Sports Cards--Bicycle Spokes Beware!

Topps lost its monopoly on sports card manufacturing in the courts, which allowed Fleer and Donruss to join the fray in 1981. Score brand followed suit in 1988, but it wasn't until a year later that the sports card would undergo a stunning metamorphosis.

Enter Upper Deck and its counterfeit-proof hologram. The hologram has since become a symbol of quality from arguably the industry's leader in card production technology, but it didn't start out that way. The hologram's original intent was in response to a large number of counterfeit rookie cards—namely, the 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly—flooding the collecting market.