1954 Sports Illustrated #1 — PSA 9.2.

I’ve been dipping my toes into collectibles outside of cards, and this felt like the perfect one to start with. 72 years old, the first issue of SI, and the original baseball card insert is still intact.

Graded magazines may never have the following that cards do, but this felt like an awfully cool piece of sports history to add to the PC.

Another addition to my Baseball Card Innovation Collection: 1997 Flair Showcase Row 0 Nomar Garciaparra PSA 10.

Flair Showcase was one of the most ambitious premium products of the late ’90s, using multiple images and a unique Row/Seat/Section structure that gave each player several distinct versions with different designs and scarcity levels. Row 0 (“Showpiece”) was the toughest regular version for Nomar’s portion of the checklist.

I’m trying to use this collection to highlight cards and technologies that helped push the hobby forward during the ’90s, while representing different players I enjoyed watching. Nomar was one of my favorites (as a Boston-area resident), so getting a (relatively) scarce (pop 2), visually awesome 1997 Row 0 in a PSA 10 felt like a perfect fit.

And honestly, this is peak ’90s cardboard.

I have been curious about music cards for a while, and just picked this one up. This is from the 1964 O-Pee-Chee Beatles B&W set. The Beatles had a Topps B&W set in the same year (think Topps and OPC in baseball), as well as a British B&W set. Same cards, just made for each market/region.

Each of the Beatles has several standalone cards in the 1st Series set of 60 (as well as several full band cards), but this one of Lennon, to me, captures his spirit well. PSA 8. Pop 5, only 3 higher....for essentially the price of a Topps Baseball Hobby Box. Feels like a low price barrier to enter the world of music cards to me!

Really excited to add this one. The 1995 Pinnacle Certified Mirror Golds were the beginning of the Mirror parallel lineage that became one of the defining chases of the 90s. A really cool piece of hobby history, and Ripken felt like the perfect player to represent it in my collection.

One of the collecting projects I’ve started this year is building what I’m calling an Innovation Collection. These are cards that represent milestones in the evolution of the hobby rather than just great players.

Instead of chasing one player or one team, I’m focusing on cards that introduced something new: the first refractors, early serial-numbered cards, Mirror parallels, PMGs, Crusades, Artist’s Proofs, and other releases that helped shape the modern hobby.

My newest pickup is this 1996 Pinnacle Starburst Hardball Heroes Artist’s Proof Chipper Jones PSA 10 (Pop 3). I specifically targeted the Artist’s Proof cards because I think Pinnacle was doing some incredibly creative things in the mid-90s. The foil stamping, the etched “Artist’s Proof” pattern, and the use of the designation across multiple sets and inserts made them one of the era’s most distinctive premium parallels. They may not get the same attention as PMGs or 1993 Finest Refractors, but I think they deserve a place in any collection celebrating hobby innovation.

I’m curious, if you were building a collection around the biggest innovations of the ‘90s, what card or set would be the first one you’d chase?