An established hobby presence, Triple SSS Sports Cards stocks premium issues of top athletes across the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB. In baseball, one iconic card of the 1990s that Triple SSS Sports Cards features is the 1993 SP Derek Jeter rookie #279.
Included in the inaugural release of Upper Deck’s SP baseball set, the card set is the template for an emerging premium card niche. At the time, Jeter was a highly touted prospect who chose to skip the traditional Minor League system and was selected by the Yankees in the 1992 MLB Amateur Entry Draft out of high school.
The Jeter SP is among the last 20 cards in the checklist, the subset Premium Prospects, one of the earliest issues to feature an all-foil front. These set the stage for today’s flagship Panini chrome cards, such as Prizm, Select, and Mosaic. Unlike today’s sturdy cards, however, the foil fronts were extremely vulnerable to chipping, scratching, and corner wear. Along with normal condition issues such as centering, this makes finding a gem mint copy challenging. Of the more than 14,000 PSA-graded examples, less than two dozen have received a gem mint 10 grade, and only around 600 attained a PSA 9.
In practical terms, while a clean raw copy may only sell for $200-$300, a high-grade copy can go for considerably more. In early 2023, a mint PSA 9 copy sold for nearly $4,700 in heated eBay bidding.
