Announced
in late 1997 through various trading cards packs and through their website,
Pinnacle Brands followed Upper Deck and Topps in creating a fan-based collectors
club.
It cost $29.99 to join and each member was issued a bunch of fun collectors stuff. Including: A large printed tin, a club t-shirt, a set of specially issued Pinnacle Mint coins (football), a newsletter, an acrylic display stand imprinted with the Pinnacle logo, and 4 sets of specially issued Team Pinnacle Club cards representing the four major sports: baseball, basketball, football, and hockey. These items were only issued to collectors who were charter members of The Club.
The card sets (all 4 sports) are actually very nice - crisp images and sharply designed as you can see from the Frank above.
I have no idea how many collectors actually joined the club or how many sets were printed in anticipation of the memberships, but I would hazard a guess of about 1,000 - 2,000 sets. I don't know if there is any concrete information regarding the actual number of club members since Pinnacle Brands went belly-up soon after issuing the collector sets. This also means I have no idea how many of the Club Cards were actually issued.
Although difficult to locate - prices for these cards trend to the fairly reasonable in terms of price.*
UPDATE (8/13/03): I recently obtained a Bankruptcy-period Collector's Club-Only insert card that would've been an exclusive offer to club members. To see it and my theory on it's production - click here.
*UPDATE (9/17/06): Wow. Even I was surprised it sold for this much. The last one I saw went for a couple of bucks. This shows that a properly planned auction, including a tempting title, can sometimes greatly improve your auction results.
« Back to 10 Near Toughest | Go to 1998 Pinnacle Bankruptcy »