1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. #1 RC

A new company bets on gloss

Upper Deck was founded in 1988 in Yorba Linda, California, by Boris Korbel, Paul Sumner and Richard McWilliam. The idea came from Sumner, who worked in printing sales and had learned how badly counterfeit cards were hurting the hobby. He had studied holograms in college and used them in his company's brochures, and he proposed putting one on every card so a fake would be easy to spot.

The company won its Major League Baseball license on December 23, 1988, and delivered its first two cases of cards to a store in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on February 23, 1989. The cards looked nothing like what kids were used to: glossy fronts on heavy stock, a second color photo on the back, no gum, and a tiny hologram. A 15-card foil pack cost $1.

The 800-card set sold out by the middle of 1989, and Upper Deck sold its entire 1990 baseball run before the year began. Its premium production set it apart from Topps, Donruss and Fleer in what collectors now call the junk wax era, roughly 1987 to 1994, when cards were printed in enormous quantities.

The teenager who picked the teenager

Upper Deck's first employee was Tom Geideman, 18, who had worked in a card shop in high school. He was given the job of choosing the players for the first set and deciding their order, including who would be card #1. Working from Baseball America, he weighed four young prospects: Gregg Jefferies of the Mets, Sandy Alomar Jr. of the Padres, Gary Sheffield of the Brewers and Ken Griffey Jr. of the Mariners, the first overall pick in the 1987 draft.

He chose Griffey. 'Nobody really knew who Griffey was at the time,' Geideman said in 2016. 'But I figured all the other guys had nowhere to go but down.'

Griffey had not yet played a major league game, so there was no photo of him in a Mariners uniform. Upper Deck turned to V.J. Lovero, a West Coast photographer for Sports Illustrated who also worked for the company and had shot Griffey in San Bernardino for a magazine story. The image showed Griffey smiling in his Class A San Bernardino Spirit uniform.

To make it look like a Mariners card, the design team used a Scitex machine, a million-dollar system that did what Photoshop does now. They changed the 'S' on his cap from silver to yellow, removed the star behind it, and turned the cap from navy blue to the Mariners' royal blue. The navy turtleneck under his jersey was left alone.

The Kid

Ken Griffey Jr. was born November 21, 1969, in Donora, Pennsylvania, the son of major leaguer Ken Griffey Sr. Seattle drafted him first overall out of Archbishop Moeller High School on June 2, 1987. He played for Bellingham in 1987 and for San Bernardino and Vermont in 1988.

He debuted with Seattle on April 3, 1989, at 19, against Oakland,, and hit his first home run at the Kingdome on April 10. As a rookie he hit .264 with 16 home runs and 16 stolen bases in 127 games and finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting. In 1990 and 1991 he played in the same outfield as his father, and on September 14, 1990, they hit back-to-back home runs.

Over 22 seasons he hit 630 home runs, seventh on the all-time list, won the 1997 American League MVP with 56 home runs and 147 RBI, led the league in home runs four times, and won 10 Gold Gloves, seven Silver Sluggers and 13 All-Star selections. He was traded to Cincinnati on February 10, 2000, returned to Seattle in 2009 and retired on June 2, 2010. In 2016 he was elected to the Hall of Fame on 437 of 440 ballots, 99.32 percent, breaking Tom Seaver's record.

Common as dirt, rare at the top

Upper Deck printed the card in huge numbers. A 2016 estimate put the run at more than 2 million copies, and by then PSA had already graded more than 61,000, making it the second-most-graded card the company had ever handled. In 2016 an ungraded copy sold for under $20 and a PSA 10 for a little over $300.

Abundance is why condition is everything. A grading guide counts 122,925 copies graded by PSA, of which 4,238, about 3.4 percent, earned a 10. Centering is the main problem: off-center copies are extremely common, and a card worse than 60/40 is unlikely to grade above an 8. Small ink dots on Griffey's cap, which collectors call the 'yellow donut,' also show up.

The PSA 10 has had a wild few years. A 2026 market report said the card started 2025 around $2,500, doubled to more than $5,000 by October, and set a record of $5,999 by year-end, then cooled in January 2026, with eight straight sales between $4,211 and $4,750 after back-to-back $5,000 sales on January 3 and 4. The writer noted that Griffey had a quiet year, with no milestone to explain the spike.

Recorded online sales show the price climbing again in spring and summer 2026, with PSA 10 copies selling for $5,000 to $6,400 between April and August.

Spotting the real thing

The front shows Griffey in the doctored San Bernardino uniform with the recolored cap, on glossy, heavier stock than the thin paper cards of other 1989 brands. The back carries a second photo, his minor league statistics, a short biography, and the small silver hologram that Upper Deck introduced with this set to stop counterfeiters. A missing or wrong hologram is the first sign of a fake.

For graders, centering is the main problem: off-center copies are extremely common, and a card worse than 60/40 tends to top out at PSA 8 however clean it is otherwise. Small ink dots on Griffey's cap, the so-called yellow donut, are a known print defect. With more than 120,000 copies graded and only about 3.4 percent earning a 10, the PSA 10 is the grade collectors chase.

The numbers

1989 rookie season, Seattle

127 G, 455 AB, 61 R, 120 H, 23 2B, 0 3B, 16 HR, 61 RBI, 16 SB, 44 BB, 83 SO, .264 BA, .329 OBP, .420 SLG. 3rd in AL Rookie of the Year voting. Age 19.

MLB debut

April 3, 1989, against Oakland: 1 for 3

Career (1989-2010)

22 seasons, 2,671 G, 2,781 H, 630 HR, 1,836 RBI, .284 BA, .370 OBP, .538 SLG, 83.8 WAR

1997 MVP season

56 HR, 147 RBI

Honors

1997 AL MVP, 13 All-Star selections, 10 Gold Gloves, 7 Silver Sluggers, 4 AL home run titles

Hall of Fame

Elected 2016 on 437 of 440 ballots (99.32 percent)

Timeline

1. Nov 21, 1969

   Ken Griffey Jr. is born in Donora, Pennsylvania.

2. Jun 2, 1987

   Seattle drafts him first overall.

3. 1988

   Upper Deck is founded in Yorba Linda, California; Griffey plays for the San Bernardino Spirit, where V.J. Lovero photographs him.

4. Dec 23, 1988

   Upper Deck receives its Major League Baseball license.

5. Feb 23, 1989

   Upper Deck delivers its first two cases, to a card store in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

6. Apr 3, 1989

   Griffey debuts with the Mariners at 19.

7. Apr 10, 1989

   First major league home run, at the Kingdome.

8. Sep 14, 1990

   Griffey and his father hit back-to-back home runs.

9. 1997

   Wins the AL MVP with 56 home runs.

10. Feb 10, 2000

    Traded to the Cincinnati Reds.

11. Jun 2, 2010

    Retires with 630 home runs.

12. 2016

    Elected to the Hall of Fame with 99.32 percent of the vote. A PSA 10 of the card sells for a little over $300.

13. 2025

    The PSA 10 doubles from about $2,500 to more than $5,000 and reaches a record $5,999.

14. Jan 2026

    PSA 10 prices cool to the $4,200 to $4,750 range.

15. May 22, 2026

    A PSA 10 sells for $6,400.

The world in 1989

• Jan 20, 1989

  George H. W. Bush is sworn in as president.

• Mar 24, 1989

  The Exxon Valdez spills oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.

• Jun 23, 1989

  Batman opens with a record first-weekend box office.

• Jul 5, 1989

  Seinfeld premieres on NBC.

• Jul 31, 1989

  Nintendo's Game Boy goes on sale in North America.

• Aug 24, 1989

  Pete Rose accepts a lifetime ban from baseball over gambling.

• Oct 17, 1989

  The Loma Prieta earthquake strikes the San Francisco Bay Area.

Daily price data

FLOAT reprices this card every day from completed sales. Last updated November 12, 2026.

Every grade and recorded sale for this card

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. #1 RC is number 81 of 100 in the trading cards entries of the FLOAT 100. 97 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (63 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The cap on the card was digitally repainted: the San Bernardino 'S' went from silver to yellow, a star was erased, and the navy cap became Mariners royal blue.
• The person who chose Griffey for card #1 was Upper Deck's first employee, Tom Geideman, who was 18.
• Upper Deck's very first two cases of cards went to a single store in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• In 2016 a PSA 10 sold for a little over $300; by late 2025 one sold for $5,999.
• Griffey and his father, Ken Griffey Sr., hit back-to-back home runs for Seattle on September 14, 1990.
• Griffey's 99.32 percent Hall of Fame vote broke a record Tom Seaver had held for 24 years.