PressPass was the first (in 1996) to put out cards with pieces of material -- chunks of tires, sheet metal, fire suits, and the like -- used in NASCAR races. UpperDeck quickly followed with their first batch of Game Jersey cards for it's 1996 UD Football product. Most other makers have since followed suit, and just about every trading card release contains some sort of "game used" element. Uniforms, batting practice jerseys (how the hell are these "game used?"), shoes, balls, bats, pucks, shorts, sticks, nets, gloves, hats, sweatbands, batting gloves, and even the floor of the Delta Center, and one of Babe Ruth's uniforms have all been sacrificed for these cards.

Premiums are often paid for swatches featuring two or more colors, and have some sort of evidence of usage (i.e. grass and soil stains, blood stains, and the like). Patches, such as pieces of a jersey's number and nameplate, are more desirable as they have multiple colors and are taken from prominent parts of players' jerseys.

In recent years, some have begun to question the true authenticity of the materials used on these cards. A couple of years ago, three separate incidents brought the genuine nature of game used cards into question.

1) For their 2000 Invincible baseball set, Pacific produced a bat card of MannyRamirez that appeared to have a wegde of cork embedded between two pieces of wood. As you could well imagine, both Ramirez and the Major League Baseball Player's Association questioned whether the bat Pacific used was the real deal. Pacific later admitted that they acquired the bat from a third-party who would not vouch for it's authenticity. Not coincidentially, Pacific lost their MLBPA license shortly thereafter.

The infamous Manny Ramirez corked bat card.

3) UpperDeck inserted into packs of 2001 SweetSpot baseball, the first ever game jersey card of Seattle Mariners rookie IchiroSuzuki. The only problem was, that at the time of the product's release Suzuki had yet to actually appear in an official MajorLeague game. But that minor detail didn't stop UpperDeck from stating on the back of the card, "On the front of this card is an authentic piece of a game-used jersey worn by IchiroSuzuki in an official Major League Baseball® game." UD quickly went into spin control claiming that the jersey swatch on the card was indeed worn by Suzuki. But, it was worn during a 1999 spring training game -- not quite an "official Major League Baseball® game."

This is NOT a game used Ichiro Suzuki card.

See also: Event Worn, GameWornJerseys, PhotoShootJerseys