First autograph!

MPeter

Anyone know what year it was when they first started putting autographed cards in packs? I remember collecting back in the early 80's and they didn't have them. Was there a first autographed card in a pack and is it worth a lot of money just for that fact?

mikeschmidt

I think in terms of mainstream sets, the 1991 Score Mickey Mantle chase cards were the first issued in packs.

~ms

digicat

1990 Upper Deck had the "Find the Reggie" promotion, with randomly inserted signed & numbered Reggie Jackson autographed cards.

Heh. It was a pretty big deal back then. At a local shop, someone pulled a Jackson auto, and the local news actually did a story on it.

edit to say..
So, I think Upper Deck was the first to do it in 1990.

f2tornado

I know Upper Deck had those Heroes autographs in the early 90's. I thought they started with Reggie Jackson in 1990 followed by Hank Aaron in 1991. There was also a 1991 Donruss Elite Sandberg auto. If the 1990 Reggie is correct than that is the earliest I know of.

Knuckles

For hockey it was 1991 Score with the bobby orr's I believe..




Edited to add that '91 upper deck also had Brett Hull autographed hero cards..

Stone193

My recollection is in agreement with the 90UD Reggie auto insert.

Others in later years included Ryan and Williams.

This was a great promotion and the rest is history.

UD didn't invent the wheel on this but rather redesigned it.

Inserts of some kind or just plain promotions connected with cards is practically as old as collecting the cards, as such.

If ya think about it - the cards "were" inserts back then.

mike

MPeter

Cool, thanks for the info. I guess I need to go back through my old cards from that time period. How many of you have those?

MajorDanby

i thought there were ernie banks auto promotion giveaway cards in the late 80's score packs?

dontippet

I thought Nolan Ryan was the first. They were limited to 5,000 and going for crazy money at the time somewhere around $500-$1000. It was all the craze.

Stone193

<< <i>I thought Nolan Ryan was the first. They were limited to 5,000 and going for crazy money at the time somewhere around $500-$1000. It was all the craze. >>


Don

90UD had the Reggie auto numbered to 2500.

91UD had the Ryan auto also to 2500 and they also had the Killebrew, Jenkins, Perry auto in a special series of the boxes I believe - I remember buying a few at the National.

91UD also had the Aaron auto numbered to 2500.

92UD has the Williams auto to 2500. They also had the Bench/Morgan auto from the heroes set.

92UD also had the Blue, Brock Fingers autos - I think these were also special series like the Killebrew, Jenkins etc. deal? Not sure on that one.

94UD was my favorite - they had the Griffey, Mantle and Rodriquez autos and the double Griffey/Mantle auto - I woulda been proud to pull one of those!

mike