1997 Metal Universe Precious Metal Gems PMG Red Scottie Pippen /100 #83 PSA 6

In the mid 1990s, lead Fleer designer Jean MacLeod had a unique opportunity to push the boundaries of trading card design after Marvel purchased the company and added SkyBox International to its trading card conglomerate. “Fleer was the more traditional sets, and SkyBox had the more technology and design-driven sets,” MacLeod said. “We were doing some of (unique design) stuff in the Fleer sets, but anything I tried to do in Fleer that was kind of wild, they said, ‘Let’s do that in SkyBox.’” Inserts based on Marvel’s galactic-style artwork occasionally popped up in the early '90s, but with the go-ahead to try anything under the SkyBox umbrella, MacLeod and her team truly pushed the limits by engaging the Marvel illustrators in the design of 1997-98 Metal Universe—and its highly coveted Precious Metal Gems parallels. When MacLeod wanted to infuse Marvel’s comic-style art onto every card in a base set, the Fleer Metal set morphed into SkyBox Metal Universe. She collaborated with a team of Marvel’s illustrators—including penciler and CGI specialist Clayton Chambers, who is credited on the flip side of Scottie Pippen’s 1997 Metal Universe card—to create a cosmic 125-card set with unique foil etchings behind cut-out action photos of the NBA’s top talents. Because each card featured its own foil pattern, the set required a detailed printing process with 123 die presses, one for each non-checklist card. When considering the set’s Precious Metal Gems parallels, MacLeod knew the most economical path would include reusing the dies. But how could she make the cards pop? Because she is left-handed, MacLeod saw her engagement ring when working on physical sketches. That ring sports an emerald—her birthstone and favorite gem—and helped lead to one of the most iconic sets from the decade. “We said, ‘Let’s do something that as soon as you open that pack, you would know it’s not like the base card. We really wanted you to know you got something special,” MacLeod said. “My engagement ring is an emerald, so when we were picking the foils, and I knew it was called Precious Metal Gems, I thought, ‘I’ll do an emerald color because it’s my favorite, and a ruby to match it.’” MacLeod washed out the backgrounds of PMGs with magnificent green and red foil. For the basketball set, the first ten cards in the production run feature green foil, while the remaining 90—such as this example of Pippen’s PMG—have red foil. Because the foil bleeds to all four edges, PMGs are prone to chipping, making high-grade examples tough to locate. But with an exciting action image of Pippen heading to the basket and a pleasing color balance between his Bulls jersey and the red foil, any example of this coveted PMG draws attention from collectors. The certification number on this card has been checked against the third-party grader's online database and is active as of 08/12/2025.