2: 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr.

If you collect baseball cards, you know the credentials of this already. It sparked a hobby boom and was the reason card companies started doing higher end products. 1989 Upper Deck alone changed the collecting game, with it’s clean, minimalist look and high gloss stock. Griffey was well on his way to paving the path to being the best player of his generation. This card sparked such a frenzy that Upper Deck made the (ill fated) decision to continue producing new 1989 cards well after the print run should have dried up. They kept flooding the market with this card, and even then it didn’t seem to be enough. They reportedly continued making the 89 set well into 1990. This is what keeps this card at a lower price point than most on the list. Upper Deck released a card in the junk wax era, and then somehow over produced it.
This card might be single handedly responsible for modern collecting as we know it today.

Random Ken Griffey Jr. Fact: Many people blame going to Ohio for Griffey falling off production wise, and some numbers bare that out. He made ten consecutive All Star games before leaving for Cincinnati, and only made three in eight and a half seasons for the Reds. The truth is though, part of what made Griffey great was how hard he played on offense and defense, and his body started to catch up with him around that point. He only played 140 games in a season twice for the Reds, and during a three year stretch, played 70, 53, and 83 games for them.