Ken Griffey Junior’s first big league baseball card isn’t setting any price records, but its place in history is secure.

He’s on the doorstep of what will likely be one of his final career milestones. Ken Griffey Jr.’s 600th homer has taken awhile, but it will be celebrated by those who grew up collecting his baseball cards back when there was no player any kid wanted more.

The card itself helped Upper Deck quickly become a serious player in the sports memorabilia industry, even if it really wasn’t all that rare. Supply may now have met or exceeded demand with Junior on the back end of a long career, but a generation which embraced it still looks at the card fondly some 19 years after it first rolled off the line.

Darren Rovell knocks out an ode to the most famous modern era card in the pages of Slate.com.