Rare Ken Griffey Jr. Card At Auction for First Time in 20 Years
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A Ken Griffey parallel card from the 1998 Skybox E-X 2001 set has surfaced at auction for the first time in nearly 20 years. The Ken Griffey Essential Credentials Now parallel numbered out of 10, currently sits at $112,850, with buyer's premium, on Heritage Auctions.
The card was graded a Mint 9 by PSA, making the card at auction one of two of the highest-graded examples. Griffey's Essential Credentials Now has been graded four times, resulting in one Near-Mint 7, one Near-Mint / Mint 8, and two Mint 9s.
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For some background about the card, the outstanding resource at Baseball Card Pedia writes: "The serial-numbering for the Essential Credentials Now parallel set mirrored numbering of the base set such that card #1 in the set was serial-numbered to 1, #2 was serial numbered to 2, etc.
The arrangement of players in the base set placed the top current stars in the game first, semi-stars next, minor-stars after, and the young stars last - thus, the established players who were starring "Now" in the game featured the lowest serial-numbering in the Essential Credentials Now set."
The explanation above is why Griffey's Essential Credentials is numbered 10. Griffey's card was #10 in the base set.
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As for the design of the card itself, Baseball Card Pedia writes, "Essential Credentials Now featured a neon yellow-green theme finish to the card. For each player in this parallel, the silver, holographic "shading" foil from the base design was holographic neon-yellow, the opaque acetate portion was yellow-green, and the transparent acetate portion was neon yellow. "Essential Credentials Now" was also printed in black text on the transparent acetate portion of the card front and the serial number was on the back."
Chris Ivy, Director of Sports Collectibles at Heritage Auctions, told Collectibles On SI, "According to our research, an example of this card has not sold at public auction since an ungraded example sold on eBay in 2006 for $516."
With the current bid already above $112,000, Griffey's Essential Credentials Now will be his most expensive card sold. Heritage's estimated value of the card is $200,000+. The auction ends on May 16.
Horacio is an avid sports card collector and writes about trending card auctions and news across several major hobby sites, including Sports Collectors Daily and Collectibles on SI.
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