You can dress them up but at the end of the day, baseball cards are still cardboard. Putting something unique inside has become a part of doing business–even if it’s something a little off the wall…or shall we say ‘off the head’?

You know times have changed when someone opening a pack of baseball cards isn’t wondering whether there is a Mickey Mantle inside but rather an Abraham Lincoln or George Washington.

The line between Americana and sports has blurred with the latest releases from the sports card manufacturers. We went from small swatches of a game-used jersey to actual pieces of a person’s being in our insert cards.

Some say the best way to grow a new generation of collectors is to go back to cheap packs with gum. But it’s those high dollar chase cards that create headlines, even for the Wall Street Journal, which got inside–and outside– the heads of collectors, dealers and manufacturers for this story.