Have you visited our store? Click here.Pacific was so ahead of its time. With intricate designs, an excellent color palette, and crazy low print runs, it’s a true benchmark to its antiquity. The 1998 Aurora Pennant Fever set captures this essence wholeheartedly but it’s not for the faint of heart. Here’s what’s in it:
1998 Aurora Pennant Fever is a 50-card set featuring some of the biggest names of the league. The cards feature a horizontal pennant style design that showcases the player’s team coupled with foils of varying colors layered behind full color player action shots. It’s a great set but posses an ambitious collecting pursuit. Each card in the set can be found in five different parallels. To collect a run of any single card in the set, here’s what you’ll need to locate:
- Base: This is the standard card. These are fairly common as they were inserted into packs at a rate of one per pack. They feature gold foil in the backgrounds.
- Red: These parallels were inserted into retail packs at a rate of 1:4 and feature red foil in the backgrounds. While slightly rarer than the base cards, they’re usually pretty easy to track down.
- Silver: This is where things begin to get difficult. Silver parallels were inserted exclusively into retail packs. They carry stated print runs of 250 and feature silver foil in the backgrounds. Don’t let the print run fool you; these have proven to be at least moderately difficult to track down.
- Platinum Blue: These parallels carry stated print runs of 100 and feature light blue foil in the backgrounds. For what they are, they’re incredibly rare so expect to spend some time searching for your player’s Platinum Blue parallel.
- Copper: The Copper parallel is the unicorn. These have stated print runs of just 20 copies and feature copper foil in the backgrounds. If you’re attempting a run, expect to spend years searching for your player’s Copper parallel if you’re lucky enough to find one at all. In 1998, print runs below 100 were (and still are) considered by many to be extremely rare. Because the Copper parallel is 5x rarer, it’s an exceedingly tough one to capture.
At the time, Tony Gwynn was the ambassador for the Pacific brand and as such signed single copies of the Silver, Platinum Blue, and Copper parallels.
The Copper parallel you see here was the image used in the eBay auction from back in October of 2015. I was lucky enough to win this card, but ran into a lot of trouble receiving it. The package was delivered, but the moron at the post office mis-delivered it causing it to go missing only to end up back in the seller’s possession several weeks later. At which point, I had the seller use a different carrier to ensure it got delivered, and so here we are. These cards are really quite pretty in hand. The textured foil combined with the pennant flag and action shot make these cards stand out. The serial numbered parallels are difficult to find especially those issued exclusively in retail packs as indicated below.
1998 Aurora Pennant Fever is an excellent albeit challenging set to collect. In terms of difficulty, I put this set at upper moderate to mild advanced. I say this because while the Silver and Platinum Blue parallels make this set difficult to collect by themselves, the Copper parallel presents a potentially extensive acquisition lead time with no guarantees.
To see what’s currently on eBay from 1998 Aurora Pennant Fever, click here.
Set Information:
Tony Gwynn signed three versions of his 1999 Aurora Pennant Fever card – Silver, Platinum Blue, and Copper – which is why those three parallel sets contain one more card than the sets of the other two versions. All three signed Tony Gwynn cards are extremely rare.
| Set | Total Cards | Print Run(s) | Odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base | 50 | – | 1:1 |
| Red | 50 | – | 1:4 |
| Silver | 51 | 250 | R |
| Platinum Blue | 51 | 100 | – |
| Copper | 51 | 20 | H |
Checklist:
| Card # | Player(s) | Card # | Player(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tony Gwynn | 26 | Brady Anderson |
| 2 | Derek Jeter | 27 | Jaret Wright |
| 3 | Alex Rodriguez | 28 | Roberto Alomar |
| 4 | Paul Molitor | 29 | Joe Carter |
| 5 | Nomar Garciaparra | 30 | Hideo Nomo |
| 6 | Jeff Bagwell | 31 | Mike Piazza |
| 7 | Ivan Rodriguez | 32 | Andres Galarraga |
| 8 | Cal Ripken Jr. | 33 | Larry Walker |
| 9 | Matt Williams | 34 | Tim Salmon |
| 10 | Chipper Jones | 35 | Frank Thomas |
| 11 | Edgar Martinez | 36 | Moises Alou |
| 12 | Wade Boggs | 37 | David Justice |
| 13 | Paul Konerko | 38 | Manny Ramirez |
| 14 | Ben Grieve | 39 | Jim Edmonds |
| 15 | Sandy Alomar Jr. | 40 | Barry Bonds |
| 16 | Travis Lee | 41 | Jim Thome |
| 17 | Scott Rolen | 42 | Mo Vaughn |
| 18 | Ryan Klesko | 43 | Rafael Palmeiro |
| 19 | Juan Gonzalez | 44 | Darin Erstad |
| 20 | Albert Belle | 45 | Pedro Martinez |
| 21 | Roger Clemens | 46 | Greg Maddux |
| 22 | Javy Lopez | 47 | Jose Canseco |
| 23 | Jose Cruz Jr. | 48 | Vladimir Guerrero |
| 24 | Ken Griffey Jr. | 49 | Bernie Williams |
| 25 | Mark McGwire | 50 | Randy Johnson |
To see what’s currently on eBay from 1998 Aurora Pennant Fever, click here.
