Ken Griffey Jr. was at the forefront of several baseball card innovations. Leading off the inagural 1989 Upper Deck set, he helped usher in the idea of premium sports cards. In 1997, he was on one of the sport's first memorabilia cards. Throughout the 1990s, he was a titan in the hobby. This included the ever-shrinking print runs that came with serial numbered cards. What started as print runs of 10,000 for 1991 Donruss Elite Series card quickly dropped. Five years later and some sets offered cards of Griffey and others with less than 50 copies each.
With a stated production run of 30, the Mirror Gold cards delivered collectors the idea of an exceedingly rare parallel that paired well with the other five parallels from the set to create one of the earliest “rainbows.” A Mirror Gold from the hobby-exclusive set fell once every 300 packs (or 1:15 boxes), meaning collectors, on average, would need to open 2,160 boxes to find any specific Mirror Gold card. Griffey serves as one of the most popular players on the checklist.
Just two copies of the card have a higher grade in the PSA registry than this Mint 9.
The certification number on this card has been checked against the third-party grader's online database and is active as of 03/31/2026.
