The 1998 set was Pinnacle’s final flagship product before the its parent brand Donruss/Leaf went bankrupt. Pinnacle had a great run in my opinion, and many collectors fondly remember their early-90s runs and dufex parallels. I think they were also the first company to include press plates as chase cards.
The ‘98 set included ten “Hit It Here” sweepstakes cards featuring ten of the league’s best hitters, silver dufex, and red foiling. The rules were pretty simple: if the player on your card hit for a cycle on Opening Day 1998 and Pinnacle drew your number on the back of the card, you’d take home a cool million dollars. Needless to say, the odds of a winner were very slim and no one won the contest.
But there’s an odd twist to this set…in 2018, a gold foil version of the Ken Griffey Jr. Hit It Here card emerged seemingly out of nowhere. No one knows why this variant was printed, or if gold variants of the other nine players even exist. The fact that these cards were printed in 100-card sheets that included all the players suggests there are more out there in wild, but no one can say for sure.
