Seamless: 1995 Pinnacle – Part 1

How have I not done a post about 1995 Pinnacle?

There is no more characteristically 90’s a brand than Pinnacle, and their 1995 offering is about as ‘90’s as hella-ugly pants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons, and Zima (oh, wait – all of those are back now).

While I’m a huge fan of the 1994 design and an admitted 1996 Pinnacle apologist, I think 1995 is the high-water mark of this brand as a whole. This is the year the card design was perfected, the photography was popping, and the inserts were just starting to get really cool. The inserts did get cooler in coming sets, but 1995 had plenty enough textured foil and Dufex to go around. Don’t even stress, dog.

Gonna just jump right in here:

1995 Pinnacle #128

Photography was popping? Get it?

When I pulled this card from a pack in 1995 it booked for $3.00 in the Beckett, but you’d have thought I pulled a $100 card because LOOK AT IT. This is on the short list of the greatest Griffey base cards of all time. It’s certainly among the greatest Griffeys and even cards in general that you can get for under a dollar (Nick, our resident Dime Box expert could recommend more than a few such cards, I’m sure).

And yeah, the giant Frank Thomas climbing into the stadium was great, too, as were the numerous triple-exposures and that amazing Ozzie Smith-doing-a-flip card; but look at The Kid, doing Kid things, winning all our hearts. This is the kind of photo brands needed to put out there to overcome that pesky baseball strike and get everyone loving their favorite players again.

I know what you’re thinking – Kurt Bevacqua did it better. Oh, did he? DID HE??

Okay, that’s pretty close – I admit it. Junior’s bubble is perfect – like, too perfect. Maybe a bit…balloonish? Let’s stop here lest we ruin this card forever.

You know what’s just as good as that photo? That background. That is straight-up Junior’s locker, folks. Finally an inside look into the Kid’s day-to-day. Now, I for one like to ponder the logistical side of baseball cards. For example, with this card I have to wonder whether they just up and took this photo or if there was a little set dressing involved. Those Nike Air and Bazooka logos seem a little too perfectly placed. And who takes the time to completely wrap their spray deodorant in tape lest a single logo be visible? And the massive quantity of signed balls, the perfect placement of the wristband with the 24 visible, and is that Junior’s Sports Illusrated for Kids card? And in a case, no less? No cologne, no underwear, no ear medicine or antifungal cream. It all just seems a little perfect. Whatever - I’ll take perfect.

So generally speaking we have a set with stunning photography and a shiny gold baseball seam nameplate that translates beautifully to a horizontal layout. So far I’m sold, but what can you show me in a card back, ‘95 Pinnacle?

The card back is gorgeously 90’s, too – all busy and brimming with personality. Card backs nowadays are all clean and orderly, but this mess with its full-bleed design, TWO excellent photos, shamelessly pro-Griffey blurb, and abbreviated but highly informative stat box is EVERYTHING. Also that portrait on the back makes two backwards caps on one card. Recognize.

1995 Pinnacle #128 Museum Collection

1995 Pinnacle has two parallels, and this is the one that makes sense. It’s the same exact card but in Dufex, and it is mind-bogglingly beautiful. The following year Museum Collection would morph into Starburst, an insert with most of the attributes of a parallel. Lucky for us, in both 1994 and 1995 it was still a true parallel – every base card got one, including a PC of mine, Mariners catcher Dan Wilson, who would probably otherwise never have gotten a Dufex card. And they look killer. I think Pinnacle’s Museum Collection is on the short list of the greatest parallels of all time.

1995 Pinnacle #128 Artist's Proof

I’m just going to come right out and say it: the one-per-box Artist’s Proof parallel is weird. It was weird in 1994 and it’s weird again this year. First off it’s rare – nine times rarer than its far more attractive counterpart Museum Collection. The only differences between the AP’s and the regular base cards are the little foil “Artist’s Proof” stamp and the color of the foil which is a light pewter rather than gold. That’s it.

The Griffey base cards in this parallel consistently break the $40-$50 mark (and there’s one that tends to break three figures), but in no way do they look the part. It can be hard to justify the extra expense to acquire these. Trust me – I know. All of these AP cards appear on the 1996 Beckett Tribute Checklist, so I had to get them. Every. One.

The following year the Artist’s Proof parallel would only apply to the cards of the Starburst insert (again, which was more like a parallel). In lieu of a simple foil stamp and no Dufex, Pinnacle used the Dufex already on the Starburst cards and stamped “Artist’s Proof” right into it repeatedly on diagonals. Pinnacle fixed the value-added aspect of the parallel, but your options were limited to only those players who got Starburst cards (and Junior got like four), so your lesser-known PC players didn’t have one. I’m not sure Pinnacle ever got Artist’s Proof 100% right.

It should be noted that there have been “backdoored” 1995 Artist’s Proof prototypes that have made it out into the market following Pinnacle’s bankruptcy. Instead of pewter foil, these rare prototypes have gold holofoil; and yes, they really do look like the rare, expensive parallel that they’re supposed to be. I have a handful for other players but none of the Griffeys. I do plan on acquiring one someday. Whoever made the call to go with the pewter over the holofoil can kiss my grits.

1995 Pinnacle #304 Swing Men

YES. Here is one of my favorite subsets of the ‘90’s. All gold and blue and swirly – these could have been a moderately rare insert, and I would have been all over ‘em. The shape of the swirl itself is more suggestive of a golf swing (to which Junior is no stranger), but I love the effect here. It’s almost like this is a surfing card and he’s shooting the curl. The logo and foil shadow are also excellent touches.

And to those of you who think it looks like they’re flushing him down the toilet I say LOL and GTFO.

The back is pretty solid as well with a curved pattern formed by real photographed bats framing a large portrait. The blurb is clunky and reads like it was written by a 15-year-old; but it also gushes Griffey-love, so you better believe I’m hella ‘bout it.

But wait – this card was absolutely made for the Museum Collection parallel:

1995 Pinnacle #304 Swing Men Museum Collection 

Okay, look – I don’t want to sound like a cliquey, Griffey-snob exclusionist, but real talk: your Griffey collection is incomplete without 1995 Pinnacle Swing Men Museum Collection. Thing is TWO BUCKS on COMC right now. You have no excuse. Write it down.

1995 Pinnacle #304 Swing Men Artist's Proof

Yeah, yeah, boring parallel, yada yada yada. Swing Men is still the BEST.

1995 Pinnacle #447 Checklist

I think this is actually the back of the AP version, but it doesn't really matter
unless you know what to look for.

Pinnacle (the Score brands in general, really) were masters of padding their checklists with superstars by featuring them on checklists. Not that I’m complaining, but I absolutely would if they hadn’t done such a great job at it. The photo is very similar to the one on the back of his base card, but come on. Check out this smiley, backwards-capped, 25-year-old millionaire. Man, what am I even doing with my life?

1995 Pinnacle #447 Checklist Museum Collection

That’s the shiny version.

1995 Pinnacle #447 Checklist Artist's Proof

And that’s the overpriced version. Yes, even this, a checklist, will still set you back somewhere in the $20-$40 range if you want the Griffey. Sounds like a lot, but there’s still one AP left in this set, and it’s way more expensive than this one.

1995 Pinnacle #450 Checklist

The last card numerically in 1995 Pinnacle’s base set is this checklist which has officially gone a whopping four-for-four on Hall of Famers. The photos are those from each player’s respective checklist so they’re not new; and this base card is anything but scarce, so it’s not a tough get until you start stacking parallels.

1995 Pinnacle #450 Checklist Museum Collection

This card tends to command more than the same parallel of Junior’s amazing base card all thanks to the additional HOF’ers. And it does look better, as a parallel should. This next one on the other hand…

1995 Pinnacle #450 Checklist Artist's Proof

This checklist is far and away the most expensive and difficult Griffey card in 1995 Pinnacle. Let me repeat that: this CHECKLIST is the Griffey grail of 1995 Pinnacle. If you want one at auction, don’t be surprised if you surpass the $100 mark and, depending on the competition, battle player collectors of those other three guys up into the realm of heavy overspending. I suspect most of these already have homes in various collections, so they don’t come up a lot. I had to wait two years just for an opportunity on this one.

Again, it’s totally not worth it at all because this parallel is lame; but dammit, I had a checklist to complete. So here it is.

That’s all the regular Griffey base cards and their parallels. It took me a long time to amass all these, so forgive me a moment as I gaze at the wonderfully complete base checklist from THE BEAST:

1995 Pinnacle #128
1995 Pinnacle #128 Museum Collection
1995 Pinnacle #128 Artist's Proof
1995 Pinnacle #304 Swing Men
1995 Pinnacle #304 Swing Men Museum Collection
1995 Pinnacle #304 Swing Men Artist's Proof
1995 Pinnacle #447 Checklist
1995 Pinnacle #447 Checklist Museum Collection
1995 Pinnacle #447 Checklist Artist’s Proof
1995 Pinnacle #450 Checklist (w/ Piazza, Thomas, Bagwell)
1995 Pinnacle #450 Checklist Museum Collection (w/ Piazza, Thomas, Bagwell)
1995 Pinnacle #450 Checklist (w/ Piazza, Thomas, Bagwell) Artist’s Proof

Oh, man. That feels nice. In the next post we’ll tackle the inserts and Griffey cameos of 1995 Pinnacle.

Thanks for reading!

1997 Pinnacle Inside: Get Thee to a Cannery

1997 Pinnacle Inside Can #8

Pinnacle in 1997 was all about that metallic quirk. You had X-Press with their crazy Metal Works ingots, Mint with its coins including redemptions for legit solid gold coins, and Inside – the first cards to be sold in a can.

Cans – the cards came in cans, guys. They were ten cards per can, 24 cans per case. You literally needed a can opener to get at them. The wisest of us opened the cans from the bottom so we could display the cans on our bedroom shelves between the collection of empty beer bottles and the Yasmine Bleeth poster. I assume we all had pretty much the same setup in 1997, right?

I’m kind of shocked this product got made in the first place. Consider the size of a pack vs. a can, then consider the shipping and storage implications of this product. One 24-can case was a little larger than an 8-box CASE of standard product, and for the same price per pack. And it’s not like the cans protected the product against damage very well – the cards came in cellophane packs that rattled around inside the cans and damaged the edges, especially on those cards on the top and bottom of the pack. Oh, and on top of everything Pinnacle had to provide a can opener to every hobby shop that ordered a case. It’s cliché to ask “what were they thinking?” about stupid ideas like this one (especially when you love Pinnacle as much as I do), but it’s hard not to here.

Speaking of can opener, Pinnacle provided a promotional kit to hobby shops that included a Ryan Klesko Sample can, card, and an official Pinnacle can opener.

The ultimate 90's cardboard marketing oddity.

Okay, Griffey time:

1997 Pinnacle Inside #19

It’s not a bad-looking card, but there’s nothing especially memorable or unique about it, either. It’s designed around that left-justified split not unlike 1994 Upper Deck, but with team-shading in the inset and bits of text floating around within. Highlights are the giant gold foil name plate, and that Pinnacle logo with the baseball comet flying through it that I’ve never seen anywhere else.

The back is another story. It’s got that same inset as on the front, only expanded with an added bit about Junior’s Gold Glove streak. The weirdest part is not the total lack of a stat box, but the odd factoid section in its place. The factoid categories are different for each player, depending on what interesting things Pinnacle found to mention about them. For example, Cal Ripken, Jr. also has a “Father” category, but no “Charities” category. Instead, Ripken has a “Highlight” category (breaking Gehrig’s record) and a “Hobby” category (basketball). A little “inside” information, I guess.

1997 Pinnacle Inside #19 Club Edition

Don't mind my use of COMC images lately - just be
glad I'm posting at all.

The Club parallel is a shiny version of the regular base card, and at 1:7 packs cans, it wasn’t all that rare. You can almost certainly tell from the scan what this card is made of: the dreaded unscannable papery foil. Pinnacle was also kind enough to fill you in on the card back with what parallel you had pulled, something we started seeing a lot more of in the late 90’s.

1997 Pinnacle Inside #19 Diamond Edition

Believe it or not, you are looking at one of the toughest gets among all ‘90’s parallels – scarcer even than the refractoriest of Finest refractors that came before it. It is an unsung Holy Grail among not just Griffey collectors, but also player collectors of any guy in the Pinnacle Inside checklist.

This 1:63 die-cut parallel fell roughly one in every two-and-a-half 24-can cases. There is no way to know for sure how many of these there are for each player, but you know I like to guess.

If the same number of cans of Pinnacle Inside were made as the number of packs of Pinnacle Mint, about 1,398,000, there are approximately 140 Diamond Edition cards for each card in the base set. That's pretty low, generally speaking, but I am pretty certain this number is actually too high.

First, in addition to these cans being difficult to find even when they were available, the product itself was not terribly popular, and it took up a lot of space. All that added up to a lot of it being recalled and destroyed, including hundreds of Diamond Edition cards that never saw the light of day. In addition to that, the nature of the product, all big and bulky and difficult to store, suggest to me that Pinnacle didn’t produce as much of this product as a nice, compact product like…well, any other product not sold in cans, including Pinnacle Mint. Finally, the best indicator of how scarce these are is market price, and the prices these command when they do come up are RIDICULOUS.

I’ll put it this way: I’ve seen five times as many #/25 Red Crusade Griffeys sell as I have this parallel. If you don’t know about the Red Crusade, you can get a whiff of just how scarce those things are here.

Based on all this I suspect there are fewer than 100 specimens to be had, and it seems to sell more like a card with a production run of 50 or less. In fact, the only specimen of the Griffey I’ve ever come across is the one you’re looking at, and it remains one of my eBay saved searches to this day out of pure curiosity.

So this card is a white whale, but it has all the makings of what I call a “quest card,” that being a very rare card that isn’t generally desirable except to niche collectors. It’s not exactly a Finest refractor or an E-X Essential Credentials, both far more popular 90’s parallels. In fact, most collectors probably haven’t even heard of it. The only reason this one is a white whale and not a quest card is that it’s a Griffey and he is not a niche PC guy – he’s an extremely popular one. For those niche PC guys it’s not terribly expensive – just hard to pin down. Very hard.

A good example is a guy I’ve seen on multiple card forums who is a Brett Butler supercollector. Last I saw he is less than ten cards short of 100% completion for all Brett Butler cards ever produced. One of those last few cards is this Diamond Edition parallel. When it does come up for sale, you better believe that this guy will not let this one get away. For him, this is a true quest card.

So to all the player collectors out there who focus on one off-the-beaten-path '90's guy, I suggest you focus on that guy's Diamond Collection card first and worry about the piece-of-cake 90's Finest refractors later.

Moving on, insert-wise I’d like to have seen Pinnacle take this can thing to another level, maybe with some Andy Warhol-inspired soup can art but in team colors. Or a rookie insert called “Can-Do!” Or a pitcher-only insert called “Canned Heat.” Something punny and kind of stupid, ya know? I like that stuff. Instead we got a handful of inserts that are woefully devoid of can humor. I consider it a missed opportunity. Pacific would have gotten it right – they had zero shame with the dad jokes.

1997 Pinnacle Inside Dueling Dugouts #6 (w/ Andruw Jones)

The closest Pinnacle would come to a can reference is this card which has a circular stat element you could use to compare the players on either side. It gives little insight into the matchup apart from what you can glean from the stats, but it’s a pretty neat concept, and the cards themselves seem to hold their value more than most 1:23 inserts from that time.

Pro tip: that rivet in the center of the ring makes this card a major liability in terms of card-stacking. As in this card could dent the living daylights out of any card you stack beside it. At least a top-loader, please.

1997 Pinnacle Inside 40-Something #12

A who’s who of ‘90’s power hitters, this insert focuses on current players who hit more than 40 home runs in a season, even if it was only once.

You know my feelings toward papery foil, but I’ve got to say I love this card. The design is balanced and classy with just the right amount of shiny gold to offset the abundant silver and team-colored shading. The back is pretty much perfect with a great backwards-cap portrait, and it's a very rare example of a vertical card front with a horizontal back. A good-looking card all around, and a favorite from both years of 1997 Pinnacle Inside.

You heard that right: BOTH years – Inside would go for one more year before Pinnacle would go under and the concept of the card in a can would (almost - thanks, Upper Deck) disappear from the market forever. Probably for the best.

I have all the Griffeys of 1997 Pinnacle Inside except the actual can. The one pictured above belongs to fellow collector Nicholas. So, here is my very short list of needs from this set:

1997 Pinnacle Inside Cans #8

I'm not in a rush, though, as yet another clunky, three-dimensional Griffey thing is the last thing I need to find a place to store right now.

The Great Griffey Generosity Project 18-Month Update

[Confession time: what you are about to read was written way back in June of 2018. Keep that in mind when I use words like “for the past 18 months” and “a few weeks ago.” I am slow on the blogging front, and I own that fact completely.]

Remember this thing? Here's a link to the original post if you don't. Several members of the blogsphere have gotten a hold of this box and made posts about it. I’m happy to announce that the box has finally made it back home where it is being repaired, restocked, and rearranged for another trip around the country.

For the past 18 months I’ve watched this box zip back and forth across the U.S., bouncing from one collector to another, shedding Griffeys here, picking up new ones there. It’s been very exciting to see it continue for so long. Recently one of my Griffey buddies let me know he had finally gotten ahold of it, and I requested he send it on to me so I could take a closer look at just how much this box has changed in the last year and a half (and, you know, to take out some Griffeys).

I had some fun with the stats, too.

The box was started with 500 Griffeys. When I received it a few weeks ago, it had 529 Juniors, one Senior, a mini-poster, and a team sticker.

The actual route taken by the box over the past 18 months

The box spent an average of 1.5 months in the possession of each collector. No fewer than 570 Griffeys were added to the box in its journeys, or roughly one Griffey every 28 miles.

Old vs New

The box has traveled over 13,868 miles (as the crow flies) in 541 days, which means it has been zipping around the country at an average speed of 1.06mph (the approximate speed of the unnamed evil from “It Follows.”) In that time the box added no fewer than 546 Griffeys to 13 collections which gives us a complete box turnover of a whopping 109%! That sounds great, but let’s be honest: I’m sure a few of the very same 1990 Donruss and 1991 Fleer cards I started the box with are still hanging out in there.

Far and away the most prolific set in the box is 1991 Score, the greatest junk wax set for Griffey collectors because of the numerous insert and subset appearances.

I tried to not change too much about the box spiritually speaking, but I did make some tweaks here and there. First, I moved the whole thing into a brand new box. The old one was getting rough and weighs more than twice what an empty version of the same exact box does because of all the tape and stickers. The corners are also getting awfully soft and the walls bendy. It was time for a new one.

Old vs New

The cards I took for the team

Something I was pleasantly surprised by is that the organization of the box was even better than it was when I first sent it out into the world. Someone had even arranged the cards by year and made paper separators to keep them organized. I took this a step further by creating more permanent plastic separators.

When I received the box there were some pretty nice cards in it, including some sweet customs (you can guess who made those) and a pretty valuable #/500 ‘90’s insert. Some generous folks had handled this thing. Some of the better cards were sealed in thick one-touch cases and top loaders. I re-did all these by confiscating the one-touch cases (they’re just too big for this little box!) and transferring all the cards into the classic penny sleeve/top loader combo and putting those into team bags so they don’t slip out or rattle around in the box too much in transit.


I will mention that there were way too many duplicates in the box and some room needed to be made, so I imposed a hard limit of three (does not include parallels or customizations) copies of each card. This limit is not really enforceable once it is out in the world again, but I think it’s a reasonable suggestion. I removed all instances of any card of which there more than three copies, removing about 73 cards from the total (apart from the ones I took). I then replaced those with other Griffeys that were underrepresented with a focus on post-2000 Reds cards (more than half the box was cards from 1990-1994!). It’s a lot more evenly-distributed now.

I’m about to mail this thing out again, and I’ve just gotta say how pleased I am with the results. Here’s to another 18 months of Griffey generosity! And for the next guy who gets a crack at it, that #/500 ‘90’s insert is still in there. Have at it.

Also, I'm working on making it so the words DON'T look like that. I blame the Mac.

1998 SPx Finite Explained (Finally!)

In the late 90’s everybody was trying to re-invent base sets and infuriate set builders. Personally I think Donruss probably failed the most miserably at it, but Upper Deck was guilty, too. Just take a look at 1998 SPx Finite.

[On a personal note, I should have made this post years ago for my own good. This set has boggled my mind for ages, but after a little research now I finally loosely understand it a little bit of sorts kind of. Progress!]

There are three characteristics that make this set unique:

#1: Technically, 1998 SPx Finite is one big base set. The catch here is that in lieu of regular inserts there are eight subsets (and to make things interesting, there really is one regular insert, but you can forget it because you're never going to find one). However, if you removed all the card numbers this brand would look more like a small base set with eight inserts which is nothing out of the ordinary. And let’s be honest: if you have eight short-printed subsets plus a tiny base set, you basically have eight inserts and…well, a tiny base set. The number on the card is kind of arbitrary.

#2: There are two parallels, Radiance and SPectrum, that are along for the ride. Parallels that apply to both base cards and inserts (I still consider these inserts) are nothing new - they’ve been around since Fleer’s 1995 Ultra Gold Medallions – but this is the first time Upper Deck did anything like it on this scale.

#3: Every card is serial-numbered, hence the name. Individually-numbered cards were still pretty exciting in 1998.

The end result is a single base set with six “base” Griffeys and two parallels for each. That makes 18 Griffeys in the base set which, combined with five sample variations and one legitimate insert, gives us an overall total of 24 Griffeys of which I have 19. This is exactly the kind of off-the-wall Griffey checklist one should expect from an Upper Deck brand in 1998.

One more thing about this set: it contains a few cards that would fetch several hundred dollars and three in particular that would easily surpass four figures at auction – and that is with no autographs and no relics, just cardboard. All Upper Deck had to do was print them differently and serial-number them. While we may be touching on something outside of the scope of this post, does that feel weird to anyone el$e?

Let’s get started:

1998 SPx Finite #130 #/9000

We are starting in the middle of the base set because, not having a subset name attributed to it, card #130 is Griffey’s de-facto base card. At 9000 produced this is also his least rare card in the set.

The base version of each card looks pretty much like this: papery foil, dark green accents, and a raised-print, copper-colored badge heralding the subset. It’s an attractive, tactile card that just begs you to run your fingers over that raised badge.

The back is pretty standard: a tiny blurb, portrait, and stat box. Griffey’s portrait is a good one - him in flipped-up-shades with “a Taylor on the earlobe” and an all-business RGF (resting Griff face). Probably best to steer clear of this fella.

While I like the overall (albeit busy) look of the regular cards, the designs really start to pop in the parallels; and they only get better with scarcity.

1998 SPx Finite #130 Radiance #/4500

The Radiance parallel keeps the papery foil; but they are all done up in blue accents in lieu of green, and the badges are gold instead of copper. Looks nice.

1998 SPx Finite #130 SPectrum #/2250

SPectrum is the rarest of the two base parallels. While I am frequently guilty of holding down the shift key a split-second too long and accidentally capitalizing the first two letters of words as I type, that is not what happened here. SPectrum is correct (starts with SP – get it?!). Both MS Word and Blogger are super pissed I won’t let them correct it.

SPectrum cards are foil board instead of the papery foil of the more common versions. Also the accents are red and the badge is holofoil. It’s an absolute monster and forces your eyes to recognize its scarcity.

“Bling!” – SPectrum card
“Ugh - I get it, you’re rare.” – your eyes
“Damn right.” – SPectrum card

One weird thing about this parallel is that because papery foil scans so dark, the SPectrum parallel looks like a completely different card here. Suddenly you can clearly see the photos, and the badge practically leaps off the card. I assure you, in person they look more like three versions of the same card.

Now that you’ve seen the three versions of each card, here is a short key to differentiate them:

Regular: paper foil, green accents, copper badge
Radiance (parallel): paper foil, blue accents, gold badge
SPectrum (rarest parallel): foil board, red accents, holofoil badge

The checklist is not in order by scarcity – it kind of jumps around. In this post we are going to take the five subsets in order by scarcity starting with the two most common:

1998 SPx Finite #165 Star Focus #/7000

As you can see the general design is the same as the regular base card only with a subset title in the badge that is vaguely reflected by its shape – here the shape is pointed like a star...kinda? Instead of a stat box on the back we get a top ten list of total runs scored the previous season on which Junior is #3.

We’ve covered all the major differences among the parallels, so we should be able to move pretty fast from here on out. Here are the Radiance and SPectrum versions:

1998 SPx Finite #165 Star Focus Radiance #/3500

1998 SPx Finite #165 Star Focus SPectrum #/1750

Sorry to use the blurry COMC image here - this really is my copy.

I owe you guys some better scans.

This next subset is the same level of scarcity as Star Focus, so all the serial numbering is the same:

1998 SPx Finite #240 Power Passion #/7000

Power Passion is weird in nearly every way. The text on the badge can be a bit hard to read, so seeing that giant P on there and not having a magnifying glass to read the subset title may have been confusing for some. There is also gigantic text on the front of the card that reads “105 Home Runs,” a string of words that makes no sense to anyone who hasn’t read the blurb in its entirety, again, with a magnifying glass (the text is super tiny). No, he did not hit 105 home runs in 1997. And that’s just the beginning of the weirdness here.

Where most card backs in this set are quite busy, have photos, include unique stats in lieu of a standard stat box, and also show a non-foil version of the front badge, this subset has none of that. Frankly the back here looks like it came from a completely different set. Even the serial numbering is printed differently here. Why?? Were these printed before all the subsets were designed? I don’t trust you, Power Passion.

Here are the parallels:

1998 SPx Finite #240 Power Passion Radiance #/3500

1998 SPx Finite #240 Power Passion Spectrum #/1750

The last one!

I dig the purp on this one.

From here we take big leap in scarcity and, sadly, start building the list of 1998 SPx Finite Griffeys that I don’t have. There will be plenty more of those before this post is done.

1998 SPx Finite #50 Power Explosion #/4000

The Power Explosion subset badge is baseball field/kaboom-shaped. Fun! All but two of the Griffey-having subsets are horizontally-oriented – this is one of the two vertical ones. The colorful back gives us a lovely chart outlining Junior’s home run distribution over the past season. Despite the blurb being kind of pointless, I like the look here a lot.

1998 SPx Finite #50 Power Explosion Radiance #/1000

I am very sad to report that this is the rarest card I own from 1998 SPx Finite. There are five (well, six with the lone insert) cards rarer than this one, all numbered 100 or less with two 1/1’s. The SPectrum parallel of this card is #/50. Abandon all hope, ye who set-build here.

But I have seen one:

Pretty killer, right?

These last two subsets are the rarest in 1998 SPx Finite, and they are identical in scarcity. Their respective Radiance parallels are #/100 – an incredibly tough get for 1998. Their SPectrum parallels are the two 1/1’s I was talking about. I have none of the parallels for these last two subsets. Got the base cards, though. Let’s take a look:

1998 SPx Finite #178 Heroes of the Game #/2000

Welcome to Heroes of the Game, my favorite subset in 1998 SPx Finite.

First, it’s got a lovely round badge that domes out in the middle and feels delightful against the fingertips. I’m glad I didn’t acquire a card like this when I was six – I’d have smashed that badge in like so many fast-food soda cup lid buttons (that nobody ever uses for their intended purpose). The swing shot on the front works beautifully with the layout. A few of the cards in this set have multiple photos on the front, but this card with its one measly photo is better than all of them.

And the back – THE BACK, my friends – is spectacular. Warm and inviting like a hot hearth in a cozy log cabin on a dark, snowy night; yet informative like a kindly bearded baseball sage replete with Griffey knowledge who will fill you in on interesting baseball factoids, then smile and send you on your way with a Mariner pennant and a lollipop. If this card back were a subset in 1998 SPx Finite, it would be Heroes of the Game.

I’m not a wealthy man, but I legitimately want the Radiance and SPectrum parallels of this beauty. I mean, just look at these things (not mine):

1998 SPx Finite #178 Heroes of the Game Radiance #/100

1998 SPx Finite #178 Heroes of the Game Spectrum (backdoored, unnumbered)

Neither of these are mine, and that unnumbered SPectrum is clearly a beauty of the backdoor variety, but damn if those parallels don't pop on this one.

One subset left. How can it possibly follow that? Well, frankly, I’m afraid it can’t. This last one is not all that good:

1998 SPx Finite #360 Cornerstones of the Game #/2000

Cornerstones of the Game, with a badge featuring plenty of sweet corner action, is one of the weakest designs in the whole set. It’s the other vertical design in the base set, and it’s got the same weirdo card back as Power Passion complete with the differently-printed numbering and one seriously weak little stat box. I’m not even sure I’d want one of the incredibly scarce parallels of this one. Of course I’d still totally over-pay if given the opportunity. I’m a card nerd – sue me!

Speaking of which, here's the Radiance (still not mine):

1998 SPx Finite #360 Cornerstones of the Game Radiance #/100

I've never even seen the SPectrum of this one, but THERE'S ONLY ONE SO.....

That’s it for the base set, but guess what? This set has five sample cards. FIVE. We’re going to group those accordingly because this post has enough scans in it as it is.

1998 SPx Finite Sample #1

1998 SPx Finite Sample #2 (Power Passion)

The blurbs are different (maybe even a little better?) and – wait a minute. The Power Passion sample got a full stat box? What the hell? Who decided that was too much information for a card back and opted for the abbreviated stat box and negative space on the official release? That subset just keeps on giving me reasons to throw it into the Mississippi River. Notice how specific I got there – got the body of water all picked out and everything. I have legitimately given this thought.

Here's a three-fer of colored and NUMBERED Finite samples:

That would be 1998 SPx Finite Sample Green #/10000, Blue #/10000, and Red #/2500.

Okay, so I don’t actually know exactly what the story is here. I assume this was a proposed direction for the parallels being that the colors are the same as the accents on the final releases, complete with red being the rarest. It would seem they opted to use different effects for the rest of the card in terms of the colors and on top of that add the three different foils in the badge ordered by scarcity. These are some very cool sample cards in that it kind of gives us a look into the evolution of the design. It also makes me appreciate the final product more because these would have been incredibly boring, especially given the scarcity of some of these parallels.

Oh, and I defy you to find one of these – any color – in good condition. Seriously – I DEFY YOU. 22,500 of these colored sample cards were produced, and all 22,500 have soft, dinged-up edges. It's a fact.

There’s one last card here that we need to talk about: the Home Run Hysteria insert, the only legitimate insert in this shindig. Each card was numbered to 62, and I’ve never seen one in person or on eBay. This insert is on a very short list of ultra-scarce 90’s inserts that most collectors haven’t even heard of let alone had the chance to own. Goobmcnasty from the fabled Freedom Cardboard Griffey Collector's Thread was nice enough to lend us scans of his (I assume you're a dude?) copy. Isn’t that nice?

1998 SPx Finite Homerun Hysteria #HR1 #/62

Soak it in. A white whale if ever there was one. Thanks, Goob.

Here are the remaining Griffeys I need from 1998 SPx Finite:

1998 SPx Finite #50 Power Explosion SPectrum #/50
1998 SPx Finite #178 Heroes of the Game Radiance #/100
1998 SPx Finite #178 Heroes of the Game SPectrum 1/1
1998 SPx Finite #360 Cornerstones of the Game Radiance #/100
1998 SPx Finite #360 Cornerstones of the Game SPectrum 1/1
1998 SPx Finite Homerun Hysteria #/62

With the way Griffeys have been selling since the HOF induction, I predict it would cost somewhere well into four figures to complete this set, and that’s not counting the 1/1’s (I usually don't for my purposes). And none of these cards are autos or relics or anything like that – not one in the whole set, in fact. It’s all about the serial numbering. Let’s face it – this set was basically Upper Deck printing money. At least give me a snippet of uniform, a used napkin, a booger – something. There are more worthy Griffeys to chase than these.

Except for that Heroes of the Game card. That thing is tight.