1996 Pinnacle Aficionado

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado #191

Aficionado was a one hit wonder for Pinnacle in the mid-1990's. Well, I'm not sure it was exactly a hit. The base set featured all horizontal photos with a image of the player on the left side. This was done with a silver holofoil with raised black detail. I actually like the design and I was sad to see that it didn't return in 1997. The back of the card featured the previous year's stats on a clean, black background. There is a large black & white photo of the players face on the left side. I will note that these are finger print magnets.

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado #159

There was a subset included called Global Reach. The idea of this set is pretty straight forward, especially when you flip the card over to the back. The front has that same silver holofoil background and raised black detail, this time in the shape of the globe. The back is much more colorful and gives you a little info about the player and the country they are from. In Rey's case, Cuba. I love how they took a baseball and turned it into Earth, especially with the red stitches still intact.

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado Artist's Proof #191

Like with many card sets in the 1990's, a parallel set of the base cards existed. In this case it was the Pinnacle brand Artist's Proofs. The only difference is a small gold logo on the card's front. I don't recall the odds these were packaged and I don't believe a print run was every announced.

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado Artist's Proof #159