Description

The Upper Deck A Piece of History 500 HR Club, is a multi-brand, game-used set featuring all members (except Barry Bonds) of the 500 Home Run Club.

Beginning in 1999, Upper Deck inserted into various products cards featuring a piece of a game-used bat. The first group of 15 cards were randomly inserted into 1999 and early 2000 Upper Deck baseball sets.

As more players reached the 500 HR milestone, new cards were added.

With the exception of Babe Ruth, approximately 350 of each card was produced. Only 50 Babe Ruth's were made.

Since Barry Bonds was exclusive to Topps at the time he reached the 500 HR milestone, he was unable to be included in this set.

Checklist

1999 Series One Babe Ruth

Randomly inserted into packs of 1999 Upper Deck Series One, was a special card featuring chip from an actual game-used Louisville Slugger swung by Babe Ruth during the late 20's. Upper Deck purchased a (cracked) Ruth bat at an auction for over $23,000 in 1998 for the expressed intention of cutting it up and mounting the pieces onto trading cards. Upper Deck received plenty of negative publicity in the mainstream sports media for destroying such a "priceless" (albeit chipped) artifact.

Approximately 350 cards were made and seeded into packs at a rate of 1:15,000. Another insert card incorporates both a "cut" signature of Ruth along with a piece of his game-used bat. Only three of these cards were produced.

Neither the bat card, nor the cut signature card are considered part of the A Piece of History 500 HR Club set listed below; however, becuase the Series One Ruth card is titled "A Piece of History," we are checklisting this card for your collecting convenience.

PH Babe Ruth

PHLC Babe Ruth CUT AU