung on a hungry, growing hobby looking for a star to throw money at.

Within the hobby, there have many important and more valuable rookie cards since 1989. The 1993 SP Derek Jeter, the 2001 Bowman Chrome Albert Pujols, the 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout are just a few. But how many of those are featured in mainstream sports publications and cable programs, TV commercials, web sites and music videos? How many of those could your non-collector friends identify? There have more valuable and important cards released in our lifetime, but there may not be one more iconic. 1989 Upper Deck Baseball Cards Values View BGS population Set Information This attractive 800-card standard-size set was introduced in 1989 as the premier issue by the then-fledgling Upper Deck company. Unlike other 1989 major releases, this set was issued in two separate series - a low series numbered 1-700 and a high series numbered 701-800. Cards were primarily issued in fin-wrapped low and high series foil packs, complete 800-card factory sets and 100-card high series factory sets.

High series packs contained a mixture … [Read More] This attractive 800-card standard-size set was introduced in 1989 as the premier issue by the then-fledgling Upper Deck company. Unlike other 1989 major releases, this set was issued in two separate series - a low series numbered 1-700 and a high series numbered 701-800. Cards were primarily issued in fin-wrapped low and high series foil packs, complete 800-card factory sets and 100-card high series factory sets. High series packs contained a mixture of both low and high series cards. Collectors should also note that many dealers consider that Upper Deck's "planned" production of 1,000,000 of each player was increased (perhaps even doubled) later in the year due to the explosion in popularity of the product. The cards feature slick paper stock, full color on both the front and the back and carry a hologram on the reverse to protect against counterfeiting. Subsets include Rookie Stars (1-26) and Collector's Choice art cards (668-693).

The more significant variations involving changed photos or changed type are listed below. According to the company, the Murphy and Sheridan cards were corrected very early, after only two percent of the cards had been produced. Similarly, the Sheffield was corrected after 15 percent had been printed; Varsho, Gallego, and Schroeder were corrected after 20 percent; and Holton, Manrique, and Winningham were corrected 30 percent of the way through. Rookie Cards in the set include Jim Abbott, Sandy Alomar Jr., Dante Bichette, Craig Biggio, Steve Finley, Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Gary Sheffield, John Smoltz and Todd Zeile. Cards with missing or duplicate holograms appear to be relatively common and are generally considered to be flawed copies that sell for substantial discounts.

[Collapse] Shop the Beckett Marketplace Ken Griffey Jr.'s Hall of Fame exhibit lacks 1989 Upper Deck card - ABC News ABC News Ken Griffey Jr.'s Hall of Fame exhibit lacks 1989 Upper Deck card By DARREN ROVELL via ESPN Jul 26, 2016, 3:30 AM ET 0 Shares Email Three baseball cards stand apart as the unquestioned most iconic pieces of cardboard ever printed: the 1909 T206 Honus Wagner, the first card whose print run was cut short and whose value soared into the millions; the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie, the true beginning of baseball cards as a piece of Americana; and the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie, the No. 1 card in the first card set that signaled the beginning of baseball cards as an investment. Given the place that these three cards hold in baseball history, it is baffling that the Baseball Hall of Fame's 12-card display on Ken Griffey Jr.'s wall, unveiled over the weekend, didn't include the 1989 Upper Deck card.

sc Among the cards included were two unrecognizable cards in the top row, followed by his 1992 Studio card (which collectors never really cared for) and his Topps rookie debut card -- which didn't draw much interest because after Upper Deck, his Donruss and Fleer rookie cards commanded the most attention. The second row features an Upper Deck card from 1990 and another Upper Deck card at the end that is -- wait for it -- a checklist. Huh? The last row is a caricature card from a Score set, and then three more random cards. Thinking that there had to be some strange reason why Griffey's 1989 Upper Deck card wasn't included, I contacted the Hall of Fame to see if they could assist. "The design of this exhibit, as with all our exhibits, comes from our curatorial and exhibitions teams," wrote Hall of Fame spokesman Jon Shestakofsky in an e-mail. "In this case, the determination of which cards to display was based purely on the visual aesthetic of the wall display as a whole, with cards chosen solely on the basis of the imagery.

There was no singular reason not to include the 1989 Upper Deck card, or any other particular card." Translation: The cards were chosen based on how they looked, not based on how important they were in history. That's fine for other players. It's not fine for Ken Griffey Jr., who -- as any baseball fan between the ages of 35 and 45 knows -- was the object of affection for the golden age of the baseball card. And Ken Griffey Jr.'s 1989 Upper Deck card was the real-life version of a golden ticket. We didn't leap for joy in card shops or in our homes when we pulled a 1992 Ken Griffey Jr. Studio card. And I certainly couldn't tell you before I saw this display what Griffey's 1990 Upper Deck card looked like -- unlike its predecessor, whose image is seared into my head for all time. In every museum, I understand there are certain pieces that make it because of how they look. But it's time to take Griffey's1989 Upper Deck card and go to a copy shop and blow it up and place it on that wall as soon as possible.

Because any fan who has a clue knows that the omission of this card compromises the whole display. To take it a step further, to keep the display as is would be an embarrassment. 0 Shares What the iconic 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck card means to a generation of fans What the iconic 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck card means to a generation of fans The 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card. More I’ll never forget when I got my Junior. I was at the card shop, opening packs, two of them, the fruits of my labor from sweeping the floor and making my bed and doing other chores expected of a 9-year-old. My weekly allowance was $3, and packs of Upper Deck baseball cards, the coolest things I’d ever seen, with their impossibly white borders and holograms on the back – holograms! – were $2 apiece, so I’d resigned myself to one. Ken, the mustachioed man who ran the place and a couple years earlier sold me my first baseball cards, said he’d give me two for $3. Ken was the best. The first pack was a dud.

It felt like a kick to the shin. Baseball cards were the first drug I ever tried, and they hooked me immediately. Nothing beat the rush of tearing open a wax pack, popping the stale gum, thumbing through 15 pieces of cheap cardboard and hoping for something new or rare or exciting. It was pure possibility. I’m fairly certain Upper Deck was my first introduction to the idea of premium. Upper Deck didn’t bother with gum. Its cards weren’t meant to adorn bicycle spokes. The pack was a shiny silver foil. The cards looked better, cleaner, Apple before Apple, this beautiful amalgamation of form and function, high-end enough to convince a child he wasn’t just buying baseball cards. He was investing in them. What hammered home this notion, more than anything, was the face of a boy, 18 years old, wearing a half-smile and a gold chain with a medallion. Something about Ken Griffey Jr. felt right. I’m not sure why. My Griffey knowledge was limited to the frenzy his card caused. I didn’t know the only thing more gorgeous than his card was his swing. I didn’t know he had tried to kill himself at 18.

I didn’t know that 15 years down the road I’d actually get to meet him, and it would be the only time I ever found myself legitimately nervous to interview someone. All I knew was that I needed card No. 1 in Upper Deck’s first set: Ken Griffey Jr., bat on left shoulder, Mariners hat photoshopped onto his head, ornate rookie decal in the lower right-hand corner, the apple of every white, middle-class suburban 9-year-old’s eye in 1989. Before I opened the second pack, Ken pushed the button on one of his cases, and the cards in it started rotating like they were riding a Ferris wheel. When it stopped, an Upper Deck Griffey sat on top. Ken popped a key into the back of the case, slid open the door and pulled out the card for me to ogle. I flipped it over and soaked in every word on the back: About his dad still playing, the back injury that slowed him in Double-A, how he went to “Cincinnati’s famed Moeller HS.” Ever since, it hasn’t been Moeller High. It’s famed Moeller High. The genius of Upper Deck’s choice of Griffey as card No.

1 belonged to a kid named Tom Geideman, like Griffey just 18 years old. As a college student working at the fledgling card company, Geideman convinced Upper Deck’s brass to differentiate itself from Topps and Donruss and Fleer by leading off its set with a minor leaguer. This predated by a good 15 years the prospect culture that the Internet birthed and today has grown into an industry within an industry, fetishizing minor leaguers because of what they might be. Gregg Jefferies, one of the choices for Upper Deck’s first card, scratched out a solid if underwhelming major league career. Sandy Alomar Jr., another possibility, made six All-Star games and should be a major league manager sometime soon. Gary Sheffield, the other option, developed into a borderline Hall of Famer with a positive steroid test on his resume. None was Griffey. No one is Griffey. And no one, to a child whose love of baseball blossomed in the late 1980s and was fortified in the early ’90s, ever will be Griffey.

I know this seems anachronistic and all, but you have to understand: Baseball was cool back then, and no one was cooler than Ken Griffey Jr. He was the last baseball player whose popularity exceeded football and basketball stars. And, yeah, the backward hat helped craft this eternally youthful image of him, and his Nike shoes were dope, and the luminescence of his swing – so perfect; so, so perfect – matched his aesthetic. The real reason everyone loved Griffey, though, was because he was that damn good. Read More Griffey, not Barry Bonds, was supposed to break Hank Aaron’s record. Through age 29, the only players with more Wins Above Replacement than Griffey were familiar names: Cobb, Hornsby, Mantle, Ruth, Ott, Aaron, Foxx, Speaker, Collins. That was it. Then the Mariners traded him to Cincinnati, and his body gave out. This is an oversimplification, of course. Not all of Griffey’s years with the Reds were rough. He just missed 51, 92, 109 and 79 games in his just-after-prime seasons. Bonds, healthy and juicing, passed him.

Junior went to the White Sox, then returned to Seattle, then walked away in the middle of the 2010 season. The game was done with him just as much as he was with it. And so began the five-year countdown to the inevitable: Griffey’s election to the Hall of Fame and his induction this Sunday, alongside Mike Piazza. Junior received a vote from 99.3 percent of the electorate, a record. I was giddy to be one of the 437 who did check the box next to Griffey’s name. I half-wondered whether the Hall would use the picture from his ’89 Upper Deck card on the plaque. No image of a baseball player in the last quarter-century better represents its subject than Griffey’s Upper Deck photo. All these years later, it resonates not just because of its simplicity but its position as the fulcrum of trading cards. Luke Winn argued in Sports Illustrated that the Upper Deck Griffey was the last iconic card , and he was right. Upper Deck’s success gave way to more gimmickry, a watered-down premium marketplace, the pricing out of so many. Prices rose. Supply spiked. Demand cratered. The card market crashed.

Cards taught a good lesson about investing: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. My kids’ college fund now sits in my basement. My wife is pretty sure a mouse nibbled away at a few of the boxes. No way they got my Junior. It’s in a case with screws in each of the four corners. I don’t care that it’s worth a pittance, that Upper Deck, sensing the fervor for it, preyed on suckers like me and printed exorbitant amounts of the Junior – that more than 50,000 of them now have been graded by PSA, the hobby’s biggest authenticator and arbiter of a card’s value. In truth, it wasn’t some kind of a special card I got that day. The truth, for some reason, doesn’t matter to me. I still love that card. I still believe it’s the greatest card ever produced – better than the T206 Wagner, the ’52 Topps Mantle, the ’86 Fleer Jordan, the Billy Ripken F-bomb. I don’t care if there are a million Upper Deck Griffeys. That just means more people get to behold its splendor.

We’re all collectors. We collect baseball cards and Pokemon and coins and bottle caps and memories and tragedies and opinions and wisdom. We collect because we shaped our society around this instinct to gather, and we judge our lives on how the little pieces we’ve amassed along the way fulfill us. Ken Griffey Jr.’s Upper Deck card, No. 1, will forever be one of those tiny bits to me, to my generation. I’ll never forget standing in the card shop, tearing open that foil pack, Ken the dealer saying, “C’mon, c’mon,” as I thumbed through, right thumb to left, and stopped as I saw the rookie logo in the lower-right corner. I peeled away the card on top, and there it was: the medallion, the half-smile, The Kid, staring back at me, new and rare and exciting. Forever, to a boy of 9 then and a man of 35 today, perfect. Reblog 1989 Upper Deck - BaseballCardPedia.com 1989 Upper Deck 4.2.2 High Series Description The landmark 1989 Upper Deck Baseball is a 800-card set released in two series.

The first series (also known as the "Low-Numbers") consists of the first 700 cards, and was released to The Hobby in April, 1989. The High-Number Series, which has both the 700 Low-Number cards, plus an additional 100 cards, was released in October. Collectors should also note that many dealers consider that Upper Deck's "planned" production of 1,000,000 cards of each player was increased (perhaps even doubled) later in the year due to the explosion in popularity of the product. The cards feature slick paper stock, full color on both the front and the back and carry a hologram on the reverse to protect against counterfeiting. Subsets include Rookie Stars (#1-#27), 1988 Award Winners (#658-#663), 1988 Postseason Highlights (#664-#667), and Team Checklists (#668-#693) which were painted by the father of future Major League outfielder Vernon Wells. The more significant variations involving changed photos or changed type are listed below.

According to the company, the Dale Murphy RevNeg and Pat Sheridan "no position" cards were corrected very early, after only two percent of the cards had been produced. Similarly, the Gary Sheffield "upside-down SS" was corrected after 15 percent had been printed; Gary Varsho, Mike Gallego, and Bill Schroeder were corrected after 20 percent; and Brian Holton, Fred Manrique, and Herm Winningham were corrected 30 percent of the way through. 1989 Upper Deck is notable, of course, for card #1: The Star Rookie of Ken Griffey, Jr. Other rookies included Gary Sheffield, John Smoltz, Randy Johnson (all, like Griffey, included in the "Star Rookie" subset) Craig Biggio. Amoungst the Hi-Series rookie are Tom Gordon, Steve Findley, Jim Abbott and Omar Vizquel. Cards with missing or duplicate holograms appear to be relatively common and are generally considered to be flawed copies that sell for substantial discounts. Legacy of 1989 Upper Deck and the Ken Griffey, Jr. Star Rookie In the 1989 Upper Deck baseball set, Ken Griffey, Jr.

was selected to be featured on card #1. The decision to make Griffey, Jr. the first card in the set was reached in late 1988. A teenage employee named Tom Geideman (who later went on to found football draft-pick card producer SA-GE) was the one who suggested the use of Griffey as card #1. Traditionally, Topps had a system for reserving various numbers in their sets (such as numbers 1 and 100) for the biggest stars in the game. Geideman decided that a top prospect should be honored with the number one card in the inaugural 1989 set. After reviewing Baseball America, Geideman narrowed the list of candidates to four: Gregg Jefferies, Gary Sheffield, Sandy Alomar, Jr., and Griffey. Geideman was a Mariners fan and decided that Ken Griffey, Jr. should be the prospect featured on card number one of the 1989 set. At press time, Griffey had not yet played a major league game, so Upper Deck used an image of Griffey in a San Bernardino Spirit uniform and used computers to make him appear as though he was in a Seattle uniform.

Make no mistake, the '89 Upper Deck Griffey is one of the most significant baseball cards ever produced. It is the "'52 Mantle" of the post-vintage era. Unfortunately, unlike the '52 Mantle, it is not a scarce card. The card was situated in the top left hand corner of the uncut sheets and was more liable to be cut poorly or have its corners dinged. Company policy was that if a customer found a damaged card in its package, the company would replace it. Many Griffey cards were returned and the result was that Upper Deck printed many uncut sheets (sheets consisting of 100 cards) of just Ken Griffey, Jr. According to Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr. is the most graded card of all time. Between PSA and Beckett Grading Services (BGS), over 100,000 copies have been slabbed. Distribution Both series were issued in 15-card, 36-pack boxes. Each High-Series pack contained two cards from cards 701-800, and the rest from cards 1-700.

A team-logo hologram sticker was included in each pack. Two different factory sets were also issued. One with all 800 cards, and the other with just the 100 High-Number Series cards. 1989 Upper Deck, both packs and sets, were issued exclusive to Hobby outlets. NOTE: Wax boxes and sets were NOT sealed in shrink-wrap right out of the factory however, some distributors/dealers shrink-wrapped wax boxes, sets and cases to sell these as unsearched while increasing the price. Factory sets were sealed closed using a clear round sticker on the flap. The practice of using shrink-wrap with logos of the issuing company did not begin until the early-1990s. Reviews 1 Ken Griffey, Jr. SR RC 2 Luis Medina SR RC 3 Tony Chance SR RC 4 Dave Otto SR 5 Sandy Alomar, Jr.

SR RC UER (incorrect birthdate) 6 Rolando Roomes SR RC 7 Dave West SR RC 8 Cris Carpenter SR RC 9 Gregg Jefferies SR 10 Doug Dascenzo SR RC 11 Ron Jones SR RC 12 Luis de los Santos SR RC 13 Gary Sheffield SR ERR (SS upside down) 13 Gary Sheffield SR RC COR 14 Mike Harkey SR RC 15 Lance Blankenship SR RC 16 William Brennan SR RC 17 John Smoltz SR RC 18 Ramon Martinez SR RC 19 Mark Lemke SR RC 20 Juan Bell SR RC 21 Rey Palacios SR RC 22 Felix Jose SR RC 23 Van Snider SR RC 24 Dante Bichette SR RC 25 Randy Johnson SR RC 26 Carlos Quintana SR RC 27 Star Rookie Checklist Upper Deck Sports | News Article cards of Griffey await eager collectors! , NV (February 24, 2009) – Some thought it was just matter of time. Others figured it would never happen. And still many thought it would make for a storybook ending to a stellar major league career.

In the end, Ken Griffey Jr. sided with the latter group and decided to come home again, to the city of Seattle . On Saturday, Feb. 21, at the Seattle Mariners spring training complex in Peoria, Arizona, Ken Griffey Jr announced he was, indeed, returning to the M’s, the team where his major league career started 21 years ago. After nine seasons of playing big league baseball outside of Seattle – eight with the Reds and last year with the White Sox – Junior’s career came full circle. And with the startling turn of events, Upper Deck staffers went right to work, securing up-to-date photos of Junior practicing in Peoria and even developing a special illustrated card welcoming back Seattle Griffey’s coveted rookie card (# 1) is from Upper Deck’s inaugural baseball release in 1989. So it only makes sense for the trading card manufacturer, which also started its legacy in 1989, to be the first to market with updated baseball cards showing Junior returning to the team where it all began. Two cards are being produced by Upper Deck to celebrate Griffey’s homecoming.

The first will show Junior at the recent press conference and will pack out as a short-printed insert card in 2009 Upper Deck’s MLB Piece of History release, which hits store shelves in early April. The second is a caricature card showing Griffey standing at Seattle ’s Pike’s Place Market, awaiting a fish thrown to him by the team’s longtime mascot, the Mariner Moose. This card will be available at select hobby shops across the country as a gift with purchase shortly before Opening Day (April 6). “Ken Griffey Jr. has meant so much to the Upper Deck Company over the last two decades,” said Jason Masherah, Upper Deck’s senior sports brand manager. “His rookie card basically put us on the map 20 years ago, so it’s our pleasure to be the first company to release updated cards showing Junior returning to his original team: the Seattle Mariners.” Griffey played his first 11 MLB seasons in Seattle , launching 398 home runs and collecting 10 Gold Gloves along the way.

He has since entered into one of MLB’s most prestigious group’s – the “600 Home Run Club” – and has maintained his stellar reputation for giving it his all every day out on the baseball diamond. "I may not hit 50 [home runs],'' the 39-year-old Griffey said at the press conference. “I may not hit 40, I may not hit 30. But I can do the little things to help a team win.'' The Mariners are banking on it. About Upper Deck Upper Deck is the leading sports and entertainment trading card and collectibles company. For more information on Upper Deck and its products please visit

Question: Whose rookie card was the first baseball card printed by Upper Deck in 1989?
Answer: Ken Griffey Jr.