1998 Donruss Crusade Red Ken Griffey Jr. /25 #39 BGS 9.5 GEM MINT

Donruss surprised collectors opening Series 1 packs in 1998 with an unannounced insert that has remained one of the most beloved treasures from the ’90s. Collectors could find certain cards from the 1998 Donruss Crusades checklist inside those packs. Those 40 cards marked the first installment of a 130-card insert set released in four different brands throughout the year—Donruss, Leaf, Donruss Update, and Leaf Rookies and Stars. As the reigning American League MVP, Ken Griffey Jr. found his way onto more than 1,000 cards in 1998, and few have as big of a following as his Crusade cards—especially examples such as this /25 Red Crusade parallel. Donruss, which produced the first manufacturer-stamped serial-numbered inserts with the 1991 Donruss Elite set, sold its intellectual property to Pinnacle Brands in April 1996. Pinnacle Brands serial-numbered nearly every insert in the flagship Donruss sets from 1997 and ’98 and jumped into the multi-brand insert concept in 1998 with the Crusade set (following sets such as Fleer/SkyBox’s basketball Autographics cards and the 1997 Fleer Million Dollar Moments insert). Featuring a medieval background design with dragons and a crest and banner set logo, the Crusade cards have a reflective rainbow chromium finish and three levels of scarcity—the /250 Green, /100 Purple, and /25 Red. The different colors created one of the earliest parallel “rainbows,” and many ’90s collectors celebrate completing a player’s Crusade collection as a monumental achievement. The Crusade set was scheduled to continue in 1999, but the company never officially released the cards due to Pinnacle Brands’ bankruptcy in July 1998. A handful of examples of future Crusade cards, however, did not get destroyed and reached the secondary market, bringing the total number of known Crusade cards in the set to 200—including an unreleased “Call To Arms” variant of Griffey. When the Donruss brand returned in 2001 after the Playoff Corporation bought Pinnacle Brands’ assets, a new set of Crusade inserts came out in the Donruss Class of 2001 set. That checklist did not include Griffey, so his 1998 Crusade inserts are the only pack-pulled Crusade cards in his trading card catalog—and examples like this /25 Red generate excitement because only 12 serial-numbered Griffey cards from 1998 offer more scarcity (excluding 1/1s and autographed cards). This is the only true BGS 9.5 and one of two cards to earn that BGS 9.5 designation with none graded higher by the service. There is only one PSA 10. The certification number on this card has been checked against the third-party grader's online database and is active as of 02/27/2025.