Comments: This one has been a difficult journey for me in terms of condition. I remember finding a 1996 Pinnacle portrait at one of the Nationals in a Sheffield stack. I sent the card in to PSA in May, 2007 and it got a NM-MT grade. In February, 2010 I submitted another raw example and got the same - another '8'.

UPDATE: In late May, 2013 I sent PSA a group of 175 raw cards that I had purchased at shows and on eBay over the course of several years for grading/authentication. I waited two plus months for the submission and during that time decided to have a little fun. Normally, I get the email from PSA indicating grades are available and I go online to review the results. When I receive the package I open it up look through the cards and start the scanning process. The entertainment ends there. This time I decided to do things a little differently but it would take extreme discipline. I didn't go online to look at the grades and the package arrived for pickup on August 23, 2013. I asked my wife to open the box and randomly distribute the contents into a large storage bin. The bin went into the closet and each day for the next 6 months my kids would take turns pulling out a card for me. One card at a time, it was like Christmas every day. I'm involved in a private chatroom of sportscard collectors where I would post a picture of "The Card of the Day" for the guys to follow along. The kids loved it too! It was so fun I tagged on two more submissions (one for 15 cards received back in early Dec, 2013 and another 53 card submission returned in Feb, 2014) and lumped them in with the other cards as they came back from PSA. The original 175-day quest has now turned into almost a year-long adventure. I included a couple '96 Pinnacle Sheffields in the submission - both purchased via eBay. And, a PSA 8.5 was pulled from the bin on November 11, 2013, Day #82 and I was pretty disappointed; really wanted a 9/10.

UPDATE: On January 27th, 2014 my son picked out a MINT 9. It was Day #159. Still searching for a 10...

UPDATE: On March 18 2014 I visited the Burbank Sportscards store on the Beckett Marketplace and purchased nine copies of the 1996 Pinnacle Starburst Artists Proof card for $11.16 with hopes one of the cards will grade out GEM MT. If I can't get a 10 grade on the base card then I might as well try the tougher parallel, right?

Here's all of three of the cards:

1996 Pinnacle Starburst Artist's Proof Gary Sheffield #123 PSA 8 NM-MT
1996 Pinnacle Starburst Gary Sheffield #123 PSA 8 NM-MT
1996 Pinnacle Gary Sheffield #123 PSA 9 MINT

UPDATE: In May, 2021 I gave up on the 1996 Pinnacle issue and decided to purchase a 1989 Topps Tiffany PSA 10 rookie. His gold grill smile cracks me up. I won the card via an eBay auction.